Page 25 of Gravel and Grit

“Everything okay?” she yelled.

“Yes! Everything is fine! Tremendous!” came his response.

Mira eyed the door apprehensively then shook her head and scoffed.

“No way. He couldn’t have heard me. He probably just… tripped over his tail or something,” she mumbled.

She thought she caught him muttering something back and forth, like he was arguing with himself, but no matter how hard she strained her ears she couldn’t make out any words.

Finished, she re-entered the living room and found Zaek staring at the couch, still mumbling to himself and using his wing claw to scratch one of the horns on his forehead.

The half-dazed, half-hungry look he cut her when she cleared her throat made her pulse speed up and her steps stumble. Unless she was seriously

mistaken, there was heat in his bright orange eyes. Heat that was directed at her.

Oh shit. He definitely heard me.

Usually, seeing anything remotely resembling desire on a man’s face made her at least a little wary, and sometimes more than a little. She’d been lucky enough to escape such abuses herself, but she’d seen what men were capable of at a young age. It left her with a lasting caution around them, which made dating difficult, but served her well and enabled her to make it through life with only a few near misses. She didn’t have the deep scars a lot of foster kids had, but her experiences had reinforced her guardedness.

Zaek was different, in more ways than the obvious.

Even in their short time together, most of which was spent running from men trying to kill them, he made her feel safe.

He didn’t set off her alarms or make her feel like she needed to watch her back around him. That a six-foot-nine, winged, clawed, mouthwateringly muscular alien made her feel safer than any human male ever had probably should have made her worry about her mental health, but she trusted her feelings.

The fact that she found him attractive was due in part to the sense of trustworthiness he exuded. She’d found men pleasant to look at, of course, but desiring them was rarer.

She desired Zaek. More than that, she wanted to know him, intellectually and emotionally, though she most assuredly also wanted to go full nerd on his physiology and culture.

What the hell she was supposed to do with that realization, she didn’t know. It’s not like they had any chance of attempting a relationship. Aside from the wholedifferent speciesthing, they were on the run from people who wanted to kill them, and both of their futures were precarious at best. Mira wasn’t the fling type, so giving alien sex the old college try just to say she’d done it, to no one ever, wasn’t an appealing option, regardless of how much she was dying to know what he had hidden in his pants. Reasoning it out in her mind made her feel inexplicably sad, like she’d lost something precious before having time to appreciate it.

Stop being ridiculous. You only met him today. He probably thinks you’rehideous anyway.

Breaking the stare-off they were having, she cleared her throat, again, and said, “We should get going. How are we doing this?” She motioned between

them and raised her brows.

“We wlll—” he paused and swallowed hard then continued, without the hint she’d gotten of his speech impediment making a reappearance, “We will fly. I will carry you.”

She wanted to ask about that gland issue he’d mentioned but didn’t. He’d looked uncomfortable when she asked last time and hadn’t answered. Instead, she focused on the prospect of flying. She didn’t even entertain the notion that she’d be pressed against him, this time without being senseless with terror and running for their lives.

Liar liar pants on fire.

Were her thighs clenched? Maybe. Was her pulse pounding between said clenched thighs? Okay, yes. But that could be easily explained away as excitement about getting to fly.

Ignoring the heat in her cheeks, Mira did her best to look completely unaffected, and focused on the logistics.

“You’ll hold me against your chest? Or perhaps lower on your… mid-section? You’ll need the use of your wings so, obviously, carrying me on your back isn’t feasible.”

For some reason he seemed to find her little spiel amusing, but he contained it to a smirk and nodded, replying, “Yes, I will hold you against my chest.”

He put her device in the bag he was holding, then slung it across his chest and tightened the strap, so it was secure against his side and wouldn’t hang down as they flew. Once finished, he approached her, not stopping until he was close enough for her to smell the enticing earthy spiciness of his scent.

Feeling like a child demanding to be picked up, Mira tilted her head back to look at him and raised her arms. Zaek held her gaze with his as he gently gripped her waist. She wasn’t what anyone would call skinny, but his hands were so big they almost encircled her.

Her jaw went slack, and she no longer felt anything like a child, when he lifted her, slowly, like he had all the time in the world, with a complete lack of any appreciable effort. He’d carried her before so she knew he was strong, but the way he stared down at her and the ease with which he picked her up was… well, it was sexy as hell.

He brought her to his chest and used what had to be his tail, since his hands were still around her middle, to press on the back of her thighs, guiding her to wrap her legs around his waist. She followed his urging and hooked

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