Page 110 of Homebound
She smiled a little and nestled deeper into his embrace, suddenly sleepy, and tired, and ridiculously, childishly happy.
“You make it sound so simple,” her voice was hoarse.
“It is that simple.” A special brilliance briefly appeared in his eyes, betraying strong emotion.
“Much as I’m happy to have you here with me, I wish you found your way home.”
“Alone?” he asked gravely.
“If that’s how it must be. Alone.”
“And what willyoudo when I go home alone?”
She shrugged. “What I’ve always done. Stay here and try to survive.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “If Dr. Delano showed me a fraction of your empathy, I would have willingly submitted to his inane experiments.”
She raised her heavy head and looked at him, pouring the strength of her human emotions into her gaze. Their faces were mere inches apart. They stayed as they were, and the silence around them became charged.
She could see his black-on-black pupils, could discern individual hairs of his delicate brows. His peculiar slanted nostrils flared, and he slowly leaned forward, closing the short distance between their mouths, his breath gently fanning her face, his sharply bowed, blue-ringed upper lip the focus of Gemma’s world. Her lips parted in anticipation, her head tilting back in greedy anticipation of his touch, and finally, finally, he lowered his lips to hers in a merest of kisses.
It was electrifying. She shifted in his lap, and the sheet slid off her torse.
She froze, self-consciousness flooding her, shyness shattering her desire.
She knew he was looking, checking her out. She dropped her arms and forced herself to sit still to let him inspect her body in all its unaltered human glory. After all, she’d had opportunities to see all of him at the prison. If was only fair to let him look now.
A long minute went by, and Gemma couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
“Do you find me strange?”
He sighed and tilted her face up, letting her feel his regard full-on. “I don’t.”
“Are Rix females built the same?”
“A little different.”
Gemma wilted and let her fingers edge closer to the fallen sheet to tug it up. “Different, then.”
“How you look was never a factor.”
“Gee, thanks. I think.”
“Does it matter to you that I’m different?”
Gemma’s cocked her head, pondering the question. Was she aware of the differences? You bet. His huge eyes that looked nowhere and everywhere at once, his six-fingered clawed hands, the smooth carper of silky short hairs that covered his entire body - she would be lying to herself if she pretended not to notice. And some, ahem, things that his physique was deficient of, she was very aware of.
But he had a point, none of it mattered in the grand scheme of things. She loved him the way he was. She couldn't imagine being with anyone other than Simon.
“No, not really.”
“How we look to each other is irrelevant. It happened. Our lives are intertwined. We’ll have to work with what we got.” And then he smiled, a freakshow of amber teeth and bluish gums. “I happen to like what you’ve got.”
“Oh.” Warm relief spread through Gemma, surprising her. She hadn’t realized his approval of her body meant so much.
In one fluid move, he pulled the sheet completely off her, leaving her bare in his lap. “You fret about the silliest of things. Stop worrying. There isn’t a problem.”
Twisting, he took off his shirt. Unabashed, Gemma looked her fill. In another marked difference, he lacked the sharp muscle definition of human males. His strength was poured rubber, smooth and taught, the flesh so firm that when Gemma reached for his upper arm and gently squeezed, her fingers left no indentations. It was unbelievable, the power that she felt under her fingertips.
