Page 30 of Jarran

He turned his head and looked at her in the dim light. “Now tell me something about you,” he said.

“Like what?” Her pulse picked up the pace.

“Do you have a family? A mate?” His brows rose. “Offspring?”

“Yes to a family, I guess.” That was complicated to explain, as her relationship with her parents and brothers had never been easy or simple. “No to the rest.”

He blinked. “Why not? You’re beautiful, smart, kind. How has a male not chosen you and made you his?”

She smiled. “There have been a few candidates,” she said. “But none that have stuck.”

“Your choice, of course.” He said it like he couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily leaving her.

“I left some, and some left me.” She sighed. “I’m not universally appealing, Jarran.”

“You are unbearably appealing, Evie.” He sounded pained as he said it. “Any male who doesn’t think so is defective.”

She laughed, but her eyes were heavy. The bed was warm and the sheets were soft and his voice was close and low and she was so tired. She’d barely slept in the cell. The floor had been cold metal and every noise had jolted her awake.

“Tell me something about Virilia,” she murmured. “Something you remember.”

He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then: “Heat. We lived underground because it was too hot on the surface. I remember wishing I could live under the sky, instead of a roof of rock.”

“Big open spaces. That’s your thing?”

“It would be, if I were ever free.” She could hear a touch of sadness in his voice. “But I understand why I can never be free. Also, two suns. So the shadows go in different directions.”

“Two shadows. That’s disorienting.”

“You get used to it.” A pause. “I think I did, anyway.”

She smiled into the pillow. Her eyelids were closing on their own. The last thing she registered before sleep pulled her under was the sound of his breathing, steady and close, and the space between them shrinking as they drifted closer together.

She woke when the lights brightened.

His arm was around her. Her head was against his chest, tucked into the curve of his shoulder, and her hand was resting on his stomach. His heartbeat was slow and even under her ear. His chest rose and fell in a deep, steady rhythm. His other arm was draped across his body, his hand resting near hers, fingers loose. The heat of him was extraordinary, radiating through the thin fabric of his shirt.

She didn’t move. She lay there and breathed and let herself have this. Just for a minute. Just for one selfish, reckless minute before the reality of their situation crashed back in and she had to be sensible again.

He looked young when he slept. The tension in his jaw and his brow dissolved, and what was left was a face that could have been twenty-five rather than the Virilian equivalent of forty. Smooth dark hair fell across his forehead. Long lashes fanned against his high cheekbones. The hard line of his mouth softened. She couldn’t imagine this face commanding raiders to destroy a village. She couldn’t imagine this face ordering the creation of hybrid women, or shooting a Virilian male in the chest, or any of the things his file claimed he’d done.

He stirred. His arm tightened around her, pulling her closer before his eyes opened. When they did, the dark green was hazy with sleep and warm and unguarded, and he looked at her like she was his whole world. No one had ever looked at her like that.

He kissed her, slow and unhurried. His mouth found hers with his eyes still half-closed. A good morning kiss that felt so natural, she could imagine they did this every day, that this was their life, waking up tangled together in soft sheets. She kissed him back because she wanted to. It was as simple and complicated as that.

He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“What do you want to eat?”

She laughed. The sound surprised her. He smiled at the sound of it, pulled back and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and crossed to the replication unit. Typical male, waking up with breakfast on his mind.

She watched him from the bed. Her lips were still warm from his mouth.

Fuck. She was in so much trouble.

The second day was worse. First, because after scouring every corner and cranny of their sumptuous suite, they determined it was in fact as sealed up and escape proof as Evie expected.