Cat Star 9 - Wildcat
Page 17
Cria gave him a nudge just below his knee. He glanced down at her huge yellow eyes—eyes that advised patience.
He gave her a wink. Message received.
“You’ll probably think this is funny,” Sara went on, “but when Nate was here, I imagined you standing behind me, snarling at him. It… helped.”
“Glad to hear it, but it’s still good that you were able to deal with him on your own. Shows progress.”
Sara didn’t argue. “I guess so.” She glanced at the horse she’d been riding and then back to a spot somewhere near the center of his chest. “You’re early. As you can see, I haven’t even started dinner yet. The gang wanted hunela tonight, and it takes forever to make.”
“I thought I might help you with that.”
“You mean you really can cook?”
He grinned. “Kissing isn’t the only thing I’m good at, Sara. Does that surprise you?”
“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “Kind of.”
“I was on a refugee starship for twenty-five years. Our rescuer taught us all sorts of things. Languages, customs, history—you name it.”
“Including how to kiss?” Her mischievous smile and twinkling eyes did peculiar things to Jerden’s heart.
“I learned that on my own.”
“Ah. I see.”
She was learning, too—very quickly. Still, it was possible that she didn’t even realize her coy expression was quite so teasing, beckoning, even seductive. But it was.
“Want me to do it again?”
Sara shrugged. “That’s up to you.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s entirely up to you.”
“I didn’t ask you to kiss me the last time.” She frowned and began devouring her lip again. “Did I?”
Jerden didn’t think he could take much more. If she didn’t stop biting her lip, he was going to pounce on her and rip her clothes off with his teeth—whether his dick was hard or not. “Not in so many words, but you did say you missed me.”
“And that’s all it takes?” She sounded every bit as puzzled as she appeared.
“Sometimes.”
She looked up at him with a grimace. “Look, I told you—or if I haven’t, I should have—I’m not any good at this stuff. If you want something from me, you’re gonna have to come right out and say it.”
Had a man ever been given an opening like that? And not taken advantage of it? “I probably shouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to scare you.”
This time, her upper lip was the target for her teeth. “Oh. Well, maybe we should put these horses up and forget about it for now.”
Jerden blew out a pent-up breath. “Okay, I’ll say it. I want at least one more kiss.”
He barely had time to register her nod before yanking her back into his arms and kissing her the way he wanted. Slowly, deeply, with all the sexual heat he could pack into it. She not only didn’t resist, he could’ve sworn he heard her moan.
“Whoo hoo!” Reutal hooted as he hopped over the fence. “It’s about fuckin’ time! Hold on a second.”
Scurrying over, he attached his fingertips to Sara’s bare forearm. His eyes narrowed in concentration. “Not yet,” he said as he released her. “But close. Very, very close.”
“What are you talking about?” Jerden demanded.
“Never mind,” Reutal said, giving him a pat on the back. “Keep going. You’re doing a great job.”
Jerden didn’t think he could pick up right where he’d left off, particularly since Sara was now giggling uncontrollably. At least she wasn’t mortified or taking a swing at anybody. More than that, he couldn’t have said.
“Aw, c’mon, Jerden! Kiss her some more!” Jerden spotted Drania peering at them through the fence rails, her long pink ears wiggling like crazy. Zatlen stood next to her with a broad grin, looking far more masculine than usual. Apparently his male side appreciated watching a good seduction as much as the next fellow.
If it could be called a seduction. From Jerden’s perspective, it was beginning to seem more like a Rhylosian circus. He reminded himself that every circus he’d ever seen on Rhylos had included sexual acts, but that was beside the point.
“I’ll just take these horses to the barn,” Reutal said, gathering up the reins of Sara’s mount. “Then you two can get started again.”
Catching Danuban by the halter, he headed toward the gate where he handed the stallion off to Zatlen. Drania followed them down the path to the stable, her ears still quivering with excitement as she stole the occasional backward glance. Pausing at the doorway, she gave Jerden a firm thumbs up and then disappeared inside the barn.
Sara wiped the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed that hard. Perhaps she never had. One glance at Jerden almost set her off again.
“Oh, my,” she gasped. “You should see the look on your face—somewhere between stunned and I don’t know what.”
Jerden grinned. “Stunned is right. What was that bit with Reutal all about?”
“Something about my essence,” she replied. “He can tell when the mares are in season, so I guess he figures he can do the same thing with me.”
He appeared to consider this for a moment, and then shook his head. “I carry around a much more reliable indicator. And right now, it says you’re not.”
Sara didn’t have to think very hard to know just exactly what he meant by that, somehow managing to keep her gaze from drifting toward his groin. “He’s always spot-on with the mares. Maybe his senses are more acute than yours.”
“I doubt it,” Jerden said. “But if he says you’re close, I guess I should take that as encouragement.”
Since Sara wasn’t convinced she wanted to be in season, she didn’t know if Reutal’s assessment was encouraging or not. What she did know was that this had been the strangest damn day of her life. “Whatever. Let’s go fix dinner and see what happens.”
***
The first thing Sara thought as she entered her kitchen was that it wasn’t big enough for Jerden. Out in the open he’d seemed much less daunting. Now that they were alone together in a relatively small room, her anxiety returned. She wasn’t afraid of him, but his size was—
No, it wasn’t just his size, it was his entire persona. He was simply too much man for her tiny cottage.
She’d never felt crowded with any of the gang in there, which wasn’t surprising, since she was taller than all three of them. Not only was Jerden taller than she was, but the sheer bulk of all those muscles made him seem much larger. She would have been more comfortable with him had they been in a palatial home with vaulted ceilings and arched doorways—one that had fewer places in which to be cornered.
The previous morning she’d been dropping things in his presence and had even ordered him out of her house. Now she understood why. She’d been cornered before—though in a much smaller space.
But not by him. She had to keep telling herself that. Nonetheless, her chest tightened and her hands started shaking. Again. “Um, why don’t you have a seat in the living room? I’ll fix dinner.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said, pulling a chair out from the table. “Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll fix dinner.”
Her first impulse was to carry that chair out to the porch. Unfortunately, Cria chose that moment to stretch out between the table and the stove, effectively cutting off her escape route. Her huge yawn revealed fangs even longer and sharper than Jerden’s. Suddenly, the room seemed to shrink by half. Sara ran a hand through her hair, her eyes darting back and forth in near panic as she tried to decide whether or not she could leap over the leopard’s sprawling figure without losing a leg in the process.
Jerden didn’t miss the gesture or her change of mood. “What’s wrong? Afraid I’ll mess up the kitchen?”
“No, it’s not that. I feel… weird.”
“I’m trying to relax, Jerden. Believe me, I’m trying. But I can’t help how I feel.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as though trying to control his temper or some other emotion. “I thought we’d gotten past this. Look, I can understand you being nervous, but please, just stay here and talk to me—about anything. I only want to be with you and hold you if you’ll let me. You make me feel… whole again.” He paused, frowning. “In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt whole—or grounded. Not for a very long time. I’ve been… adrift.”
His gaze met hers; the glow from his vertical pupils was more apparent in the dim indoor light. He looked so alien with his upswept brows and pointed ears, and yet his expression was so intensely human.
“You left your homeworld by choice. Mine was blown to bits along with all of my family. I haven’t had a real home since.” His eyes swept the room. “Nothing like this. It’s no wonder I wound up in a brothel on Rhylos. And then Audrey was murdered because of what I am. I’m sorry if it sounds selfish, but I need you, Sara. Most of all, I need you to understand.”
She could’ve sworn there were tears in his eyes—or were those her own tears clouding her vision? Nodding, she sank down in the chair he’d offered, her gaze locked on his. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
He blinked, and yes, there really were tears. She could see them glistening at the corners of his eyes. “Our enemies had been very thorough. There was no way off the planet. We could see the asteroid heading straight for our world, and there wasn’t a damned thing we could do to stop it.
“Then a ship landed, and my parents made sure I got on it. I was five years old and the only child they had left. I was screaming my head off when they handed me over. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t come with me. There wasn’t room for them—I realized that later, but at the time…”
He paused, shaking his head. “Then the ship lifted off and left orbit just before the asteroid hit. Some of us were only babies, but the rest of us were watching the viewscreen and saw it happen.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Our entire planet was gone in a matter of seconds. I’ll never forget the screams of those children until my dying day.”
He brushed away the tears. “Later on, we were told that Rutger Grekkor, the husband of our rescuer, was responsible for the war against our kind. Amelyana had taken a Zetithian lover, and Grekkor, a very rich, powerful, and insanely jealous man, had retaliated by attempting to kill all of us. She stole one of his ships and did what she could to save as many children as possible.
“We spent the next twenty-five years in space, waiting until she deemed it safe to land. It wasn’t until Grekkor was killed and the bounty was no longer being paid on any survivors that we came to Terra Minor. Grekkor’s assets were then divided among the remaining Zetithians. We went from penniless to rich almost overnight.
“Some of us settled here. My friends Tarq and Onca and I decided to pool our funds and open a brothel on Rhylos. We’d been trapped on that ship for so long… I guess we were all a little nuts. Anyway, we made a fortune, but then Audrey was killed—and you know what that did to me. I came here to live and try to forget and maybe get back to normal.” He sighed. “I’m not quite there yet—if I even know what normal is. Anyway, that’s my story. When you’re ready to tell yours, I’ll be here to listen.”
Sara sat gazing at him, trying to imagine the depths of his pain. The darkness in her own past was nothing compared to what had happened to him. Nothing, and yet she still couldn’t find the words to tell him about it. She had never been able to speak of it—to anyone.
As if he read her thoughts, he went on, “And don’t be thinking that what happened to you seems trifling compared to my history. Nothing hurt me. Not directly. I suffered no injuries—emotional trauma, yes, but nothing physical. I believe it was different for you, and therefore even more devastating—more critical to your life and who you are. When you do decide to tell me, don’t make light of it, Sara, and don’t compare your pain to mine or anyone else’s. Believe me, it won’t do any good. All that matters is how it affected you.”
The only time Sara had initiated physical contact with a man was when Jerden had been lying unconscious in her bed. If she was ever going to do it with a conscious man, the time was now. Getting to her feet, she held out her arms.
And he walked right into them.
The impact of his body against hers was even more intimate than when he’d kissed her. She’d never clung to anyone like that before, and he returned her embrace with a fervor that shocked her to the core. Tears slid down her cheeks and onto his chest as she cried for those he’d lost, those he’d loved, but most of all, for him; one of the few left behind to remember the horror—who had to go on living, trying to be normal, trying to stay sane.
Sara had no idea what to say to him. What words could possibly make a difference? “I won’t tell you to go. I’ll… get used to you being here. I need you too.”
She felt the tension leave him as he pressed his lips to her cheek. Apparently she’d said the right thing.
“Then I’m staying.” He released her slowly, reluctantly, his tentative smile steadily gaining strength. “And I will be fixing dinner.”
“We’ll do it together.”
Chapter 15
This is Jerden, Sara reminded herself as she pulled the ingredients for hunela out of the stasis unit. Jerden. Not Nate, and certainly not that asshole she’d once made the mistake of going to the movies with. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself in a spacious kitchen, acres in size, with plenty of room to retreat if necessary. Taking a deep breath, she willed her hands to be steady as she selected the chicken breasts, vegetables, and cheese. A sidelong glance revealed Jerden perusing her spice rack, looking like the answer to every woman’s dream. Tall, tanned, and muscular, with black hair that hung to his waist, he was still wearing that same loincloth. Strangely enough, she would’ve preferred that he’d left it at home. True, it covered all the more erotic parts of him, but it also disrupted the natural flow of his skin and the perfect symmetry of his body—similar to a beautiful horse wearing a saddle.
Not that clothes didn’t do that to everyone—and there were plenty of people who should never be seen undressed, no matter what species they happened to be. Jerden, however, fell into a different category of beings—one that made any covering or adornment completely unnecessary.
Of course, she would never tell him so. Any comments to that effect would surely be misconstrued as provocative, suggestive, and that was a thought she didn’t want him to have. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps not ever.
Sara found it difficult to believe that a man like Jerden would want to marry a woman who might never want him sexually. It seemed to go against everything she’d ever heard about Zetithians. Granted, Zetithian women showed little interest in sex, which might explain why the men were seduction personified, but at least they had the potential to be enticed.
It occurred to her then that she was probably more like the women of Zetith than those of her own world. Human females had desires and they acted on them. Sara felt no desire and wouldn’t have known how to attract a man if her life depended on it.
Wear something low cut and show lots of cleavage. Someone had told her that once. Sure. That was a great enticement, but for it to work, a woman had to have something to reveal. Sara’s figure wasn’t the slightest bit voluptuous, being more like that of a lanky teenage boy than a female in her thirties.
Why am I even thinking about this? He’s already here. He even asked me to marry him. The thought made her shudder—or was it a quiver? He didn’t need to be seduced or attracted to her, did he? All she really had to do was avoid pushing him away and
quit acting like she was afraid of him.
She hadn’t been afraid at all when he held her in his arms. How very peculiar…
“I like to put lycaque root in hunela,” he said as he selected various jars of herbs. “Makes it more authentic. Do you have any?”
Sara was relieved to have this neutral topic to divert her thoughts. “No, but there are plenty of Twilanans living around here. It’d probably be easy to enough to find.”
“Maybe next time, then.”
Obviously this lack of culinary perfection wasn’t something he was going to lose sleep over—or berate her for not having. Considering the number of herbs and spices that were available throughout the galaxy, Sara considered her stock to be fairly decent, if not comprehensive. She’d have to add another room onto the house if she wanted them all—and take out a loan to pay for them. Not a high priority.
Then again, Jerden apparently had money to burn. She’d be a rich woman if she married him, and if she wanted to add a room, she could. It might have been better if she hadn’t known he had money—and would make her seem less mercenary, which was probably what everyone would think of her now.
Assuming that Jerden would prefer to do something manly and exciting, like chopping vegetables, she handed him a knife. “I’ll make the sauce.”
He winked at her. “Minus the lycaque root.”
“Yeah.” She got out milk, butter, eggs, and flour. Scooping some butter into a saucepan, she set it over low heat to melt.
“I’m glad you’ve got a real stove,” he said as he peeled the onions. “All I’ve got is one of those flash ovens, and it doesn’t do a damn thing for me. At the time I moved in, I didn’t really care. But now I do. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”