At least…for the moment.
Because if he was honest, he did not feel entirely stable.
There was a strange trembling inside him–as though the shift had happened too fast and too violently and some part of him had not fully caught up. He felt as if one wrong move—one sharp emotion, one spike of grief, one moment of panic—might send him tumbling straight back into his primal form.
He didn’t want that. Not now–not when Kiera was here. Not when she kept looking at him with those wide dark eyes full of shock and curiosity and something else he didn’t quite dare to hope for or name.
She led him through the curving hallway into the living area of the home-dome—a warm, rounded room furnished with the strange, beautiful living furniture all Monstrum grew rather than built. There was the low couch, woven from springy vines and covered in soft fabric, the little table with her mugs and datapads on it, and the glowing wall—sconce plants that gave off a gentle golden light. The crystalline fire wall was turned down at this time of day, but the banked embers of blue and gold flames still glowed behind it.
Brux loved this room. He loved every room in her home, really, because all of them smelled like her.
But now, standing in it as a male instead of an animal, he became painfully aware of the fact that he was completely naked.
Kiera seemed aware of it too.
“Um…” Her gaze slid over him and then jerked back to his face, though not before he saw the faint flush rise in her light brown cheeks. It gave him a dangerous burst of hope—and an equally dangerous rush of arousal he had to fight hard to suppress.
Not now, he told himself sternly. Do not lose control right now.
She turned to him, clasping her hands together as though she wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.
“Well,” she said, and then stopped.
Brux knew exactly how she felt–there was too much to say and no obvious place to begin. Finally, he did the only thing he could think of.
“Please forgive me, but can I hold you?” he asked.
Kiera blinked at him, a look of surprise coming over her lovely face.
“Uh, what?”
Brux felt heat climb his neck–Gods, he was already making a mess of this! He had only just regained the ability to speak and apparently the first thing he had done with it was sound crazy and desperate. But he couldn’t take the words back now.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “It’s just…I fear I might revert to my primal form without physical contact.”
At once her expression changed. The shock was still there–and the uncertainty–but now concern softened it.
“Oh. Of course,” she said, nodding. “You need to touch me because…it helps you somehow?”
He swallowed hard and tried again, groping for words with a tongue that felt clumsy after so long without them.
“Every time you touch me,” he said slowly, “You bring me further into the light of reason. When I’m close to you, my thoughts are clearer–my mind is stronger. But when I’m away from you…” He shook his head. “I slip backwards. Into the void.”
Kiera stared at him for a moment longer.
“Okay, I get it. She nodded and held out a hand to him. “Let’s sit on the couch,” she suggested.
Brux looked at it…then he looked at her. The gesture was kind. Sweet, even. But nowhere near enough.
He needed more than to just hold her hand.
He needed her warmth…her weight in his arms. He needed the press of her soft, curvy body against his to anchor him here in this form and remind him that he was no longer alone in the dark.
So he ignored the offered hand and gathered her up into his arms instead. Then he settled on the couch with her planted firmly on his lap.
Kiera gasped, her eyes going wide.
Brux had to suppress a groan of pure need. Although he had been wanting to hold her more than he had wanted anything in the world, now that he actually had her, the reality was almost too much to bear.
