Eve felt her cheeks warm. “I’m quite boring, Khiva.”
“I doubt that,” he replied. “Tell me. What do you do every day?”
Eve cleared her throat. “It’s usually the same, day-to-day. I wake up, get ready, and go to my shop job.”
“Your shop job,” he repeated. “What is that?”
“I work at Wrenton’s Books and Antiques,” she told him. “I’ve worked there a long time. I work the front counter and help collectors and buyers when they come in. But what I truly love is the restoration work. At night, after the shop closes down, I get to restore old books, from Old Earth.”
Khiva made that trilling sound again. “What is it that draws you so much to these books?”
“The textures, the smells, being close to something that’s older than the colonies, from a completely different time, a completely different place,” she said softly. Then she smiled, though it was a little sheepish. “I have an obsession with Old Earth. I like to watch old films from the directories, just to see what life was like then. I like to read the books I restore, to read the words from authors long, long dead, who experienced that life.”
Eve cleared her throat, sighing slightly, knowing that not everyone thought it such an interesting task.
“Anyway, it’s a long process, restoring the books, but worth it in the end. They’re bought by collectors eventually, for exorbitant prices, but I like to think that beyond what they’re worth, I do something good, something meaningful.”
“You restore history,” he said, skimming the backs of his fingers down her thigh. “That is more important than many beings believe. Without our history, we are nothing.”
Eve smiled, pleased he shared her views on the matter. Then she told him, “My father was a collector, like I mentioned before. My townhouse is filled with old things, old rugs and clocks and books and furnishings. In fact, when I watch the old films, I think my home looks very similar to those I see recorded. I know to others, my home seems ancient and primitive. My father believed that a simple way of life was best, and among all the technology we have access to now, that might seem strange to others. But old things comfort me.”
“Like myself?” he asked.
A startled laugh burst from her throat. “Did you just make a joke?”
He only trilled in response, his version of a laugh, perhaps, and it made Eve grin, relieved that his features were no longer solemn from the memory she’d drudged up.
Affectionate surprise made her press her lips against his, which was a mistake. Because his trill broke off, only to be replaced by something deeper as his hand gripped her thigh, and his mouth moved expertly over her own.
Eve’s breath hitched, her lips parting in surprise, and he took full advantage, lapping at her tongue with his own until she felt tingles run down her spine. Her hand came up to grip the back of his neck and when he pulled her closer, she felt the unmistakable feeling of his erection against her.
It brought her back. She remembered her promise to herself, that she wouldn’t have sex with him. Not at Madame Allegria’s.
Eve broke away with a gasp, greedily inhaling air, even as Khiva’s lips trailed over her cheek, until he nibbled on her earlobe. Eve bit her lip, arousal flooding her, and she let out a soft moan when she felt him lick at the flesh there.
“K-Khiva,” she whispered.
She didn’t need to say anything more. A sound she never heard him make before, a cross between a growl and a groan, erupted from his throat and he pulled away, his breathing as deep and ragged as her own.
Hesitantly, she trailed the hand at the back of his neck down until she touched the defined muscles of his shoulder blades.
His voice was husky when he rasped, “Will we never mate again,leeldra? It might be my undoing.”
To never know his body in that way again made Eve want to cry. Even still, she didn’t know how to answer him.
Too many thoughts prevented her from answering him. It felt wrong already, to pay for his time, though she’d certainly had no problem doing so the first couple times she’d come to him. A part of her felt uncomfortable, for essentially buying him for the night, just as she was doing then.
To add sex into that situation, especially since she was using her inheritance money to be there, would add another layer of emotions she wasn’t quite sure how to handle yet.
Even still, she was there. She was lying there, on the bed she’d lost her virginity on, in the arms of the alien male she’d paid to take it.
She’d tried to stay away from him, to process the reality of their odd situation.
And yet, she’d returned. She knew without a doubt that she’d return again, and again.
“Just give me time, Khiva,” she finally said softly. “I just need time.”
“Pax,” he murmured in her ear. “Whatever you need,leeldra.”
