Page 48 of Guardian's Heart

I leaned up on one elbow. "Hmm," I agreed with him, staring at the scratch marks I had left on his silvery pecs. I wasn't sorry, but I kissed them.

Noticing other scars, fine and old. One that was puckered looked like a bullet wound. I knew that because my daddy had had the same kind of scar on his shoulder. He used to brag about how Uncle Boone shot him, aiming for a deer after a few too many moonshines.

"Where did you get this?" I traced my fingers over the raised skin. It looked like a star, with its lines spreading out in all directions.

"This?" He raised his head to look. A frown appeared on his face. "I… I went… I did…"

My gaze moved to his as he tried to articulate. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." His face contorted in concentration. "But I… I don't remember." His fingers moved over the spot I had been caressing. "Not a clue." He tried to smile, but he wasn't fooling me.

"Zaarek, what's wrong?"

He shook his head as if to clear it. "Just another headache, don't worry."

"You probably need to eat and drink something," I suggested, and as if on cue, my stomach grumbled as well.

"Sounds like we both need sustenance." Zaarek grinned and helped me off the bed.

Thankfully, there were more shirts in the hidden compartments in the wall when I held up the torn top he had ripped off me—while goosebumps moved up and down my flesh just at the memory.

"Hey, you were the one who didn't want to let go." He winked at me and fuck me, my heart stuttered. This man was devastatingly handsome. He had been so before when he acted allGI Joe/Terminator/Wolverineon me, but now, that wink? Shit, that nearly stopped my heart and sent a new rush of desire through my pussy. This relaxed, playful face of his was simply overkill. My body demanded for me to sink down to the ground and let him have his way with me once again. This was a man I could seriously crush on.

Thankfully, my stomach objected before I could follow through.

He looked at me kind of funny as if my thoughts had reflected on my face, and I brushed out a quick, nearly brusk—alright, more hoarse than brusk, "What?"

"You looked funny there for a moment, as if you were about to faint."

You have no idea. "Probably just weak with hunger, you did give me a good workout."

This time, I winked at him and threw one of my devastating smiles at him. He seemed to freeze for a moment, and I imagined patting myself on the shoulder for a job well done.Two can play this game, Mister Alien Hunk.

We walked back into the room with the nutrition station, where a few drones were in the middle of cleaning up the mess we had left behind earlier. Nock was there, surrounded by several cube screens, his face deeply scrunched up in concentration.

Zaarek was about to sit down by one of the other tables, but I nudged him toward Nock. His sigh indicated that he wasn't happy about it, buttough shit. Man up.

"Hey, did you find anything?" I asked, pulling up a chair.

He nearly jumped off his chair, so startled by our sudden appearance that a small snicker escaped me.

"I'll get us some food," Zaarek said to me, and before he had a chance to turn, I widened my eyes at him and gave a small jerk with my chin toward Nock. With an even deeper sigh than before, Zaarek found his manners. "Do you want something too, Nock?"

"A carvel juice, please," Nock said without turning away from his screens, which had pulled him back in.

Zaarek frowned at me and mumbled something about not being a server but walked over to the food and beverage dispensers.

"So, did you find anything?" I prodded again.

"Some interesting Ohrur history, but I'm not sure if it pertains to our situation or not." Nock pushed a cube over to me.

"What am I looking for?"

"At some point, the Ohrurs went nearly extinct because of some disease," Nock filled me in. "See here, this is the data about their population, here, about twenty thousand years ago. Do you see this fall?"

I looked at the numbers, pushing away thoughts of how I was able to read this in English and he in… whatever language. I had a suspicion that if I tried to look too closely at this alien technology, my head would simply implode.

He was right. There was a definite drop of about fifty percent in population. I couldn't make any sense of how the time was defined and took his word for settling on twenty thousand GTU years, with no clue what that meant.

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