Page 90 of Fighting Gravity
“Neither would I, but I have something to show you and you distract me too easily.” He licked his pierced tongue right over my bottom lip but still did not kiss me the way I craved. “Get dressed, Quinn,” he whispered.
He rolled off me and slid off the bed, grabbing his clothes from the floor. I admired his tight ass and strong legs, dragging my eyes down his entire length before I stood and pieced together my own outfit from items on the floor. Once I was covered, I looked up at him just as he was tightening the buckle of his heavy belt and finger-combed my hair out of my face. Rhone lingered there staring again and it made me pause.
“What?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and let his eyes wander down my body in an agonizingly slow manner.
“It just amazes me how beautiful you are,” he said. “And how I did not notice the moment I brought you on my ship.”
I shrugged. “That makes two of us.” I let my gaze wash over him again in the same way his did me and slowly moved toward him. “Before you, my type was tall, slender, and tan with blond hair.”
A hint of a smile teased his lips. “Sounds… disgusting.”
I almost choked at the monotone way he spoke. “Not too long ago, I thoughtyouwere disgusting.”
He closed the distance between us, towering over me with his chin high. “And I thought you were a scrawny, pale, joke of a creature with no hope of surviving even the smallest inconvenience.”
He paused a moment to let those words settle. “But you are so much more than that. I knew you were trouble the moment I saw you, peveri.”
“You call me that a lot. What is it?”
“It is a sea serpent from Gathea. Large, slippery, lethal, with eyes the size of your head. To wrestle one and win gets you a very specific piercing.”
“Oh? What piercing?”
He pointed to the lobe of his left ear where the little, black barb adorned him. I raised my brows. I hadn’t thought it was a tooth, but looking closer, it was so clearly a small fang. Or a piece of one.
“So… you’ve beaten one.” I reached out and touched the accessory with my fingers. “If that’s a tooth, I thought it would be bigger.”
“It’s a piece of a tooth. I wear the whole one as a necklace, but only on special occasions.”
“Why am I not surprised that you’ve killed one?”
Rhone shrugged his shoulders and gave me another long, contemplative look. His forehead creased like something was troubling him a little and things didn’t usually trouble Rhone. He was a hard ass, to say the least.
“What?” I said, trying to make light of his demeanor. “You look conflicted. You planning on dumping me somewhere again?”
It was a joke. One I was hoping he’d take part in. Instead, he slowly shook his head and lifted his fingers to brush my hair behind my ear.
“That ship,” he said. “The human ship. Someone got through our coms before the fight.”
“You made contact?”
“I did. And I could have told them I had a human on board. I could have let them take you with them.”
The idea was tempting and part of me wished he had.
Part of me. Not all of me.
“I would have been out of your hair,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Why didn’t you let them take me?”
“Their ship was badly damaged. We left them there, but I had little hope they would make it back to the Nexus unless they got help.”
“Soooo… you were protecting me?” I said, hopeful.
Rhone’s lips quirked with forced amusement. “Maybe.” He headed for the door. “Come with me.”
I was desperate to know what Rhone was getting at and followed him through the halls biting my tongue. Maybe he was planning to explain when he got to where we were going. Not that I knew where that was either. I knew nothing.
