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“‘Spaz…?’” she mouths.
I tip my head to the mass-produced stoneware, which she’s holding like it’s treasure. “It means I think you’re absolutely nuts, but you’re cute anyway. Do you need help wrapping it up for safekeeping or are you going to drink out of it sometime today?”
Her eyes go very wide. “Matthew, I’m so moved that you’ve asked. Yes, please, I would love your help securing this in amongst my things.”
I want to laugh, but she’s being absolutely sincere. I jerk my chin towards the bedroom with a smirk. “Lead the way, sweetheart.”
She does, and I feel her up on the way there, and her tail catches my leg and slides up higher, as in way higher, fondling me, and we stroll like this to her bag of belongings and use her sexy panties to secure my ceramic safely in the middle of her stuff.
While she puts the finishing touches on her little lingerie nest, I glance at the clock and find I’ve overslept. Which is understandable; I spent the night getting attacked by an alien sex tigress.
Absently, I tease one of her hair ropes or strands or whatever her people call them while she stares down at my (now her) panty-wrapped mug in heated contentment. I give her hair a tug.
She turns to me in surprise. “Have you… You tugged my quill to have my attention?”
Still holding it carefully pinched between my fingers, I ask, “Does it hurt?”
“No.” Her eyes search me. “But you should know it is a flagrant act of flirtation among my kind.”
I slant her a smile, gently yanking her hair rope one more time before slowly pressing it over her shoulder. “It’s pretty much the same here.” I return her searching stare, enjoying the way her tail is getting naughty with me—I’m wearing absolutely nothing, because naked is how I like it best at home, and Inara is absolutely okay with this. “Tell me something else. Tell me more aboutyou,”I say, feeling desperate to know her in all the ways.
She looks so pleased that I’ve asked. “All right.”
We make breakfast while she tells me all about growing up in a cave. A real cave, but one with technology in it, like lights and running water and something virtually identical to a toilet, which is why none of that stuff here has been a surprise to her.
Her parents sound great, although she chafes at the fact that they smother her just a little. Her brothers…. They sound like they suffer from the same tendency. And dang she has an impressive family. “My siblings Kennox and Kawkawlin shared a lifesack in the womb, and they’re still close to this day, working together in the forest trade. Rudá and Ithiel are gladiators, while Zadeon and Arokh recently retired from the ring, although not before Zadeon lost his hearing. Too many violent blows to the head.” She makes a sad clicking noise. “He and Arokh work alongside their mates now in an agricultural sector. They’re human,” she notes, glancing at my face. “And last but by no means least, Tahmoh is my sweetest brother. He’s… scholarly. Reads voraciously, and loves to tinker with all manner of machinery. You’d like him,” she says, smiling tentatively at me.
“I’m sure I would,” I tell her, giving her a smile. But I have my doubts that they’d like me.Lumberjacks and gladiators and they’d kick your ass for touching their little sister.My mind immediately starts to conjure a future where we do a meet-the-family, hers and mine—
But I shut the daydream down.GET A GRIP.Inara said she wanted to experience some things; she didn’t say she wanted to grow hardcore feelings and move in together.Be casual,I warn myself.Don’t confuse phenomenal sex with a real relationship.
Problem is, I’ve never done anything but real relationships. Serious ones. Ones that, to this day, I’ve spent too many nights awake, berating myself for letting them end.
And why did they end?
They moved away from Chicago. And I get it; this city can be a huge pain, and for the parking alone I’ve considered getting away from it all. But… my whole family is here. My people, my tribe, myclan.Also, my work is here. Basically, everything I know.
I’ve never budged on the issue of relocating, but I’ve kicked myself a thousand times for letting a good woman walk out the door without me.
I watch Inara as she gathers her shower things, thinking that there’s no way staying in Chicago is even an option for her, because she sticks out like a sore thumb. Eventually someone is going to question how her alien costume can be so flawless.
I eye her horns, and her beautiful blue skin and then glance down at her tail, which is sitting on top of my foot, curled loosely around my ankle.
“Eventually, I expect my brothers to find me and drag me home,” Inara is saying just as I’m questioning how long we can conceivably hide her in plain sight.
She’s LEAVING, idiot. Don’t make plans and do NOT get more attached unless you want to set yourself up for a world of heartache.
“Until then,” she’s saying, “I want to see everything of this world that I can,” she goes on.
“I volunteer,” I blurt.
“For?”
Anything.“I’ll take you.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere you want to go. Anything you want to do. I’ll be there. Be right beside you.”
