“I don’t think that’s the best idea right now,” she answered him. He was close, so close that their thighs were only an inch apart. Erin swore she felt little tingles across her skin there, as if her body sensed how near he was, as if searching for him.
Madness.
She saw his jaw clench at her answer, but he nodded. “Will you be all right to bathe in the falls?”
She’d mentioned she was going to wash after they had dinner and before they went to bed for the night.
“I can heat water for you here if it will be too cold,” he added.
She gave him a small smile and shook her head. “The falls will be fine. Thank you, though.”
She wasn’t particularly looking forward to an icy bath. She’d give anything to go back to the hot springs, but not with Jaxor there, not with him close. Even then, her chest ached to touch him…but she knew she shouldn’t.
Erin had been thinking about their conversation almost all day. Every spare moment, since she didn’t have that much to do around the base. She’d tidied what she could, cleaned where she could. In the afternoon, she’d asked for sewing material to alter the pants she’d stolen from him. He’d given it to her without question and that was what she did for the remainder of the day. It was a work in progress, but at least it would keep her hands busy for a couple days.
They’d avoided one another, tip-toed around each other, all while sneaking hungry glances and practically eye-fucking one another from across the base.
There was a frustrating maelstrom of emotions swirling inside her, so knotted and tangled that she didn’t even want totryunraveling them.
Remembering the way he’d glanced at her throughout the day, the heat in his eyes, made her squeeze her thighs together, but she could only hope he didn’t notice and returned to her meal.
After another moment, she heard his rough growl. When Erin turned her head to look at him, he raked a hand through his hair, pulling a little at the shortened ends.
“This is not working,” he rasped, almost to himself.
Erin’s treacherous little heart sped.
He sighed, as if resigned. “You need release. I have been scenting it all day. Let me just—”
“No,” she said, pulling her knees tighter together.
“Whynot?” he asked, frustrated too. “I can make you come so easily. Then you will not be so on edge.”
If we consummate the bond,rixella, then there is no going back, he’d told her just that morning. His voice had been…matter-of-fact. Final.Grim. He believed with one-hundred-percent certainty that if they mated, then that wasit. She was his. He was hers.
Not only that, but she remembered the crazed need last night. Knowing that she wanted himthatmuch, so much that she was considering staying on Luxiria for him, was frightening enough.
If they had sex, which they would if they continued what they’d been doing, it would be the end. At least, it would be the end of her old life, and Erin wasn’t about to give that up so readily.
Her appetite was lost because she was hungry for something else entirely. Something only Jaxor could give her.
“In some ways,” he said, “it is already too late. We have begun feeding the bond and already it grows hungry.”
Erin stiffened at his words, avoiding his eyes, staring into the fire instead. She’d been thinking much the same thing.
That it was already too late.
“Can I ask you something?” she whispered, though she didn’t think she wanted to know the answer.
“Tev,” he said, mirroring her hesitation.
Erin swallowed. “Have you ever heard of a fated pairnotgiving in?” She turned her head slightly, angling a look at him, searching for the answer in his eyes before he spoke it. “Have there ever been any that could resist it?”
Erin was making it sound like a sickness, a disease. Coupled with the memory of the love-struck faces of her friends with their mates, of observing them with one another,wantingthat too, envious over that kind of love, made her feel even more torn.
If she gave in, would she have that kind of love with Jaxor? If they both accepted this and nourished it and watched it grow?
Erin had the feeling that theycouldhave that kind of love. With time and trust.
