AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I woke up warm, fairly clean, and a lot less sore than I had been before.
The glowing coals of the fire were in front of me. The light from the planet’s four moons dappled the jungle floor with an eerie glow. This world was nothing like home. My feet no longer stung when I wiggled them. There was a dull ache, as if I had walked too long, but I didn’t feel like I had to worry about being sidelined the first time I stepped on a rock anymore.
I’m not exactly in fighting shape.
But I’m better off than I was.
I was still exhausted, and so it took me a few moments to realize there was warmth hitting my back too. There was another body behind me. I could hear low, steady breathing.
I rolled over to see Naxer sleeping behind me. Close enough that I bit my lip and had to fight the urge to snuggle against him, but he was keeping his hands to himself. I had never been a heavy sleeper, and after my tours of duty and my brief stint as a captive, I would have felt it instantly if anyone touched me.
No.Naxer, who looked at me sometimes like I was a goblet of pure water at the end of a three-day desert march, had actually been a gentleman.Again.Even after I had caught him staring at me in the bath like he’d never seen breasts before.
Maybe he hadn’t. Not live and in person anyway. I smiled faintly, remembering his slightly dazzled look. He was a veteran warrior, probably with more experience than me in the field, but in the sack? They’re practically a single-sex species, though not by choice. He was probably very pent-up.
“Nope,” I mouthed as I caught myself contemplating the possibilities of fucking him.
I definitely didn’t need to be thinking about sex with him right now.
I had a rescue to engineer, and before that, I had wounds to heal and a weapon to buy.There is no goddamn time for me to be thinking about romancing this alien or fucking him.
Still, the more time I spent with him, the more he seemed like a genuinely good guy.
I had no idea how anyone could have kept up an act this long, with this much temptation… me. Which meant at least most of it wasn’t an act. I still didn’t know what to think about this guy’s insistence that I was his soul mate or something, but he sure seemed to believe it.
And yet he hadn’t made a move.
Not even when I had been naked.
Not even when I had been asleep and he might have thought he could get away with it.
That said something about his integrity.
I think I’m going to regret it if I have to take off on this guy.
He rolled over with a low grunt to face me, and I felt the soft breeze of his breath in my hair. A tingle shot through me that I tried to ignore, but it stayed there, growing to a persistent, nagging ache between my thighs before exhaustion dropped me into sleep again.
My eyes flew open suddenly, and I stared into low, blurry flames. He had stoked up the fire again at some point. But that wasn’t what had woken me. No, that was the chill at my back and the fur lying loose against it.
He’s gone.
Strange birdcalls echoed from the dense alien foliage surrounding our camp. The scent of unfamiliar blooms perfumed the humid night air.
I sat up at once, squinting into the deep-shadowed jungle. The fire was messing up my night vision, and I was wary of stepping on some carnivorous plant in the darkness if I walked too far away from it.
Naxer was nowhere to be found. Just his dog. The shaggy creature standing stiffly with his back to me, several yards away. Tail up. Ears back.
He let out a low growl so deep that I felt it as much as I heard it.
I got up warily, toeing my bandaged feet into my shitty shoes and drifting toward the beast. Not within biting distance. I wasn’t stupid. The riding dog seemed incredibly tense.
“What is it, big guy?” I murmured as I came nearer.
His ear twitched upward in my direction, and he let out a little whine and insistently moved between me and whatever it was.
“Hey, it’s okay.”
Except maybe it wasn’t. I was wounded and unarmed. I reached into his saddlebag. He only twitched a little.
