Page 63 of I'm Not Your Pet

Now that I understood him better, I could see how difficult it was for him to let go of the reins he’d held so tightly for so long. I could appreciate him for that too. Roark’s protectiveness came from a good place. I still didn’t understand why he was this way, but for the first time in my life, my burning questions were content to wait.

A quiet snore startled me out of my wandering thoughts. When I lifted my head, tools still in hand and a pile of nanobot bits scattered on the floor between my legs, I saw Roark passed out in bed. It wasn’t late. Definitely wasn’t bedtime. I’d memorized the squiggles on the clock, and these squiggles usually meant we’d be fucking right about now.

Damn.

That was a distracting thought.

Roark lay propped up against the shell-like edge of the mattress. His tablet was on his belly and his glasses were perched askew on his nose. Poor dude wasexhausted. It’d been go, go, go for him for a while now, and I wasn’t surprised he’d crashed.

It had to happen sometime, right?

I felt guilty, because I wanted to help lift some of the weight he carried, but I didn’t know how.

Abandoning the corner of the room that I’d commandeered, I rose to my feet and padded barefoot across the room. My knees bumped the edge of the bed when I arrived.

As if he sensed my presence, Roark woke, blinking pretty blue eyes open, a quiet sigh escaping his lips. “Little…beast,” he murmured in English, reaching out with a huge hand to hover inches from my ribs. I leaned into the touch and he sighed again, content, stroking over my flank as tentacles split from his squishy pink forearm and looped around my hip, holding me comfortingly in place.

I didn’t know why he called me that. But I liked it.

“Tired?” I asked him. He knew that word too.

“Yesh,” Roark agreed, reaching for the tablet laying on his abdomen with sleepy, sluggish movements. I halted him, fingers wrapped around his wrist—how much of it Icouldwrap around, anyway, considering our size difference.

“Let me,” I said, not sure if those were words he’d understand or not. He nodded and I grinned at him, picking up the device, before setting it on the nightstand. I removed his glasses next, carefully folding them up and setting them down, unsure how the hell they stayed on his head when it was so large and he didn’t have ears.

I wished I could ask him.

Roark was watching me.

His gaze was hot and shivers tickled up my body as I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Hungry?” I asked, more than willing to get some food for him. We’d been to the cafeteria together enough times I was sure that I could find my way there, especially after my little impromptu adventure when I’d been spying on him.

“Yesh,” Roark agreed with a sigh, continuing to stroke my side as he moved to sit up.

“Roark?” I gave his wrist another squeeze and he paused, observing me. It wasn’t often I addressed him so plainly. He could sense something was up.

“Yesh?” His entire body was tense, but I held his gaze anyway, unafraid of the teeth and claws—and the predator that I had frozen with one simple touch.

“Let me.” It was a simple request, and one I wasn’t entirely sure he’d understand.

Apparently he did, because he responded by blinking in confusion. His spots changed color so fast it was hard to pinpoint how he was feeling. Eventually, they settled on a pale gray. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it meant, but I had to guess it was somewhere close to confusion or anxiety, judging by the alarmed rumble he was emitting.

“Please?” I wanted him to trust me. I needed to prove to him that I could be useful.

Roark grew scarily quiet as he thought. I knew without a doubt that he was going to give in. He was a softie like that.

“Please?” I repeated, squeezing his squishy wrist. “Please, please, please?”

He frowned, shifting a little on the bed before he sighed, dropped his head, closed his eyes—and nodded.

After releasing his wrist, I launched myself at him. Exuberantly, I threw my arms around his thick neck and squashed him tight as I fluttered kisses all over his rubbery cheeks, careful to avoid his teeth. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Roark barked out a laugh and the palm that had petted my side stroked down my back, then up, then down, then up again. His fingers gave my nape a gentle squeeze, and I pulled back to beam at him some more.

I get to go out on my own!

He trusts me!

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