Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
My heart hammers in my breast at his nearness. I hold my breath, gazing up at him. I’m fairly tall for a human woman, but he towers over me. Strangely, though, I’m not afraid of him or his size. He tenderly cradles my face in his hands and studies my chin very intently, and then our eyes meet.
He’s going to kiss me, I realize, and a pulse of heat shoots straight through my body.
But he only skims a thumb across my chin. “I see nothing.” His voice is deceptively soft. “If you have been bruised, I cannot tell. Your hide is very different than mine. Strange and furless, but attractive all the same.”
Our eyes meet again and I suck in a breath. If he tugged me a little closer, I’d be pressed against his chest, my body against his. He’s wearing a short kilt and I’m only wearing my sleeping gear, so we’d have a lot of warm skin pressed to warm skin…
Good lord, why am I so freaking horny for this man?
I pull away, unnerved by my own response. He’s still a stranger to me, even though he’s kind. Even though I need to woo him to my side to get free, I can’t just start groping his dick. That’s not who I am, no matter if it’s my best chance for survival.
Rem’eb isn’t bothered by my retreat. He lets me go, his arms falling to his sides. His color ripples to match the walls for a brief moment, the only outward sign of his distress. “If you have pain anywhere, let me know. I can have my father’s herbalists make a poultice. And I will speak to him about your rough treatment.”
“Sounds like I need to seduce Daddy,” I mutter to myself, rubbing my bare arms and pretending the goosebumps there are from the cold. I don’t like that idea, though. There’s a strange attraction to Rem’eb, even if he’s called “The Fist” for some reason. I can’t imagine seeing another four-armed furry alien and thinking, “Man, I’d like to tap that.”
I’m worried it might be resonance after all, and that scares me. Vektal knew the moment he saw Georgie. Others say they knew before their khuis did. If that’s what this burgeoning sensation is, what does it mean for me as a captive?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
“You must be hungry,” Rem’eb says, stepping to the side. “How thoughtless of me to forget. I have brought you food and drink, but if it is not to your liking, I will see what else I can have prepared for you.”
“Thank you,” I say again, and make the ASL sign.
He hesitantly signs it back, recognition dawning on his face. “Ah. Acknowledgment?”
“Sure, close enough.” I nod and then sit down in front of the tray set on the floor near the bedding. “I guess you guys eat down here on the ground?”
“I did not think to bring a table for you,” he says, answering my question. He watches me tuck my legs under me and adjust my short skirt. “May…I join you?”
I look up in surprise. I can’t really tell him no, since he’s my captor, but I get the impression that if I looked unhappy about it, he’d leave. Huh. I gesture at the tray. “Be my guest.”
He sits across from me, on the far side of the tray, and crosses his muscular legs, his impossibly long tail curling around one thigh. Rem’eb leans with one hand on the floor, two tucked into his lap and the other resting comfortably at his side. He watches me, making no move toward the tray.
I gesture at it. “You want some?”
“It is for you. You must be hungry.”
Strangely enough, I’m not all that hungry. I suspect anxiety is knotting up my stomach and staving off the worst of hunger. Even so, I need to eat to keep up my strength if I plan on escaping, with or without Rem’eb’s help. I eye the tray before me, worried that the foods here won’t be anything I recognize…and immediately spot some familiar bright red fruit slices.
I pick up one and arch a brow at him.
Rem’eb looks ashamed. “It is a dirty secret of our people that we raid the forbidden garden above from time to time. There has always been more than enough.”
I shake my head, wagging the fruit at him again. “But you stole all of it from above.”
It’s like he knows what I am accusing him of. “There has always been enough in the past,” he amends. “One of my father’s men noticed your people had been taking more and more and they grew upset and plucked all from the vines. It will come back again.”
“Mmhmm.” I let my tone show my disapproval even as I take a bite. It’s juicy and fresh, unlike the last bits of fruit that I had that were dried. The flesh is so soft and delicious that the juice dribbles down my fingers and I automatically lick them, not wanting to waste a bite.