Chapter 10
Mariska
I woke up so slowly that it took me a minute to realize where I was.
Even though I’d been at my little homestead a year and I definitely didn’t want to leave, it also didn’t quite feel like home yet—mostly because I didn’t know what home was really supposed to feel like.
Maybe I had it now, and I just didn’t recognize it.
My bed was soft and warm, and a lovely scent clung to my blankets.
Jeltom. I remembered now. Last night had been weird, and scary, and so good, too.
The whole week was weird, from trekking into town to hire my mechanic, to that weird, flu-ish feeling that had begun to settle deep into my bones over the past few days.
Then there was the kiss, and I hated how I couldn’t quite remember all the details, just that it had been mind-blowing.
He wasn’t on the bed with me, and daylight was filtering through my thin curtains—bright and warm—which meant the sun had already been up for some time.
I’d slept in. Unlike the past few days, I didn’t feel sore or exhausted when I climbed out of bed.
I felt like I was bursting with energy instead, and my mood was so good, I found myself humming a tune as I showered and dressed.
When I strapped my comm to my wrist, my mood began to falter.
There was a message from Jess, a cheerful reminder not to be a chicken and ask Jeltom out.
“It’s now or never, girl,” the message read.
Today was Valentine’s Day, and I hadn’t managed to bring up the subject a second time.
She was right, it was now or never. Although I suppose that kiss last night was hopeful; it meant my little infatuation with my braid-toting mechanic wasn’t all one-sided.
Still, my stomach was in knots at the thought of having to put myself out there.
I had to be straightforward and not couch my interest in silly human customs Jeltom knew nothing about.
How to find the words—and the courage—though?
Unlike vivacious Jess, I had always been a bit of a wallflower.
That’s partly why all the stares and overt kindness put me off so much every time I went into town here.
When I opened my bedroom door, I was in for a surprise.
Freezing in place, I stared at the shock of color that now decorated my living room.
Garlands of flowers lined the mantel of the fireplace, while petals were spread all over the floor.
They were literally everywhere, pink and white.
I recognized the Lemane flowers right away.
To gather these, you had to either be crazy or wear very thick gloves, because, while gorgeous, the Lemane were carnivorous and packed a mean bite.
It smelled divine in here, though, and my heart skipped a beat, as if someone had taken a page out of someone’s Valentine playbook.
Had Jeltom done this? It had to be him, because he was the only one besides me keyed to my locks.
I took a picture with my comm and sent it to Jess because I just had to share the beautiful flower chaos he’d created.
Could a girl float? I was definitely floating as I drifted through the room and into the kitchen.
Here, a white lace tablecloth had been spread across my worn table.
My old mismatched pair of chairs was gone, and in their place stood two newly made, straight-backed seats.
I had no doubt that neither of them had a leg that was too short.
At the center of the pristine tablecloth stood a box, a very large box with a red bow on it.
I was very tempted to open it, but I wanted Jeltom with me when I did.
Suddenly, it felt imperative that I see him right away.
I went to the window first, peering outside to check where he could be.
The barn was a good bet, but he might be working on the shield generator, too.
How easy it was to assume he was doing something helpful out there, and part of me wanted to be suspicious, but a bigger part of me was simply relieved.
The farm was flourishing under all that attention and knowledge.
The automated fence repair bots were such a blessing for starters.
I could see them working in the distance, and I’d walked around the property yesterday and discovered that, in just a day, they’d restored almost two-thirds of the broken fences.
Another day and they’d have everything fixed—and that should help to keep the scavengers out.
My harvester was completely rust-free and now without a rattle, and the pressing machine had churned out a very decent batch of grape juice, now fermenting in the barn.
Even exhausted, I had worked on the vegetable patch beside the house.
It had been my dream to have it running and producing, to add fresh food to my diet.
I just hadn’t had the time all year, since the fences and the grapevines had required all my attention.
Perhaps we could even give the barn and the porch a fresh coat of paint before winter fell.
The romantic gesture of flowers and a gift had made me float, but hope for a better future had also made me lighter, lifting a weight off my shoulders.
Jeltom was stacking firewood against the side of the house, but he hadn’t taken off his shirt to chop wood—a very sad fact, but one I’d get over.
He still looked very handsome in his sleeveless tunic and leather pants.
Over the past few days, he’d churned through the vast majority of unchopped wood some helpful neighbor had delivered a few weeks ago: “To help me get through the coming winter,” they’d said, tipping their hat my way and driving off in their strange, hovering tractor thing.
I opened the door and went outside, circling around the back to get to him.
He heard me coming and lifted his head. His expression was the same as always; mild, unreadable; somewhere between what could be chagrined or just bored.
Then he dropped his ax and, in two big strides, closed the distance between us.
His hands cupped my face, his mouth came down to mine, and then he was kissing me.
Bored? Chagrined? Clearly, I had been reading that all wrong.
We were both a bit out of breath when he lifted his head. “Good morning, Mariska,” he said, his voice low and husky, as if he were just a tad uneven after the way we’d tangled. He still held my face in both his hands, and our chests were only an inch apart, the heat from his body engulfing me.
“Morning,” I said, just as breathlessly.
“Did you do all that?” I gestured vaguely at my home.
He nodded once, and I saw how wide my own smile was in the mirror-black of his eyes.
My belly fluttered with nerves and pleasure.
Was I finally getting what Jess had found with her boyfriend, Jared?
That one guy you could truly trust and be yourself with?
If so, I should be able to talk about Valentine like a proper adult, without getting all tangled up in the words.
He beat me to it. “Today is Valentine’s, according to the Earth calendar.
Am I doing it right? I want to make you happy, Mariska.
” Had anyone ever said sweeter words to me?
I didn’t think so. My tongue tangled on the words anyway—not because I feared to speak them, but because I was so overwhelmed with emotion.
I reached up to his shoulders, lifted onto tiptoe, and pressed my mouth to his.
“So right!” I agreed. “How did you…” Jeltom turned me gently and urged me back toward the kitchen door.
That half-smile I adored lingered on his face—a little tilt of his lips, mysterious, as if he wasn’t quite convinced he should be doing this.
As if he didn’t trust he could laugh, and I was so happy he could smile with me.
“I asked Danitalin’s human crewmates for help, or, well…
she did it for me, because I don’t really know them.
” Jeltom never talked much, but he was a font of information this morning.
“After getting shot, I recovered on the Varakartoom, and Danitalin stayed there with her mate, and, well, they have half a dozen humans running around, so I figured they’d know what Valentine was. Oh, you didn’t open the gift yet?”
He froze right behind me just as we entered the kitchen, his face angled toward the table with the large brown box and its pretty red bow.
“I wanted you to be there when I did,” I said, and then, a little more guiltily, added, “I didn’t get you anything.
I thought you didn’t know what I meant, and I…
I was certain you wouldn’t be interested anyway. ”
“Not interested?” he growled. “How could I not be interested?” Whoa, I’d never had a guy growl at me before, and not only was what he said amazing, he said it in the hottest way.
Then he stepped toward me, and I found myself backed into the kitchen cabinets.
“You are the prettiest female in town, your scent drives me crazy, and I want to pet all your sweet curves.” Even without a visible iris, I sensed that his eyes had lowered from my face to the cleavage spilling over the edge of my tank top.
I swallowed roughly, my fingers clenching against the fabric of his tunic.
“Oh, okay. You can do that, I won’t object.
” I wanted to groan over how silly that phrase was.
I won’t object? It wasn’t exactly an open invitation.
That did not seem to matter to Jeltom—his eyes flashed, that growl rumbled through the air between us—and then I felt his hand on my waist. It slid along my body, shaped my hip, and then came back up to boldly cup my breast.
He shook against me, crowded even closer, and found my mouth for another scorching kiss.
His second hand joined the first, and his thumbs feathered my aching, hard nipples as he made love to my mouth.
His taste was amazing, his scent even better.
I could have him for breakfast any day of the week, and my always-worrying brain instantly wanted to start asking questions: Was this just for fun, was this today only, or did he want something long term?
Then I couldn’t think at all, because Jeltom ground his hard cocks into my belly, and pleasure burst so sharply through my core that I nearly keeled over.
His hands kept me up, as did his hips, as he pinned me against the cupboards.
Still, he kissed me, drugging me with each move of his mouth, over and over.
I loved it, and my body was so onboard that I felt the first stirrings of an orgasm rising.
As if he sensed it—though I knew he wasn’t an empath—he pressed deeper, his leg sliding between mine to put pressure on my clit.
I shattered with a shout against his mouth, and he shifted to burrow his face against my throat.
Sensitive there, I shook, on the edge of pleasure and ticklishness.
“That’s it, sweet one. Let me taste your scent.
” His tongue flicked out and dipped into the hollow of my throat, dragging along the edge of my collarbone.
My core contracted hard, another wave of pleasure cresting, and all I could do was cling to his wide shoulders and hold on.
I thought surely, now he’d drag my pants down and push inside me—surely this was when he’d take his own pleasure.
He didn’t, though. He withdrew very slowly, though he never let go of me entirely.
His head lifted first, but he trailed a few delicate kisses along my jaw as he did so.
Then he moved his thigh from between mine, and I moaned at the loss of contact.
His smile was wider than ever, a grin that pulled on both corners of his mouth, but more on the left one, so it was sexily crooked.
“Gift first, this is Valentine, and you asked me, so I’m trying to do it right.” Oh God, why did that make me want to cry and shout with joy at the same time? It was so freaking sweet, and I couldn’t recall ever being treated like I mattered—except by Jess, of course, but that was very different.
He held an arm around me as he ushered me toward the table, and it was definitely needed because that surprise orgasm had left me with noodle legs.
Did I lean into his chest just a little and marvel at all those ridges of his abs against my spine?
You bet. My curiosity about what kind of gift he’d gotten me was also growing, and I eagerly pulled it across the table toward me.
It was heavy, and the bow was sort of fluffy and very glossy at the same time.
Opening the box, both of us leaned forward to peer inside.
I had no clue what to expect and was extra baffled at the sight of a pale brown satchel inside.
I racked my brain over what it could be, because I very much wanted to be super grateful, whatever it was.
What kind of gifts went with Valentine’s?
Chocolate? I carefully lifted the strings on the satchel and undid them; a brown, powdery dust fluttered into the air.
I stared, unsure, and then a light bulb went on. “Oh, this is cocoa!”
Jeltom froze, and though he had no eye whites, I still had the impression his eyes had grown big in surprise, or perhaps confusion.
“Cocoa? No, this is supposed to be chocolate! That’s what Danitalin’s reading material said, chocolate as a gift…
” He sounded so disappointed that my heart went out to him, but giddy happiness also bubbled through my veins.
He wanted to give me chocolates, like a human guy might back on Earth!
“This is much better,” I assured him. And it was, out here, it definitely was.
A bag of cocoa this size would let me bake brownies, chocolate cake, and cookies—dozens of them.
It would last me much longer than a single box of chocolates.
I began salivating at the thought and was already running down lists of ingredients in my head to see if I had everything.
“Oh, I just need eggs, I think… Do they sell eggs at the general store?”
Jeltom clearly didn’t understand what was going on, but when I twirled in his arms and threw mine around his neck, he seemed appeased.
“I love the gift, truly. I’ll bake you brownies, and it’s going to blow your mind!
” He seemed to like that idea even less, but when I kissed him, he eagerly reciprocated—his mouth fitting to mine like a dream, his tongue sweeping dominantly into my mouth.
He might not know about Valentine or chocolate, but he sure knew about kissing.