She realized too how thin her nightgown was. His skin brushed against her bare leg as he settled beside her and it was impossible to ignore his warmth, his scent . . .
“I would never hurt you, little one,” he rumbled softly, his face inches from hers. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
Startled, she met his gaze. “I know that. I’m not afraid of you.”
“I can hear your heart.” In the next moment his warm, broad palm rested on her breastbone. “It is going very fast.” He searched her eyes. “Your breathing has quickened as well.”
In fact, this close he ought to be able to scent her arousal too.
Thank God at least he thinks I’m scared instead of—
“Perhaps,” he suggested, taking his hand away, his fingers lightly brushing her skin as he did, “if we talked, you might be reassured. Perhaps become calm enough to sleep.”
Gotta do something.
He settled beside her, his warmth and male scent making her long to be closer still.
“Tell me of your world,” he urged. “Tell me of Earth.”
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what to say. Earth’s not like Hir. We have so many different cultures on my world, so many different religions and languages and traditions . . . it’s not an easy question to answer.”
He turned to lie on his side, facing her, his head propped up on his elbow. “Then tell me of your home there.”
“Well . . . I grew up in Brittle Bridge—that’s a town in North Carolina—but I moved to northern Virginia when I went to college. My parents died when I was in school there.” She wet her lips. “That was awful. Mom had breast cancer and we really thought she was going to make it but . . . anyway I think it was just too much for my dad. They say people don’t really die of a broken heart but I know that’s not true ’cause he did. I buried both my parents in eighteen months and I was a mess. That’s probably why I took up with Dean so quick.”
“Your human mate.”
“I guess you could call him that but he was no kind of husband, really. We got divorced the week before I graduated from college. He wanted a fun girl, someone up for anything . . . I was such a mess when my mom got sick, when I lost her and dad too, that I graduated a year late—” She shook her head. “Anyway, Dean and I met at a party the night I got back to school and I had had way too much Smirnoff.” She gave an embarrassed smile. “Between the vodka and the platinum blond hair, I think I just gave him a bad impression of who I really am.”
“And who are you?” he rumbled, his eyes glowing blue even in the faint light of the shelter.
She blinked. “That’s not an easy question to answer.”
He gave a quick smile. “But if you know who you are not . . .”
“Then that just leaves who I am?” she asked wryly.
Ke’lar shrugged. “It is a place to begin.”
“Well,” she began slowly after a moment. “I guess you could say I’m pretty responsible, but then again I’ve had to be. I’m twenty-six and a lot of women my age are still clubbing while I’m the coupon-clipping, money in the cookie-jar and in a high yield CD type. I guess that has a lot to do with losing my parents when I did. My parents left me some money, not a lot, and I wasn’t about to squander what I had especially since . . .” Summer shifted on the pallet. “Well, since everyone else could go home to mom and dad if they ran into trouble but I had to rely on myself.” She passed her hand over her eyes. “I sure couldn’t count on Dean for anything.”
“You have great courage,” he growled. “To head into the Hir forests alone and untrained.”
She gave an embarrassed shrug. “I had a blaster.”
“I have been meaning to ask . . . Did you have a destination when you fled their land?”
She hesitated, but really, what difference did it make? “The capital. I knew if I headed east from Betari territory I’d eventually hit Be’lyn City.”
His black eyebrows shot up. “You were going to the capital?”
“Yes,” she said, a little annoyed that he made idea sound ludicrous.
“You—a human female”—his voice rose—“were going to go alone and unprotected—into Be’lyn City?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Typical dumb blond thing to do, huh?”
“I do not understand what your hair shade has to do with any of this,” he growled with a dismissive glance at it. “And your high intelligence is unquestionable but—the recklessness of it! Why would you go there?”
“Where the hell else could I go?” she demanded. “Besides, it’s a big city and in my experience if there’s something that you’re looking for that’s tough to find—say, transport off the planet—a big city is a good place to find that.”
“And that was your plan? To wander the city alone, seeking help?”