Chapter 13 #3
Night settles over the island gradually.
The rain beyond the entrance becomes a shifting wall of darkness, and the temperature drops enough that I eventually stop pretending not to notice it.
My clothes remain damp despite hours beneath the shelter, and every passing hour seems to pull a little more warmth from my body.
I try ignoring the chill. My body ignores my decision.
A shiver runs through me, followed by another a few moments later. I fold my arms across my chest and attempt to look perfectly comfortable, which might have worked if Vyrathion were blind.
"You are cold,” Vyrathion says. “Have we seriously found yet another need you have? The need for warmth? As if there weren’t enough already!”
"You figured it out," I admit. “I need some warmth to stay alive. Usually not a problem in the jungle, but it’s never rained like this.”
"I see. Your list of needs is growing."
I rub my upper arms. "Did you see me shivering?"
"It is, in fairness, not very hard to spot. And you are staying astonishingly close to me, as if you want me to notice."
I roll my eyes, but another shiver betrays me before I can continue. Vyrathion watches for several seconds with the expression of someone reluctantly accepting an unavoidable responsibility.
Eventually he sighs. "Come here."
I blink at him. "What?"
"You are losing heat." The speed of the explanation suggests he's prepared it in advance.
"It’s difficult to stop."
"Then come here," he repeats. "You will warm up more quickly."
I know exactly how his mind works. From Vyrathion's perspective, this isn't romance, flirting, or even particularly personal.
He's identified a practical problem and selected the most efficient solution available.
The fact that the solution involves pulling me against his side seems entirely irrelevant to him.
The realization should make the situation easier. Instead it makes it much harder.
Trying not to dwell on that, I adjust my position to where I’m closer than before, still leaning into him but now with more direct contact.
The heat hits immediately. I've always known Vyrathion runs warm, but I've never realized just how warm until now.
Sitting beside him feels like settling next to a furnace.
A breathtakingly handsome furnace. Who may well be able to blow fire, in his dragon form.
"There," he says with obvious satisfaction. "Problem solved."
"You're ridiculously warm."
"I am a dragon."
“Is it the fire? Can you blow fire?”
“This pitiful form can barely blow out a candle,” he growls. “Using common air. Blowing fire is completely out of the question.”
Some of the tension drains from my shoulders. For a few moments neither of us speaks. Then his arm settles around me with studied casualness.
If I haven't spent months traveling with him, I might believe the gesture is absentminded.
Instead I find myself smiling.
Vyrathion can challenge rival dragons, confront monsters, and threaten entire tribes without a trace of hesitation.
Admitting that he cares about someone appears to be a much greater challenge.
The thought lingers for a moment before an uncomfortable realization follows close behind: I'm not doing much better.
Across the shelter, Clyde watches us for several seconds before apparently deciding that nothing interesting is happening. He waddles out and is gone.
Gradually the warmth seeps through my damp clothes, and my muscles begin to relax despite everything happening around us. Outside, the storm continues raging exactly as before. Thunder rolls across the sky. Rain batters the shelter. The river churns endlessly somewhere beyond the darkness.
Yet despite all of that, I feel safer than I have all day. Or all week. Or in all my time on Xren.
The feeling lingers as I rest against Vyrathion's side.
He's had countless opportunities to leave me behind.
He could have done it when we first met.
He could have done it when I became inconvenient, when I slowed him down, or when the river nearly killed me.
Every one of those moments would've provided a perfectly reasonable excuse.
Instead, he stays.
He jumps into a flood after me. He builds a shelter with his own hands. He fights a river monster that outweighs him. Now he's sitting beside me pretending that holding me close is merely a practical solution to a temperature problem.
The pattern is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. And it should be to him, too.
His obvious arousal at times speaks its clear language.
And now that I’m nice and warm myself, and even almost safe, that part is starting to become hard to ignore.
And why not? The way things are going, I likely won’t survive the next couple of days, much less a month or more.
I might as well follow my instincts for a change.
And those are telling me to mate with this demigod-like alien as soon as possible.
Now would be a good time. It may even be the last chance we get.
“I’m getting warmer,” I purr. “But not warm enough.”
“You not only have needs,” the dragon marvels, “but various degrees of the same need!”
“Mm. Yes. What if I just… let’s see…” I get up and pretend to think hard. “What if you… may I?” I grab hold of one of his legs and pull it straight, despite the massive weight. “And then…”
I sit down on his lap with my back to him, wiggling my butt right at his crotch.
“Ah,” Vyrathion says. “This will make you warmer?”
“Maybe,” I say as brightly as I can. “I’m not too heavy, am I?”
“Of course not. But I wonder if you won’t get even warmer if I do this.” He lifts his huge hands and puts one around my hips and one higher up, right under the breasts. Something hard is poking me from beneath, right at my butt.
“Oh yes,” I coo as hard tingles start shooting down my body, “that’s much better. To you I must seem as light as a feather.”
“As light as an Earth woman,” he says. “Not the most famous of proverbs, but it’ll get there.”
We sit there for a minute. I was hoping Vyrathion would get it and maybe take charge, but he’s an alien and he may have no clue about seduction. I was never the best flirt. I guess this is new to both of us. I may have to get more obvious.
“My dress is still damp,” I tell him, as butterflies take off in my stomach. “Should I maybe take it off?”
The hard twitch of something right under me is answer enough.
“Yes,” the dragon says with a new rasp to his voice. “I was going to command you to, but apparently you see the necessity yourself.”
I take hold of the hem of the dress and try to wriggle out of it, but the humid dinosaur skin clings to me and resists the movement. “Can you maybe…”
Vyrathion sees the point. He grabs the shoulder parts of the dress and yanks upwards. The dress still refuses to slide much, so the effect is that he lifts me off his lap and makes me yelp.
“Hmm,” he ponders. “Did you glue it on?”
I half dangle from his hands, my head inside the dress where my chest used to be. “No. Set me down, please.”
He does, and using less force but more sliding, I manage to pull the dress over my head and hang it from one of the many branches and twigs inside this bonfire of a hut.
My underwear is also made from dinosaur parts, not tough skin but a finer, more silky material that I’ve always refused to be told the origins of. Those are also humid, and I’d love to take them off. But I’ve done my part for now. Let’s see if he will do his.
The dragon places two big, warm hands at my hips. Then he lifts me again, but much gentler and without yanking, just with immense, otherworldly strength. He lowers me to his lap again and sets me down with the softest touch I’ve seen from him. “I like you better when you’re warm.”
“Mhm,” I manage, because the way I’m sitting, the hardness in his pants hits me right there and it’s quite distracting. In the best way possible. “I’m still a little bit cold.”
He puts his arms around me and pulls me close, so that the hardness slides along my nearly naked crotch. “How about now?”
“Oh,” is all I can say because that touch set off some very interesting tingles.
He strokes one finger outside my stone-age bra.
“I see what you mean. This is still not dry.” He moves the other hand further down and pinches the not-panties where they cross my hipbone.
“And here! Terribly wet still. Yes, rain water is hard to dry. Everyone knows that. I think it should all come off.”
“How about your pants?” I stroke along one of his massive thighs, noticing that they’re dry. “They’re wet, too.”
“They’re not,” he growls, “but perhaps they would look just as good just hanging there.”
“We should check.” I get to my feet and watch as the huge dragon tries to take off his tight, silver pants in this small space. It’s a battle with many interesting sights until both his black boots and long pants hang in front of the entrance. And the dragon is naked.