“You found me in the ice,” he said. “You brought me back. You gave me warmth and food and…” He searched for the word. “A reason to wake.”
“I would have done that for anyone?—”
“No.” He cut her off gently. “You would not. You have spent years alone because others are… difficult. Easier to avoid them.”
She stiffened slightly. “I never said?—”
“You did not need to say. I heard.” He pressed his face against her hair, breathing in the scent of her. “I understand because I am the same. Solitude is safer. But it is also…” He searched for the word. “Poison. Slow poison.”
Her breath shuddered out. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“You saved me from the cold.” His arm tightened around her. “Let me save you from the same.”
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“I don’t know how to let anyone save me.”
“Then learn.” He closed his eyes, letting his body relax into the narrow space of the bunk. “We will learn together.”
She didn’t answer, but her hand slowly covered his where it rested on her waist. Her fingers threaded between his, warm and small and surprisingly strong. She fell asleep holding his hand.
He didn’t sleep. He had spoken truthfully that his kind could endure long stretches without rest, though he didn’t remember precisely why or how he knew this. Instead, he lay in the darkness with her in his arms and let himself feel. Her warmth. Her weight. The steady rhythm of her breathing, so different from the silence of the ice. The small twitches and movementsof sleep—a dream, perhaps, or simply the body’s restless adjustments.
Mine.
The thought was primal and possessive in a way that should have alarmed him. Keepers did not take; they preserved. They protected what belonged to others, and held memories in trust for those who would come after.
But there was no one coming after. The others were gone. He was the last. And this female, this fierce small creature who fought and bled and refused to yield?—
She was someone worth protecting. Someone worth keeping. Not taking, but guarding.I will guard her. From the cold and the danger and the loneliness she tries to pretend she does not feel.
He felt the vow settle into his chest, as certain as the ice.
She murmured something in her sleep and pressed closer against him. Her hand tightened around his. He closed his eyes and let her warmth fill all the hollow places in his chest.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Something hard pressed against Jaz’s lower back. Her sleep-fogged brain registered the delicious, encompassing warmth that seemed to seep into her bones first. Then the arm around her waist, heavy and possessive. Then the slow, steady breath stirring the hair at her nape.
And then the very obvious, very firm pressure against her spine.
Oh.
Her eyes flew open, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t move, really, pinned as she was against Adjar’s chest with his tail curled over her ankles and his wing draped across them both like a scaled blanket.
That’s definitely what I think it is.
She should be panicking. She should be shoving him away and putting distance between herself and the massive alien male currently pressing an enormous erection against her back. She’d never been comfortable with intimacy. She’d actively avoided it for years, building her entire life around the principle that needing anyone was a weakness she couldn’t afford.
But lying here in the grey pre-dawn light of her habitat, with his warmth surrounding her and his heartbeat steady against her shoulder blades, she felt… intrigued. When they’d kissed the previous day, it hadn’t made her uncomfortable or trapped. It had made her feel alive, her whole body humming with sensations she’d almost forgotten she could experience.
And now, with the evidence of his desire unmistakable against her back, she didn’t feel fear. She feltwanted.He wanted her. Not because she’d saved his life, not out of gratitude or obligation, but with the primal, undeniable evidence of male arousal.
The realization should have horrified her. Instead, it sent a flush of heat through her body that had nothing to do with shared warmth and everything to do with the increasingly insistent pulse between her thighs.
He’s an alien,she reminded herself.An ancient Martian alien who doesn’t even speak my language properly.
But her body wasn’t listening to reason. Her body was noticing the hard planes of muscle beneath smooth scales, the way his arm fit perfectly in the dip of her waist, and the surprising softness of his breath against her neck.
