She could see when he reasoned through the exchange and actuallydidget it. He shook his head at her. “Ah-na good cook.”
It never took him more than a matter of seconds, no matter whether the concept and words were new or not. She suspected, in point of fact, that he understood her far better than she understood him.
Discomfort flickered through her. She’d just dismissed every single clue that suggested his intelligence … because she’d already made up her mind.
She must have left her scientific mind at the ship!
Well, she supposed she had done just that. She’d arrived at the planet with certain preconceptions about it and she hadn’t made any attempt to adjust those notions to fit actuality.
The question was, she wondered, was she seeing clearly now? Or was she allowing her feelings for Zhor to cloud her judgement now?
And whatwerethose feelings if it came to that?
She was attracted to him. She had been almost immediately because she had found his appearance appealed to her even when he was such an unknown entity she didn’t know whether he was a threat to her or not.
She thought he’d pretty well proven, several times over, that he was no threat, though—inanyway.
He hadn’t eventriedto push the intimacy thing.
She was a little outdone about that if the truth were known!
Heshouldhave tried to make it up to her, damn it!
It had been …. She had no clue, but a very long time—at least a couple of weeks, she was sure.
Jared had wanted to have sex 24/7, especially when they’d first gotten together. Granted, they hadn’t been in survival mode like Zhor apparently was, but did that really account for his seeming lack of interest?
Was it just the way his people were? Maybe they didn’t have recreational sex at all? Humans, after all, were almost the only animal on Earth that had sex purely for pleasure. Most of the other animals only had sex for the purpose of reproduction—not all, but most as far as they’d been able to determine.
Or was he just not that interested because she wasn’t one of them?
Or was he still nursing a wounded ego and didn’t want it badly enough to risk trying with her again?
He didn’t act like anyone that was sulking or moping, though.
In some ways he behaved as if she was part of the furnishings, or maybe another guy.
That thought made her wonder if he was a samsie—just didn’t have any real interest in females.
She didn’t believe that! And she didn’t think it was just because she didn’t want to. She’d seen him look at her with interest more than once—and that was since the debacle of their first intimacy.
Zhor, who’d been pacing the cavern like a caged animal, finally stopped and peered at the bubbling pot again. “Is ready?”
Annika was surprised, and pleased. She shrugged. “It’s only been cooking maybe thirty since the last time I checked, but I’ll check it again.”
He nodded. “Eat now.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Youarehungry.”
“Ny-et … Dah.”
Puzzled, she looked a question at him. “Yes or no?”
“Smell good.”
She might have taken that at face value, enjoyed it as a compliment, and ignored the ‘vibes’, but she could tell he was anxious for some reason.
“What’s up?”
