He didn’t care.
“Good,” he rasped.
That tension returned. He could feel it sizzling in his belly, thickening the air between them. By the look in hisluxiva’sgaze, by the scent of her arousal floating up to the nostrils, he knew she felt it too.
He groaned, looking away, before he did something about it. His gaze flicked down to the tablet perched lovingly in her lap and his brows rose when he saw the drawing there.
It washim.
“I thought you wanted me nude, female,” he murmured.
“What?” she asked, her lips parting. Then she followed his gaze, to her tablet, and her face flamed. She jerked the tablet against her chest, breaking his gaze. “Oh my God.”
“Let me see.”
“No,” she said, obviously embarrassed that he hadalreadyseen.
“Why?” he asked, biting back his smile at her expression.
“Because you weren’t supposed to see it in the first place,” she told him.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,luxiva. I am your mate,” he pointed out.
“Why are you smiling?” she grumbled, as if to distract him from wanting to see the drawing.
His grin widened, seeing her irritation, seeing her claws begin to come out, claws he’d desperately missed.
“Because you have been drawing me in secret,” he told her. “Is this the first?”
She bit her lip in response and his brows rose.
“There are more?” he rasped. When he realized there were, he said, “Now you must show me.”
Crystal’s shoulders sagged and, hesitantly, she handed over the tablet.
Cruxan took it from her, seeing her drawing clearly for the first time.
And it surprised him. It amazed him, actually, how she’d captured his exact likeness.
She’d drawn him sleeping, on his back, his head nestled against the cushions, his hair tangling in his horns. His chest was bare, the lines of his muscles deepened with darker strokes on the tablet, his hand outstretched towards her, as if reaching for her in sleep.
“You are…” he trailed off. He looked up at her. “You amaze me,luxiva. I have not seen something like this before.”
She flushed, obviously pleased by his praise, and it told him that she hadn’t been praised in her life nearly enough, not nearly as much as she deserved.
“Why are you shy about this?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “This is something to be celebrated, not hidden.”
“It’s just you,” she said quietly. “I show people my work all the time. But you...I don’t know. It makes me nervous showing you. I want you to like them.”
His chest warmed and softened at the vulnerability in her voice.
Cruxan couldn’t help but flip back through the tablet. And he saw several different kinds of drawings, his eyes raking over them, memorizing them, awed by them.
There were landscapes—both of Luxiria and what he assumed was Earth. He saw scenes of thepillervaforest. He saw a detailed, colored drawing of thetevvaxbloom, which made her bite her lip when he looked up at her knowingly. He saw scenes of Earth, of beaches, of large cities unlike he’d ever seen before, of forests and mountains that looked nothing like Luxiria’s own.
Then he saw himself. Multiple drawings of himself, some mere sketches, others as detailed as the one she drew just that morning as he slept. Images from their journey, he realized, as if she’d studied him closely and carefully during that time for the purpose of transferring him to her drawings later.
When he looked at her, she said quietly, “You were on my mind a lot the last few days. I drew you because I felt like Ineededto. It was like a compulsion.”
