Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NORA
Nora hovered at the edge of the pool, her skin sticky and itchy with sweat. She’d never liked camping—not even the one time her dad had taken her to “decompress” after everything that had happened and her mother had needed space from her.
Lucky wrapped his long tail around her ankle, making a soft sound.
“This is stupid, right?” She laughed to the strange creature who smiled wider like he understood her.
“I should be thankful there’s clean water to bathe in.
” Airik’s reminder that she’d be passed off to some Veynari zoo loomed heavy.
This might be the only comfort she’d be getting anytime in the near future. She’d be an idiot not to take it.
She knelt, dipping her hand into the water, surprised to find it lukewarm.
Bringing her polyester uniform top to her nose to smell it, she cringed.
At the very least, she’d need to wash her clothes and put on one of the fresh shirts Airik had given her.
After tearing off his own shirt earlier, it had been decided that, for both their benefits and because he seemed prone to overheating, his tops would now be hers.
The ground crunched under heavy boots as he came up behind her.
Fuck. Nora kept her eyes on the toiletry bottles she’d lined up at the pool’s edge in an effort to avoid staring at his chest. His body was as beautiful as his face, with a strong build that she knew could protect as well as it could destroy.
She blushed so much around him that it’d only be a matter of time before he figured out what it meant, further mortifying her.
Airik muttered several words in his own language.
Like a switch had been flipped, Lucky pressed to the ground, grumbling. As if listening to whatever Airik had just said but not very happy about it.
Nora watched, in disbelief, as Lucky nodded—like a person. He rose up, rushed up to her to rub on her legs, then bounded to the other side of the pool, where he started to patrol the perimeter.
“I told him to watch,” Airik explained. “Ooshis are made to listen. He will stop anything that wants to get too close to you while I am gone.” His gaze seemed fixed on her half-braided hair. “This place was made to grow food in the ground,” he continued. “I will find some.”
Airik had already laid out bedrolls inside the hut he’d deemed safe for a night’s rest. He’d also built a fire inside, melting holes in the shed’s ceiling with his gun for smoke to escape.
The moon, twice as bright as Earth’s—likely due to the dual suns—made it easier for her to see.
But the thick forest beyond the clearing’s perimeter was so densely packed with bamboo that the light from their camp barely penetrated.
“Will you be gone long?”
He glanced at her feet—she’d left her slippers by their bags in the shed. “Lucky will find me if bad happens.”
Nora watched as he turned and left, disappearing into the forest.
Nothing left to do but take the plunge and clean. She cast furtive glances at the pool of water.
It’s going to be okay.
She scooted to the very edge of the pool, where the white tiles created a lip. It didn’t look too deep.
Carefully, she pulled off her socks, then unwrapped the bandage from her left ankle.
Fuck, she thought again, faced with the unsightly bruising there.
But maybe a bruised ankle was good—a superficial pain better than a torn or twisted ligament.
Not that she knew any of that for sure. Her knowledge was passively absorbed from listening to the doctors and nurses in the Abeona’s med-bay or from her nature shows.
Annoyed with herself for knowing that a mantis shrimp had the most powerful punch in the animal kingdom but not being able to tell if her own ankle was broken, Nora decided today would not be a day of facing her fears…
of any kind. Including submerging beyond knee-high water.
Armed with a bucket she’d found in the storage shed, she sat on the pool’s edge, letting her legs float in the water.
She scrubbed herself clean, dumping buckets of water over her head and using a clean sock as a washcloth.
She even managed to shampoo and condition her hair.
Every so often, Lucky would come by, letting out a happy little yelp to signal that all was well.
Once she had finished the essential tasks of bathing, she leaned back on the shirt Airik had given her. Warm air glided over her skin. Maybe it was summer here. It would be summer on Earth soon, too.
The water’s buoyancy cradled her aching ankle and calves, and she let out a long moan of relief. For just a moment, she let her eyes close.
Airik. All that body of his. All the long, solid lines of his muscled form. All that gray-white skin, chiseled like a marble statue come to life.
He drove Nora into what had to be the closest thing a human woman could experience to heat. Especially when he smiled—not that he’d given her many. But when he did, it felt like witnessing something sacred, and she’d have to force herself to breathe.
She’d almost forgotten this—what it felt like to want someone.
He made her aware of all the parts of herself she’d ignored.
Parts that she wanted pleasured but that someone like her didn’t deserve.
Pleasure was for the living to experience, and she shouldn’t be.
Her breasts, her ass, her thighs…the most private part of herself swirled with liquid heat under his regard.
Not that she was a stranger to sex—she’d had it plenty of times, desperate to feel a spark of anything with anyone. Sometimes it even felt a little good with brief flashes of pleasure. But never anything substantial.
And never had she felt this irrevocable pull to another being. And he wasn’t even human.
Leaving soap and shampoo by the water in case Airik wanted to bathe when he returned, Nora wrung out her hair and put on his shirt, conscious of how it pulled over her breasts. Joe had stuffed six pairs of socks into her bag and not a single bra. At least she had two pairs of panties.
Struggling to braid her wet hair, she briefly imagined asking Airik to slice through it at the shoulder with his magical sword, finally freeing her from its weight. It was always a burden, but even more so now, since she didn’t know when she could wash it again.
But a moment later, she tied off the braid, letting it fall heavy on her shoulder. Her hair was not really hers to cut but a tether to a stupid, childish hope that keeping it long would one day matter.