She tried to convince herself that her heart was racing when he swept from the room because she’d managed to communicate. However tiny the victory, it was a start.
Somehow, it didn’t feel like that was what had set her heart to hammering uncomfortably, though.
* * * *
Zhor was in turmoil when he left the woman to bathe herself.
Alien or not, she was a pretty little thing, and with a womanly shape dearly familiar if half forgotten.
He did not even want to think about how long it had been since he had touched a woman—any woman—let alone one not his kin that he could bury himself in and seek heaven.
Too long, and he wanted her so bad he could taste it, had to fight his urge to conquer, to take, to force her to accept him.
No doubt she would hate him if he did as he pleased, though, did what he wanted to do to her.
And he did not want that, did not want to see loathing on her face when there was a chance he might see passion.
He did not want to feel her fear and hatred each time he took her, to wonder if she was plotting to slit his throat in his sleep.
Or to poison him.
It had been so long, though, since he had courted a woman and seduced her into desiring him that he was not sure he had the patience now or even remembered how.
And she was not one of their women.
Could he?
And what if he found that she wanted none of him no matter what he did to please?
What then?
He settled by the pit where he built his cook fire and broke sticks absently, for it was a ritual so imprinted upon him it took no thought at all. So deep in thought that surprise flickered through him when the fire caught the dry sticks and leapt upward, dancing high enough the licking flames nearly lapped his brows from his face.
He leapt back, disgust twisting his expression as the smell of singed hair filled the cavern.
Uttering a sound of annoyance, he lifted his cook pot from the basin of cold water he used to prevent his food from spoiling and set it over the fire to reheat the stew he had burned the night before.
It was just as well, he thought wryly, that he was satisfied with a quantity of food that filled his belly and not too nice in his requirements of flavor—because he had given up long since on being able to reproduce the dishes his mother once had. He remembered with fond nostalgia, though it had been almost half a lifetime ago, but he did not remember well enough to produce anything even close.
