Page 76 of Fighting Gravity
“And if it does?” I shifted to meet her eyes. “Change is something we all know we must pursue for a better future. One way or another, it is inevitable.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said, catching my attention. She and Utrek had started a conversation of their own and by the way she was gesturing, it was about the black filaments on her head. “It’s hair. It comes in a lot of colors and people dye it to make it even more colors.”
“Is yours altered?” Utrek asked.
“Nope. I fried it years ago with treatments so I stopped. This is all me. Black as night. My mom was full Chinese and I got it from her. That’s a race of humans on Earth, by the way. So, what purpose do your tendril thingies serve?”
“Extra-sensory,” Veron cut in. “They are longer for gek from the dark side of Gathea and measure air vibrations, temperature, and radiation.”
“Wow… that’s nifty.”
“They also ‘blush’ to attract the opposite sex, though so few fall for the primitive flirtation,” Utrek chuckled. “Things are more technical these days now that half our population stays off-world.”
Quinn glanced at me, her eyes skimming my tendrils like she expected them to change color. But I wasn’t dancing around flashing colors in an attempt to mate. I’d already taken her and she was mine.
Mine. I hadn’t expected to be using that word. My prisoner. My possession. Those were things I was prepared to label her as, but simply “mine” was a strange and unfamiliar term.
“I’m guessing there’s no chance you’re ever going to blush for me,” Quinn said, her tone flat and unenthused.
“No need to make a fool of myself to entice you,” I said. “It’s so easy to make you beg for it.”
Her eyes narrowed and her teeth began to clench, making her jaw pulse with tension. She had no more food on her plate. With a sharp sigh, she stood off her chair and stepped away.
“It’s been a hoot,” she said. “But I need to bathe.” She shot me with a glare that could cut through bone. “I stink.”
She turned and began marching out of the mess hall, hands curling into fists as she left. Across from me, I could see Veron covering her mouth like she was trying not to laugh. I cocked my head at her, daring her to say something. Instead, she looked up at me and cleared her throat, composing herself.
“You let her speak to you with such disrespect?” Kaar said.
I took another bite of my food and leisurely chewed it. “She will learn the consequences of her tone when I’m finished with my meal. She exhausts me. I will let her bathe.”
32: Quinn
My walk to the showers was accompanied by almost debilitating confusion. I hated Rhone… I thought. I kept going over the things he’d done to me as if trying to convince myself that he was an awful, disgusting, disdainful piece of shit. The things he’d put me through were enough to put anyone in therapy for the rest of their lives.
But he’d also done other things. I remembered Veron telling me how I’d thrown up on him during my recovery and tried to recall anyone from Earth even offering to hold my hair while I was hunched over a toilet with a hangover. Veron also said he stayed with me through two sleep cycles while I was unconscious.
And when he carried me from the showers to his room, feeding me and letting me rest, that wasn’t a malicious gesture. It was caring.
Why?
Why was he so damn confusing?
He was driving me up the wall and made me want to rip out my hair because when I tried to pinpoint an exact word for how I felt toward him, I couldn’t.
He’s a fucking alien god. A big, green, clawed, alien who has hurt you… and also saved your life… more than once. Not to mention the sex…
I practically slapped myself in the face when I felt my thoughts running a little too wild. I reached the showers and slipped inside, stripping as I walked. Naked, I stepped into the farthest stall on the end again and turned on the stream of water as hot as I could take it. Looking down, I saw a streak of dried blood on my thigh and hissed with annoyance. He wanted me to smell like him? What the hell was that supposed to mean? If a human man pulled that shit, I’d have the cops knocking on his door so fast.
I stood against the wall letting the water trickle down my naked body and stared up at the ceiling in a daze. I thought I’d sworn off men. I thought I’d sworn off everyone because I hated the fucked up feelings people made me feel and yet there I was letting Rhone fuck up my feelings.
I sped through my shower, eager to get clean, and slipped on my old clothes. Just when I was dressed, Rhone was walking in with a stack of folded clothes in one hand. I glared at him, crossing my arms.
Alien. Green,I chanted in my head.Look at those crazy-looking legs. Big and muscular and… ALIEN, Quinn. Fucking alien. Gross.
My eyes skimmed over his broad chest and his tapered waist and those hypnotizing eyes and every feature stirred a passion in me. An angry, lustful passion that I wanted desperately to ignore.
“You love to invade my bath time. What do you want?” I asked as he set the clothes down on a shelf.
