I stare up at him, the cold water lapping around my thighs. How did he know that? Shit, we were touching. We are still touching. “Stop reading my mind.”
He frowns. “I’m not reading it. When I touch you, I feel your thoughts.”
I need to be more careful.
“You do not like it,” he adds.
“I don’t like any of this.” I don’t know how to live in this world. I don’t know how to find the good in this situation. Maybe there is none and I need to accept that it’s bad and that’s it. I pull away and he lets me go.
Which I like even less. “Why did you let me go so easily?”
While the heat in his eyes remains, his expression is sad. “You are right. It is easy to forget that this isn’t real. You didn’t choose me and are only tolerating me.”
“I could say the same about you. I’m not who you want.”
“You are who my body craves.”
I snort and turn away. “You want sex, the same as any other guy. You don’t care who it’s with.”
“I have not had sex,” he says the word slowly because it’s not his word but mine. “Since I was banished. I buried the need for another’s touch because I knew it wasn’t possible.” His hand brushes the length of his cock. “I never wanted to feel this again.”
“Yet here we are.” Freezing our asses off in the river and arguing again. “You wanted a fake mate, and I agreed.”
Has he changed his mind? Does he want a real mate? I’m not ready to choose. I don’t want to choose. I want my old life back. No, that’s not right either. I want more than being reliable Mia, getting the job done and not complaining or making waves.
He nods. “I thought I’d be able to control it, bury it. But I had forgotten how bad it can be. How strong the need to be with you is.”
I bite my lip. “Not me…any woman. I am the only option you have.”
And he is all I have at the moment.
“You are.” He stares at the water. “Last time I was alone. Being around you is making it harder to fight the need and anger. I am not safe to be around. I think it would be best if I left.”
“You can’t leave. Where would you go?”
“I will wait until Edilk rejoins us, then I will leave.”
“Go where? There’s only the colony or your ship.”
“There is a lot of land to walk.”
“No. You shouldn’t need to leave—”
“I cannot do this. I thought I could.” His voice lowers. “I am supposed to be a warrior.” He growls, teeth bared like an animal. “Yet I am weak. I have always been weak, which is why I broke the rules in the first place. This is the punishment of a male without a mate.”
I shake my head, not knowing what to say. “You aren’t weak. You were in love.” Or that’s how it sounds to me even if they don’t call it that. “You can’t help your biology and you shouldn’t be punished for it.”
His fingers curl into fists. We are alone in the river. If he wanted to hurt me, I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I take a step back, though one step will not change anything.
“I will not endanger my brothers by trying to fight them. I will not risk hurting you and the other women with the hunger that will not die.” He opens his eyes. “I will not let them see me become a mindless beast driven by need. I will not ask them to kill me to end the suffering.”
His brothers will all blame me. They will think we had sex, and then I pushed him away. They will leave me behind and without them, I am dead. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. Mating once will not calm it. It never goes away, and it can’t be undone. Mated men do not travel far from home for that reason.”
But there is something in his words that isn’t true. I can sense the lie by the way he doesn’t look me in the eye.
I reach out and grab his arm. My fingers closing over the glowing marks. “Tell me again that there’s nothing I can do.”
