But that all seemed to fade to the background when Kayla smiled up at me. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was Kayla, her happiness, her pleasure.
I traced the small baby hairs that were clinging to her forehead with my finger.
“You’re the most beautiful female in the entire galaxy.” My voice cracked with the emotion wellingup in my throat. I’d just tasted Kayla on my tongue, but I wanted her again, now more than ever. Not just in body, but in soul, too. I wanted to find her in my furs every morning and wrapped up in my arms every night. I wanted to invent a thousand devices to make her life easier, anything to make her happy. But most of all, I wanted all her days. I’d missed so many of them already. If only she’d crashed here many seasons ago, then I could have witnessed so many more smiles. I could have heard more of her laugh, I could have smelled more of her scent.
It seemed foolish, but I wished I could have met her sooner. Even if she were to declare me as her mate this very night, we’d only have sixty to seventy seasons together, and I was a greedy male. I wanted more.
I would never forgive those males for ripping Kayla from her life and home in such a cruel way, but a part of me wished they’d done it sooner. Maybe I was an evil male like the Savrix claimed, because that is not an honorable wish for a male to have, yet I wished it.
I turned my attention to Kayla who had propped herself up on her elbow with a wicked gleam in her eyes, and without a word she let her hand trail down my body to my shaft which she traced the outline of through my pants with her finger.
It rose even higher than before, tenting my pants as my cock strained to break free of my clothes.
“You seem deep in thought,” she whispered so close to my ear that her breath tickled the hairs on myneck.
“I am,” I grunted.
“Don’t let me distract you, then.”
I watched as she undid the laces of my pants and pulled them down just far enough to free my aching cock.
Kayla looked at me hungrily, but then her expression turned pensive. Did she dislike what she saw? Before she’d touched me under a blanket, perhaps she’d imagined something else than what was before her now.
“Does it look different when you shift, or does your penis stay the same?”
“Um,” I swallowed hard. I’d only shifted in front of Kayla a few times, and mostly to fight off beasts. She hadn’t seemed put off by it, but that didn’t mean she was pleased by my shifted form either.
As if she could read my thoughts, she said, “I like your shifted form. Well, I like your unshifted form too. I like both forms, all, uh.” She seemed as tongue-tied as I felt. “I like all of you.”
She looked around the small room, checking that we were still alone. “I don’t know if it’s more comfortable to be in your shifter form or your sirret form, but we’re alone in here. You can shift if you want.”
“I’m most comfortable when I’m with you,” I smiled up at her and she gave me a shy smile as she tucked a braid behind her ear.
“Stop teasing me. I’m trying to be serious. If you’re more comfortable in your dryad form, youshould shift.”
She got up from the furs and moved a chair to the door, where she tipped it so it rested under the doorknob.
“There, no one can barge in. You’re safe now.”
My heart ached as I took in her kind gesture. She wanted me to feel safe? There was no safety for me here in the valley, but I wouldn’t tell her that.
She laid back down next to me with an expectant look.
I brushed the back of my knuckles along her cheek. “I wasn’t teasing you. I am the most comfortable when I’m with you.”
She took my hand and placed it against her heart. “Then be honest with me, are you comfortable like this?”
I met her eyes and found no humor in them. She was brimming with sincerity.
“I am comfortable either way. Shifting feels like releasing a big satisfying stretch, but I’m not in any pain or discomfort outside of my shifted form. I am happy to be in my sirret form, especially if that’s what you feel comfortable with.”
I let those last words hang in the air. I wanted Kayla to tell me what she preferred.
“I want to see you in your shifted form. I like you either way, but it’s one thing to say that and another to prove it. I’ve seen the way the people here look at you, and it disgusts me. You have the ability to do amazing things, and yet they look at you like a monster. I just don’t get it.”
She wore an adorable frown on her face.
“Don’t trouble yourself over them, especially not on my behalf.”
