Page 28 of Rescued By the Luxirian

“I do,” he rasped. Softly. Quietly. He was serious. “Irecognize you.”

The words sent a wonderful spiral of warmth into my belly.

“Yeah?” I whispered, smiling. “Because I kinda like her.”

His low laugh had goosebumps breaking over my flesh. “I do too. But IknowI’d like you if I met you on Wero too.”

I didn’t really believe that but it felt nice to hear him say it regardless.

“I don’t think a male like you would’ve ever stepped foot on Wero,” I told him.

He frowned. “Why not?”

“It’s a sleepy little colony. Our biggest tourist attraction is this blow hole that shoots out lava during the hot season. Thatand our local tavern, which one of your beloved Hyrinn racers visited once.”

“I love lava blow holes,” he rasped in my ear, making a loud giggle burst from me. “Sounds exciting.”

I…likedhim.

I could understand the sexual attraction. He was a handsome male. Exactly my type…a little broody, but caring.

But I hadn’t expected him to make me feel so safe. So wanted.

My last relationship? It had been with a human male five years ago. I’d dated him for six months and not once had he ever made me feel the way Droxan had made me feel in the span of a single day.

The realization was humbling.

“What about you?” I asked. Now I understood why he said he’d wanted to know all about me. Because I found myself eager for any scrap of information I could glean abouthim.

“What about me?”

“Are you different here?” I wondered out loud, wiggling in his arms so I could face him more fully as his fingers traced over my hip, making a long line from the curve of my outer buttock, dipping down the slope of my waist, and trailing over the side of my breast. “Than you were on Luxiria?”

“Tev,” he said. “Andnix. Not at all.”

I cocked my head, willing him to continue.

“I had passion for my work once,” he grunted. “I’d trained and studied for it nearly my whole life, dedicating myself to Luxirian architecture and design. The quality of it, the beauty of it. That was important to me. When I came here, to Ullima, I felt that again. This blank slate of a place and its endless possibilities.”

“You’re a creative,” I murmured, grinning. “Ullima inspired you.”

“Tev,” he said. “And I had lost that inspiration on Luxiria. Not just lost, though. It was taken too. My family…it is a complicated matter. I love them but I learned that I am happier without them. In coming here, I decided to do what was best for me, not them, even if it hurt.”

Something ached in my chest at the words, sharp and tugging.

“What happened?”

“I brought my brothers and my mother into my business,” he told me, sighing. “I was busy working on a project off-planet a few years ago and they made deals with suppliers that I would’ve never worked. Behind my back. Cheap suppliers. Ones who cut corners, who lied about materials and their durability. My family authorized plans I told them to refuse. They wanted credits. They wanted them quickly, as if I hadn’t already given them enough. In the end, an entire block of a new city on Luxiria was built with those materials, all under the guise thatIhad approved them. During the first bad storm, the entire block nearly collapsed.”

My breath hitched. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Nix, thank the Fates,” he breathed. “It was still barricaded off but I have nightmares thinking about if they weren’t. The storm was abnormal for that time of year. Had it come at its usual time in the season…the block would’ve been filled. With families, children. I fear there would have been many killed.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I cannot only blame my family though,” he confessed to me. “I stretched myself too thin, needing to be in too many places at once. If I had been on Luxiria, I would have made those decisions without issue. It wasn’t so much the betrayal, it was…realizing that I was just going through the motions of work and not truly feeling fulfilled by it. Not anymore. It made me sick to my stomach.”

“So you left,” I guessed. “You came here for a fresh start.”

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