by Ruby Dixon
I should just lean over and kiss him. Get all this tension out of my system. Just cross those few inches between us and put my mouth on his pretty, far-too-pouty-for-a-guy mouth and taste him. Slip my tongue against his and show him how to really, really kiss me. I should do all those things.
Instead, I whisper, “I’m not trying to be a jerk, you know.”
His eyes narrow. “A jerk?”
“An idiot. A mean person. I’m not trying to be mean to you, fighting this.” I gesture between us. “Resonance. It’s just that…I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be back on Earth, celebrating the massive launch of my career. I can’t give up and stay here on an alien planet and have alien babies. I just can’t.”
He says nothing, and I immediately feel guilty. I’m a jerk, all right, a jerk for babbling about all the things I should be keeping stuffed deep inside. I shouldn’t have said anything at all. I should have just closed my eyes and gone to sleep. I always seem to say the wrong thing to everyone, and I bite back a sigh of frustration.
To my surprise, J’shel rolls onto his side and faces me. He props his head up under one bent arm and studies my face. “Tell me about your home.”
My mouth is suddenly dry in the face of his attention. I gaze at him, trying not to stare at his too-fascinating lips. “My home?”
“Yes. I would understand you. I want to know what you left behind.”
Oh. It’s surprisingly thoughtful of him to ask, and I find myself smiling. “Well, back home I was an author of books. Or I was going to be. You guys don’t have books, right? Okay, they’re stories. But instead of a story that takes like, a short time to tell, it takes several evenings. It’s so complex that there are many people in the story and many adventures. And it’s all written down on paper so the words can be shared with thousands of people.”
“This complex story…it is hard to do?”
“Very hard,” I admit. “I wrote three books before I wrote In Search of a Hero. They were terrible stories and they didn’t make sense, but it was all part of the learning process, you know? But Hero was different. From the moment I got the idea it was exciting and I wanted to play it out and see where it went. I wrote on it a little bit every day after work, and it took forever to finish it. I rewrote it twice before I was satisfied with it, and when it was done it was nearly five hundred pages long. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I thought it was great. My agent—that’s the one who was going to sell it for me—said she’d never read anything like it. It was like a small-town romance but on an epic scale. And she said that it would be huge. So she took it to all the big-name editors on her list and there was an auction for the rights. Seven figures,” I say dreamily. “It’s the kind of launch an author can only dream of. I was the lead title for my publisher. Massive advertising campaign. Ten city book tour. And Hollywood was calling. Basically everything I could have ever thought of in my wildest dreams was happening for this book. It was going to change everything in my life.”
“And instead you are here.”
Hot, stupid tears prick my eyes. “Yeah. I know it doesn’t mean anything to you. That you can’t understand it.”
“Why do you say that? You have told me yourself—it is something that you put much time and effort into for others to enjoy. It was to be successful beyond your every hope, and it has been taken from you.” He shrugs. “I understand that. It is a very hard thing to get past…and now you feel as if you have nothing here.”
“I know it was just a story,” I whisper. “But it’s been such a big part of my life for so long that it’s hard to get past it.”
“I understand,” he says patiently. “When I was young, there was a female in my tribe that was my age. She was lovely and good with a spear. Her name was V’shari. I thought someday that she would be my mate. We were friends, you see. We played at being mates sometimes. And she was so angry that I went off to join the hunter’s challenge. She could not go because she had just hurt her ankle a few days before. Her mother was the healer and did not want her joining that season’s games. There would be next season, after all.” His expression grows distant. “And then the Great Smoking Mountain attacked and all of my tribe was gone. V’shari was gone, and there were no females left except I’chai, the daughter of my mother’s sister. I would not resonate with her, not ever, because we are kin. So in one day, I lost everything as well. So yes, I understand.”
His eyes are kind and full of sympathy, and they just make me feel worse. “You lost everyone,” I whisper. “Mine was just a book.”
“But it was everything to you.”
“You’re being far too understanding.”
A hint of a smile curves his mouth. “Am I supposed to be angry at you, then? For wanting something different than what the spirits have given us?”
“I just…haven’t been very nice to you at times.” I chew on my lip. “I’ve run away a lot. And I feel like a real jerk when you’re being super nice to me like this.”
He chuckles. “There is that jerk word again.”
“It means I’m mean.”
“You are not mean. You are just determined.” He nudges me with a finger, poking my shoulder. “This story of yours, this book. What was it called?”
“In Search of a Hero.”
“Tell me what it was about.”
I sigh. “It’s women’s fiction. It’s about this woman who hits the age of thirty and realizes she’s alone. So she goes on all these weird and funny adventures trying to get to know men, only to end up with her cranky neighbor, who’s been right there all along.”
“He is her hero?”
“Yeah.”
“I should like to be your hero.”
My skin prickles in awareness at his nearness, at the husky whisper of his words. It feels so intimate to have this conversation face to face, inches away from each other. “I’m not sure you want that job.”
“I am sure. Just give me a chance.”
I’m all flustered at the certainty in his low voice, the intensity in his gaze. It’s like the conversation’s taken another turn that I wasn’t ready for. “Isn’t that what we’re doing here?” I ask, trying to be playful.
J’shel reaches out and traces a finger along my jaw. “Is this my chance, then? To be your hero and win you?”
I shiver against his touch. I should push his finger away, should push all of him away. It’s far too intimate a touch for friends. It implies that I’m going to allow other things at some point, and I’m torn between shoving him away and flinging myself into his arms. “I’m not sure I can, J’shel.”
“Because of your book and everything that waits for you at home,” he says, still tracing my face with light, feathery touches. When I nod, he continues. “Explain to me how you will get home, then.”
I lick my lips, uncertain if he’s teasing me. He looks serious, though. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. Something’s bound to come up, though.” When he nods slowly, his gaze locked on me, I feel…silly. “Listen, you’re a nice guy and really great, but I can’t have a baby here and then leave. It’s not you. It’s me.”
“It sounds as if it is me, because you do not want to stay enough to be with me.”
I bite my lip. “J’shel…”
“It is all right, H’nah.” He caresses my cheek again, his touch achingly soft. His thumb skims along my chin, so close to my lips that I want to turn and press my face against his palm. I want him to touch my mouth. I want to do a thousand things that don’t have anything to do with my master plan of “going home” somehow. “I will not force you to change your mind.”
His words—so understanding—hurt almost as much as it does when his hand drops away and he returns to lying on his back, gazing up at the ceiling. He’s giving me space.
I hate it. I don’t want space in this moment. I want him to touch me again, and I don’t know if it’s my cootie that’s deciding that or Hannah that’s deciding that, and I hate all of it.
/>
I feel like the world’s biggest jerk because he’s been nothing but nice and sexy—god, so sexy—and here I am being a dick. “J’shel,” I whisper again. He doesn’t turn to look at me, just shifts his weight a little to indicate that he’s listening. I swallow hard, fighting past the knot of tears in my throat. “I…I know I can’t go home, all right? You asked me how I was getting home. I know there’s no getting home. I know it in my heart but the rest of me still hasn’t adjusted to that fact. I’m just trying to control a situation I have no control over and I need time.” I swallow hard. “Thinking I’m going to go home and pick up where I left off? That gives me time. It lets me think I have options.”
He nods slowly.
“We both know I don’t have options.” I clutch the blankets tighter, wishing he would look at me. “But…I need to feel like I’m not trapped. Like I’m the one in control.”
“I understand.”
J’shel still doesn’t look over at me, and I worry for a moment that he’s mad about something. That he’s only saying things to placate me. When he continues to stare at the ceiling, I flop onto my back and do the same, frustrated. I’m tired but…I can’t sleep. Not with a million worries flicking through my head.
“H’nah?”
My name is so soft on his lips that I almost miss it. I turn to look at him, fascinated by the way he says it, like it’s half swallowed. “Yes?”
“What words are allowed?” He glances at the ceiling, then looks over at me.
I blink at him, trying to follow. “What do you mean?”
“When we were alone on the beach,” he whispers, his gaze locked on my face with a stunning intensity that makes my cootie hum louder. “You said that I spoke of inappropriate things. I want to know what words are allowed.”
Oh. My face flushes hot. Is he thinking about that? Because now I am, too. “It depends.”
“On?”
“On where you’re at in a relationship. Me and you…we’re not that intimate yet.”
“Yet.” He pauses on the word and gives me a sweeping look that indicates that that one syllable holds a ton of meaning for him, and it makes me breathless. Why did I say yet? Why? Why?
Why am I stupidly excited that I did?
“Tell me what words I may use, H’nah,” he says softly. His gaze is locked on me. “You do not want to hear that I imagine you to be soft everywhere?”
I shudder and remain silent, not trusting myself to respond.
“What if I were to tell you that I like the scent of you? That I want to breathe in your scents—all of them?”
“That’s weird,” I whisper. I’m still totally aroused by it, though. I guess that makes me weird, too.
“So I should not say that? What about licking? Tasting? Is speaking of those things allowed?”
Oh my god, I’m getting wet just from this conversation. My pussy clenches hard, full of need, and I wish there was a private room somewhere so I could go and rub one out until I’m under control. I lick my lips, and when his gaze goes there, watching my tongue, I feel even more flustered. “I…I’m gonna need specifics.”
“Specifics?”
“What we’re talking about licking and tasting specifically,” I murmur, knowing I’m fueling the fire and somehow unable to stop.
He gives me the slowest, laziest smile that makes my heart flip-flop in my chest. “It would be easier to show you.”
I give a squeak of alarm and when I hear the blankets rustle from Taushen and Brooke’s side of the cave, I slap my hand over J’shel’s mouth. If they hear this conversation, I’ll never live it down. Never, ever. “Shh!”
J’shel’s eyes gleam with amusement, and then that naughty, naughty man drags his tongue over my palm.
And oh god, I can feel that right between my thighs. I bite back a whimper as his tongue slowly flicks over the ticklish center of my hand, because I can feel every ridge drag along my skin. He’s showing me, all right, and it’s making me all hot and bothered and oh-so-needy.
I really should lift my hand up and snatch it away, but I can’t seem to do so. It’s like I’m frozen in place as he nuzzles my palm, rubbing his mouth against it, and the fine bristles on his chin drag against my skin. He’s got a bit of a facial shadow, unlike Taushen or the rest of the sa-khui, and I never really thought about it until I felt it against my skin. It’s ticklish though, and I imagine how that’s going to feel everywhere.
This is so not helping me.
“Can I show you where else I would lick?” J’shel asks, his voice muffled against my hand.
Oh god, I want to say yes. Instead, I shake my head and manage to somehow reclaim my hand, dropping back onto the blankets and pulling them high over my head.
“So no words and no licking,” he murmurs, and he rolls over, his body practically curling against mine. “That does not leave much, my H’nah, but I will think on this and how I can please you without those things.”
I feel like I just leapt from the frying pan into the fire.
10
J’SHEL
H’nah sleeps next to me.
After our talk, she drifted off to sleep and I have lain here, watching her. Here in the quiet of the cave, I can drink in the sight of her for as long as I wish. I can breathe in her sweet scent and study her every movement.
She fascinates me.
Now I understand why she is so sad. Why her eyes are full of misery. She thinks of this “book” and the stories she does not get to tell to her people. It sounds as if she would have been a chief, but of stories, not of people. Here she is no one. H’nah is unhappy to be here because she thinks of everything she has lost, and I understand this. Is N’dek not the same way?
She turns in her sleep, moving toward me, and I slide an arm around her waist. She started at the edges of the furs but has moved closer in her sleep, wanting to share heat—or wanting my touch. I do not know which one, and I do not care as long as she ends up in my arms. She feels good there. She feels right. Her curves fit perfectly against my harder body, and though she is small, she does not feel so fragile that I will break her. I pull her closer, unable to resist, and breathe in the scent of her mane. She wears it in two tails that bounce on her shoulders when she walks, and they smell of her, of sweat and leather and H’nah, and it makes me hard.
My cock aches with relentless need. I want so much to touch her, to feel her body give under mine. To claim her as my mate and end this relentless resonance that eats at my mind and spirit. Resonance has been the greatest gift…and my biggest challenge.
Like N’dek, she is stuck in the past, unable to enjoy what is in front of her. She cannot appreciate her new life with these people…and with me. And like N’dek, I have been far too understanding. I have allowed her to push me away when I should have forced her to see me for who I am. I need to make her want me enough that she will not care that she leaves her book and her old life behind.
I must get past her defenses. I must win her.
This is my new goal—to win my mate. And as she curls up against my chest in her sleep, I think this is something I can succeed at.
The next morning, H’nah is shy once more. She blushes when I look at her and avoids eye contact, as if we did not have a long conversation last night. As if I did not put my tongue on her hand and make it clear what I wanted. She can run from me…but I will only let her run so far.
T’shen’s mate fusses with H’nah’s mane as the two hunters prepare our packs for travel once more. The females move outside and as they do, T’shen nudges me. “You are in a good mood this morning.”
I am. I grin at him. “I am closer to figuring out how my mate’s mind works.”
He laughs, giving a shake of his head. “They are impossible to figure out, but that is part of the joy. Brooke and I fought over many things before we accepted resonance….and we still do not agree on everything. But resonance gives you the mate that is right for you, always. If you need a strong female, it will give you one.�
� He chuckles. “Sometimes I think I must have needed the strongest, but I do not mind. I like that she knows her mind. Have you and Ha-nah come to an agreement, then?”
“Not yet,” I tell him. “But she eases toward me every moment we are together. I am glad I came.”
He gives me a crafty look. “My Brooke thought you needed a helping hand. It was her idea to take Ha-nah along on our journey, and her idea that you must come as well.”
“H’nah invited many others.”
“Bah. What hunter would take such an invitation seriously? They know she is yours. Brooke knew no one else would join us.” He nods at me, tying a roll of furs together tightly. “Use this time and get to know your female. Give her sweet words. Resonance will help with the rest.”
I nod, soaking in his suggestion. Perhaps sweet words are a good idea. But what? I ponder this even as we set out from the cave. T’shen and his mate B’rukh take the lead and I follow behind with H’nah, who does not walk as fast. On this day, the twin suns shine brightly overhead, unobscured by clouds, and the ice and snow glare, so we pause to rub soot under our eyes to distract the light.
This trip is good for me in many ways, I realize. T’shen is a good teacher. He takes his time, pointing out animal tracks or the signs of a den. He pauses to strip leaves from a bush, explaining what the plant is used for, and I know the lesson is for me as well as H’nah and B’rukh. There is much to learn about this part of the world, so different from my own. I have gone on hunts before, but I was always distracted with worry over N’dek. Now I can focus.
Well…perhaps not. H’nah is a greater distraction than N’dek ever was. But she is interested in learning, and I find that it is good for me, too. The morning passes pleasantly, and my mood is light.
Even though I am not familiar with this snowy landscape, there are some things every hunter knows. And as the wind shifts, it brings with it a new smell.
Rot.
The scent is sickly sweet and overwhelmingly strong. T’shen and I share a glance of worry.
