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Whether I liked it or not.
“What’s the weather and sunsets like on Earth?” he asked, his voice filling me and seeming to flutter against a very sensitive place deep in my gut.
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore it. But my backstabbing aunt called from across the camp. “Oh, Quilla, darling. I believe your true love is waiting for an answer.”
I lifted my head and scowled at her. From the moment Indigo had returned from his bath, she’d been suspiciously silent. Letting me get suckered deeper and deeper under his spell. The traitor.
“Butt out,” I growled, flipping her the middle finger.
She laughed, howling so loud I winced and began to think up ways to hurt her. And him too. They both deserved a little misery for so cheerfully putting me through this.
“Psst. Quilla?”
I closed my eyes and sighed.
Dear God, this was going to be the longest night ever.
“Quilla?” he whispered again, making my gut tighten as I felt the word right between my legs, as if he’d just whispered it against my flesh.
“What?” I growled.
“Can I ask you something else about Earth?”
“No,” I muttered.
“But how did you even make do over there on your first trip?” he asked, anyway. “From what I’ve heard, it’s a completely different universe, utterly foreign to ours. And you went with nothing but—”
“Melaina,” I answered before explaining, “We learned immediately that one thing translates the same in any world you visit, and she capitalized on that.”
“Really? What’d she do?”
“I fucked some rich benefactor, and he took us in,” Melaina answered for me.
Frowning because I didn’t want her talking to him, I rolled back around to face him myself.
And Jesus, had he moved closer? I swear our faces weren’t even a foot apart.
Indigo didn’t seem to notice though. His eyebrows had shot up as he glanced across the way to where Melaina was finally settling down for the night as well. Then he glanced at me, his expression asking if she was serious.
I shrugged. “Turns out, it doesn’t matter where you go; men will do just about anything for sex.”
His chuckle was low and amused and stirred a crazy tightening inside me. “Care to find out if that sentiment is true with me?”
Clever bastard; the way he slyly and oh so mockingly challenged me to bed him made me want to prove him wrong by doing exactly what he asked. There was no way to answer his question without losing that particular battle of words—and a part of me couldn’t help but respect his deviously playful approach.
Not that I’d ever actually fall for it, but still, I could respect his maneuver.
A whole different part of me fluttered with approval over his open appreciation, and interest. It felt so genuine and honest. His lust seemed pure. If that was even a thing. Pure lust? It wasn’t like he just wanted to exhaust himself in some pretty, willing body. I’d had men want that empty pleasure from my skin before. They wanted to tup some shell for their own pleasures. Or bodily dominate someone in order to make themselves feel powerful. And it felt oily and dark to me. Lonely and even degrading. But Indigo was fully engaged. He was into me—the inner workings—mind and soul. Adding in a physical connection turned it into a trifecta of attraction. And that was different than anything I’d ever experienced before.
I didn’t know how to react to it, so I pushed it down, afraid of it, and I ignored his question entirely, taking the coward’s way out.
“Anyway,” I said. “Melaina happened to be quite adept at keeping the man occupied, so the rest of us were well cared for.”
Indigo watched me with a slight squint as if trying to figure something out. But then he seemed to let go of whatever thought he was having, and he cracked a quick grin.
“Can’t say I’m surprised to hear that,” he told me, lowering his voice to a whisper so only I could hear him. “Melaina’s quite promiscuous and seems fully capable of exacting anything she wants from people, but, uh...” He frowned and tilted his head like he did when he was attempting to reason through a complex thought. “Wasn’t your other aunt there? The one that’s supposed to be her true love.”
I glanced across the camp. Any mention of Taiki only made Melaina sad. And sadness brought on bloody tears, so she usually turned violent to fight off the heartache, which was why I liked to avoid the topic altogether around her. But I couldn’t see her anymore around the camp, and her prepared bedroll was empty. She must’ve left to do her private nightly routine.
