Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
I reach out and grab her hand. “Don’t go. It’s—it’s nothing. I Just wished that we could spend more time together. Alone together. Not…playing games. Doing other things.” Then I gesture at my face. “Clearly not this part, though.”
Melody’s eyes brighten. “You mean that?” Just as quickly her expression dims. “Or is this just one last hurrah before you take off and leave me behind again?”
Leave her behind?! “I took you where you could be safe!”
“Left me behind,” she repeats, emphasizing each word. “Didn’t even ask me what I wanted.”
I lift a hand to rub down my face and stop the moment I touch my swollen eyes. “Melody, I couldn’t keep you with me. I was on leave from my job. I was working on expanding a prison satellite—a long-term job that lasted an entire year. I couldn’t keep you with me. When I was at work, I lived with sixteen other rough brutes in a barracks. It was no place for a traumatized human female, or any female, for that matter. I did what I felt was best for you. I had done some research and I’d heard Lord va’Rin was buying up all the humans he could find and taking them somewhere nice, somewhere safe. I wanted that for you, after everything you’d been through. I’m sorry if I keffed it up.”
She stares at me. “You literally could have told me any of that.”
I…guess I could have. “I didn’t talk to you because I was ashamed that I’d used you.”
“You didn’t. Which, again, you would have known if you’d talked to me.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I get that you don’t feel like you’re worthwhile. You’re allowed to think that, but you’re not allowed to think for me. Understand?”
Melody is angry at me. I’m both fascinated and pleased. “I won’t tell you how to think, then.”
“Good.” She glances around the room and then back at me. “So are you staying here? Or are you leaving as soon as your job is done? Tell me the truth. I’m not going to beg you to stay if you don’t plan on it. I just want to know what’s going to happen so I can prepare myself. I have a life here, and if you don’t want to be part of it, let me know so I can move on.”
“I don’t want you moving on,” I growl. I reach out and take her hand, as if that will somehow anchor her to me. “That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“You haven’t been trying very hard.”
With a huff of frustration, I try again. I keep holding onto her, the softness of her strange human skin like touching silk. “Then let me be very clear. I do not want you moving on. I do not want you going out with the a’ani or any other males, because I want you with me. I want all your nights. I will let you win at checkers every day if it means you will hold my hand and smile at me and tell me all the things that have gone on during your day. And…I want to kiss you.”
Her fingers twitch against mine. “Go on.”
I thought I had said everything that needed saying, but it is obvious that Melody needs more words. Words are unfortunately not something I am good at. I lick my bloated lips and try again. “I want to kiss you several times a day, because I cannot think of anything except the feel of your smooth tongue against mine. I want to hold you close and undress you.”
“Go on.”
The medic comes in the room and checks the screens with my vitals.
My jaw clenches and I fight the urge to go silent again, because Melody doesn’t want silent. She wants a male that tells her how he feels, and I want to be that male for her. “I want to touch you in all the ways I should have last time. I want to make you come. I want to hear you crying out my name.”
The medic clears his throat. He glances at us, then gestures at the door. “I’ll, ah, just come back.”
“I just want to know if you’re going to stay,” Melody says in a soft voice, ignoring everything but me.
Did I not say? Why do I forget all the important things when I should be telling them to her? “Yes. I want to stay. I applied for a permanent position at the space port here. Ongoing maintenance and security.”
Her smile turns even brighter and she scoots closer to me on the bed, the rustle of the plas sheets loud and obnoxious. “Can I kiss you now?”
I touch my swollen face. “Might want to wait until I can breathe through my nose again.”
Melody jumps to her feet. She tucks the blankets around me and then moves in and kisses my forehead. “I’m going to go talk to the medic and see if there’s some sort of instant relief we can have on hand at all times. We had antihistamine injections back on Earth and I don’t see why you wouldn’t have the same here. Once we get you on your feet, you’re coming to my place and staying overnight, because I’m going to watch over you.”