Page 75 of Homebound
“Ruby, he can’t understand you,” Gemma cautioned.
“No? He’ll understand this.” She pressed the trigger sending a weak burst of electricity into him, enough to get his attention.
He yelped and jumped, looking at Ruby with wounded puppy eyes. But Ruby was granite.
“To your cell. Now.” She pointed with her taser to where she expected him to go.
Throwing doleful glances at Gemma - like maybe she’d change her mind at the last minute and come out - he turned and shuffled to his cell, huge rolled shoulders slumped in defeat. Ruby followed and made sure he was locked up tight.
The animation on the block dissipated as inmates took their assigned cells.
Still, Gemma remained where she was, her back fused to Simon’s front, until Ruby came to open his door and Simon let her.
“Come, hon. It’s safe. Come on out.”
Strangely, Gemma had no desire to leave. She was perfectly happy standing next to Simon. She could feel slight whirring vibrations in his chest - two heartbeats? - and smell the musky essence of him, unique and unmistakable.
Simon was the first to move as he took a step back ungluing them and withdrew his arm from her person by dragging it across her chest with a rasping sound.
She shivered.
Ruby looked at his six-fingered hand and her eyes traveled up to his face. Gemma could read surprise mixed with revulsion clear in her friend’s expression.
Without a backward glance, Gemma left Simon’s cell and locked it up by pressing her palm to the onyx reader.
“Big bastard,” Ruby commented when the two of them resumed their tasks.
“He’s massive. I owe you a huge favor, Ruby. If you weren’t on hand to get him back to his cell when you did, I'd have been toast.”
When Ruby didn’t reply, Gemma looked up and found her speculative gaze. “I wasn’t talking about the Obu.”
Gemma hated her breathless reaction, the flushing face, the quickening pulse. “Oh. Simon? Yeah, he’s tall.”
“That, too. Whatever you’re doing to him, it’s working. He is no longer the ghost I’ve always known.”
Denying the obvious was futile. Trusting that Ruby won’t spread the news around the prison, Gemma gave a curt nod.
“Are you safe from him?” Ruby’s face showed concern.
“We’ve talked about that. Of course, I’m safe from him. He just saved me from the beast.”
“Think about it. He’s no longer unresponsive. He’s a male. You’re female. What if?” Ruby pressed.
A warm sensation flooded Gemma’s core at the idea of the “what if,” and it shocked her. Aliens and humans didn’t mix. She couldn’t even imagine intimacy with any. They were beasts, or near ones.
And yet the warmth that had spread through her at the thought of being touched by Simon felt nothing like revulsion.
Chapter 19
The next day Gemma felt better yet. Strength was returning to her body, and even though she wasn’t a hundred percent back to normal, she could finally wake up in the morning and not dread having to go through the day.
The weather was warm for winter, misty and foggy, not at all unpleasant, but it made her bad ankle ache worse because of it. The thing could now predict fluctuations in barometric pressure.
Her mood as she hobbled to work was grim. Last night at the dinner table, Aunt Hesire had put her to notice about a rent increase. Not a shocker; Gemma had seen it coming ever since Uncle Drexel had lost his ability to provide.
The size of the increase, though, exceeded her steepest projections.
In her spiel about the rent hike that sounded rehearsed, Aunt Herise had rationalized that the family atmosphere and home-cooked nutritious meals would more than compensate for the price she was asking.
