Zan stalks closer, and I refuse to give an inch as he approaches, lifting my chin in defiance.
“Well, my body is absolutely saying that we are, and while I don’t prefer admitting that out loud, you’ve just declared that you will not take advantage of me until I’m one hundred percent sure that we want to be together forever." I take a deep breath, raking a hand through my short hair in an attempt to self-soothe. "So you do that sexy walk thing towards me as much as you want, and you give me that sex-on-a-stick look, but you better believe that I’m not getting anywhere near you, mister, unless you decide that there’s no strings attached.”
“I’ve never had a string attached,” he says, pausing and looking down at his arms, then his legs, inspecting his feet. He stares at me, and I realize belatedly he’s looking for a loose?—
“That’s not what that— you know what,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about the string, okay? I mean that we’re not going to bang.”
“Bang?” He’s staring at me again. “What do you mean, this bang?”
“We’re not going to have sex,” I say, increasingly annoyed. I have a feeling I’d feel a lot less annoyed if we just did have sex, which makes me even more pissy.
“Unless you realize that it doesn’t mean forever to me, then we will not have sex,” he says easily. “Does that mean you do not want me to touch you?”
“I still want you to touch me.” The words come out through gritted teeth, and no matter how much I try to bite them back, I can’t.
“Well, good. I’m OK with touching you too. Do you truly want me to touch you?”
“Yes,” I say, unable to swallow the word.
I shiver as he traces the tips of his talons down my bare arm.
“So responsive,” he murmurs, his lips so close the warmth of his breath washes across the shell of my ear as he leans down next to me. His wings flare out, and I suck in a breath as he wraps them around me, not touching, but close enough that the increasing chill of the night air no longer holds such a sting. The contrast is sharp, and I’m intimately aware of the fact that he’s completely surrounding me.
“You make me feel safer,” I tell him.
“You like it when I’m with you,” he says.
“I like it when I’m with you,” I agree.
“I don’t want to leave your side again,” he tells me.
“I don’t want you to leave my side again, especially not if it means that creepy oversized chickens are going to try to eat me.”
“I think we should make a deal,” he says, and that full-fledged chaotic light glances in his eyes again as he grins down at me, his fangs sharp points in his mouth.
I’m deeply aware of every bit of his skin near mine, of the feel of his breath against the goosebumps that have raised all along the side of my neck.
“A deal?” I repeat, confused. “What do you mean, a deal?”
“If you don’t want me to listen to how rude you are to me again when you tell me to leave, which I am sure that you will once the effects of whatever that miserable artificial intelligence has put in our food to make us be truthful?—”
“You think that he did put something in our food?”
“Stay on topic,” Zan commands.
I glare at him. “I don’t like being ordered around.”
“That’s why we’re making a deal,” he says breezily, like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He even shrugs, which moves his wings closer to me, brushing against my back.
“What? What deal? I shiver, torn between desire and annoyance yet again. It appears that’s my constant state around this alien, no matter what happens between us. What’s the deal?”
“I’ll ignore when you tell me to leave, and I’ll protect you without asking for anything else,” he says, “except for a kahithss right now.”
“Kahithss?” I repeat, staring at him. “It’s not translating
He pronounces whatever it is again, like he’s coughing or maybe like a cat hissing, and I just blink up at him for a moment.
“What?” I ask.
