Page 8 of 80% Beef 20% Cake (Alien Fated Mates #2)

8

T rue to his word, JayJay toured me through the volcano less than an hour later. “How do you know so much about this place?”

I couldn’t believe the paradise before me. Lit by the magma’s orange glow, stacks of nested mushrooms folded around volcanic rock columns like pleated skirts draped over ocean-blue moss. Vines dangled and crisscrossed like hand-woven lace, turning the cave into a jungle. Spiky cucumbers, the same ones JayJay had fed me, burst from their intersecting webs.

The hellsna that had trapped us barely registered as a threat, buried beneath a layer of wonder. My exhaustion, swollen hands and leg spasms were still there, but dulled by the miracle mushroom. As crazy as it sounded, those things seemed minor when compared to my newfound attraction to JayJay. Maybe the strange medicine had increased my desire? Or could there be something in the air? Possibly a new symptom? Because never in my life had I been attracted to a man who thought he knew what was best for me.

“It’s like the rocks of Nara on my home planet.” JayJay reached out to steady me as the ground undulated below my feet. “I’ve heard of twin planets, but if I hadn’t witnessed this with my own eyes, I would’ve never believed it possible.”

“No wonder you get sad when you think of home, if it’s like this. At first I thought Tern was all driving wind, rolling pink sand dunes and blue snow.” I tipped a lilac-scented flower to my lips and drank. “But then there were hoverbikes…and that was all it took to sell me.” I laughed.

“There are no deserts on Yagras.” JayJay stared into the distance, looking so alone I wanted to twine our fingers together.

None of that thinking, Ginger. You came to Tern for a holiday and to focus on your health . The sooner I got better, the sooner my clients would come back to me. Doctors were often wrong about how to manage diseases, and I wasn’t going to let my idiopathic blood degeneration rule me.

For now, I’d enjoy this fantastical world surrounding me. I snapped a picture of JayJay with my borrowed wristport. His bald head shone purple in the orange glow where he stood wide-legged, a mandala of showy vines making up the backdrop.

“Is it safe to walk with no shoes?”

“Yes,” he said in his usual wordy manner. I was learning to read his forehead ridge. It spoke a language in itself, and this time, it tilted upward.

I untied my laces, eager to squeeze the mossy ground between my toes, and shoved my boots at him. “Show me this magic mushroom?” My knuckles grazed the soft spikes of a large cucumber in our path. “What are these things?”

His gaze leaped from my boots, now cupped in one of his giant hands, to my feet, and he shook his head. “You’re so small.” His deep baritone filled the cavernous space.

“No, you’re a giant.” I bounced and poked him in the belly, leaving him scrambling to catch my boots.

“They’re tinga.” JayJay crunched down on one of the cucumbers, jingling the elephant charms on his bracelet. His wide tongue captured the juice dripping from the corner of his mouth and I gulped.

Warm moss curled around my toes, easing my stiff joints better than a hot water bottle. “Why is the ground so bouncy?”

His gaze was laser-focused on my chest where my breasts lifted, but he looked away before he hurried ahead. “Beneath the moss lies water instead of soil.”

“I love learning all this stuff.” I rubbed my hands together. “Did you build houses on Yagras too?”

“No.” A shadow crossed over his face.

I frowned, sensing it would be better to steer clear of this topic, but curiosity soon got the best of me. After a long pause, I spun to face him. “Care to elaborate?”

He cleared his throat and stretched his neck back and forth. “I was lead elite guard. My crew and I were charged with Yagras’ protection against danger from the hellsna above all other threats.” His words were ripe with pride and an arrogance born of confidence.

JayJay stopped, his stance wide, and the muscles on his forearms where he’d pushed up the sleeves of his shredded tunic gleamed in the low light. Woah, was this the same guy who couldn’t look me in the eye and muttered one-word sentences? No wonder he hadn’t faltered when a giant-ass worm showed up in the middle of the avalanche.

“You fought hellsna?” A chill crept over my skin, despite the muggy air.

“Yes.”

I stifled the urge to roll my eyes at yet another unenlightening response. I wanted to know so much more.

“So…” I nudged him gently in the ribs. “Why aren’t you an elite guard anymore?”

JayJay’s stride grew stiff and he sped ahead of me. “I will not discuss that.”

I suspected that this man’s box of secrets might burst at the seams at any moment it was so full. Our walk had taken a turn down somber lane, and I wanted to regain some of the lightness from earlier. After all, how often did a girl wander around on a sea of blue moss inside a volcano while trapped by a giant-ass worm under the protection of a muscly gray alien?

“How about a hypothetical twenty questions kinda game, instead?”

“How about a hypothetical, one-question kinda game?” he grunted.

“Fine.” A dull ache returned to my hip joints as I hustled to keep up. “What kind of clothing do you prefer? I want to thank you for getting me out of this mess.”

His forest-green eyes widened as he turned to face me, almost black in the dim glow. “Only a life companion or true mate would gift me clothing.”

Under my feet, the ground rolled, and each step required extra effort, but I kept my voice light, though my cheeks felt hot to the touch. TeyTey and I had shared a few glasses of hiscus wine in Geo and Makir’s hot tub and true mates had come up. I’d forgotten how significant gifts were. “Don’t get your panties in a knot, King Kong, it’s just a simple thanks.”

He grunted, waiting for me to catch up, and his thick finger plucked at a hole in the pants I hadn’t repaired yet.

When he remained quiet I tried a softer approach. “Tell me about true mates.”

He lifted a tangle of vines, creating an archway for me to walk through before he started. “A true mate bond has not been made in one hundred annums. Females on Yagras mate to reproduce and, if they’re lucky, will forge a strong life companion connection like TeyTey and Sully. If a female were in danger, countless males would be ready to aid her.”

His unnerving glance weakened my knees, and I stumbled, righting myself against a mushroom-ringed pillar. A cloud of iridescent spores was released, and the dandelion-like seeds dotted my hair and shoulders. I smiled beneath my glittery veil.

JayJay reached toward my hair to pluck out the spores, but clamped his arm back to his side at the last second. “Are you okay?”

“Yup, just need a little break.” Scents similar to bergamot and vanilla wafted from the fungus I leaned on, and I longed for my favorite tea back on Earth.

“You need your medicine.” JayJay’s chest heaved. “Blant! If I we were on Yagras, I would direct my team to manufacture a diversion and administer the bloodroot fungus to that bastard myself. Bloodroot fungus is lethal to hellsna.”

JayJay’s personality transformed into a soldier’s before my eyes. Command shone through his rigid bearing. He made it sound as if delivering bloodroot fungus to a creature from my worst nightmares was as simple as handing over a headache tablet to a little old lady.

A distinctly unfriendly heat unfurled in my belly.

“No female would choose a male who couldn’t get her out of a situation like this.” He crossed his arms over his wide chest.

Why did his bullheadedness send sparks down my spine like I imagined his warm palm would? “Well, hypothetically speaking, if one did choose you… What would you do?”

He grunted and stared off into the distance. “They wouldn’t. But I’ll play along. If I had a female, she would never require rescue because she’d never be in the presence of a hellsna to begin with. I would forbid it.” The last four words were sharp and precise, and the air crackled with authority.

Though my independent side snarled at his overbearing demeanor, warmth spread into places I didn’t want to acknowledge. Why did he think a female would never choose him? He got along with females. TeyTey liked him just fine.

“Have you seen enough?” His laser-focused gaze read me like a body scanner, seeming to catalog every one of my aches.

With knees like Jell-O, I pushed off the column. “Just a little longer.”

Trance-like, I walked ahead, my eyes darting from wonder to wonder, following the brighter light emitted by the river of magma that cut through the cavern. My jaw tightened in frustration as my achy hips became achy knees, cramped feet, blurred vision…

Why the hell did I pack an entire sewing kit on a daytrip to trap linobee but no medicine?

I parted a curtain of vines, and before us, the cavern rounded and closed in on itself. My feet had turned to lead weights, and I sighed at the sudden endpoint. Except for the small gap near the ceiling and where the river of magma continued to flow through a narrow chasm, the vine-covered wall ahead was solid volcanic rock.

“It looks like we’ve hit the end of the road.” The pep in my voice sounded fake to my own ears.

JayJay’s muscles tensed, as if straining toward something his heightened senses picked up on. He frowned. “Wait here.” His brisk command came as he thrust my boots at me.

Before I could argue that I wasn’t one of his soldiers to order about, he jumped to the side of the wall and, with no effort, propelled himself up the ropy vines toward the cavern’s roof. He climbed fifty feet in the blink of an eye.

I think I should put my boots on.

Not even five minutes later, JayJay leaped from halfway up the rock face, landing in front of me in a crouch. The ground rolled like a wave under us. It reverberated through my knees and up my spine. The scowl that ate up his face made all my other joints tremble.

“I’m uncertain of our safety. We should return to the other end of the cavern. Can I carry you?”

I nodded, too concerned to be impressed that he’d asked my permission before scooping me up. In the cage of his powerful arms, I tried to relax. With long, steady strides, he traversed the ground without making a ripple.

JayJay’s voice lowered to a whisper. “There’s a hibernaculum on the other side of that wall.”

I swallowed past the dry lump in my throat. “You saw a pit of snakes through that small gap at the top?”

A writhing mass of translucent white tooth-filled flesh dominated my mind. Movie sets were part of my old life, and many of my coworkers were trivia junkies and especially fond of old films. Hibernaculum wasn’t an unfamiliar word to me—thank you, Indiana Jones and my classic film collection for punishing me with the vision of a hundred snakes hibernating in a massive heap.

“Think bigger.” JayJay’s breath showed no signs of exertion as he jogged back toward our temporary hollow. “We’re safe on this side. They can’t get through. The hellsna guards our cave entrance because the vibrations of the snow slide drew it out of its wintering grounds.”

With his heart thumping against my shoulder, his words did little to ease my fears.

“Blant.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Three…maybe four.”

Oh. My. God. Four more of those giant monster fuckers.

The tropical alien paradise of moments ago had turned into a sea of tripping vines hidden in a sinister orange glow. Mayor Yurst might send an earlier return shuttle to Earth because a monster was on the loose if I asked, right?

The muscle in my leg began to seize again. JayJay’s thumb massaged it. His familiarity with my body sent a shiver up my spine. When his pace picked up, I barely jostled in his strong arms. I inhaled his earthy musk and closed my tired eyes while nuzzling into his chest, blocking out images of toothy worms eating through volcanic rock.

“They can’t eat through rock, can they?”

His deep rumble turned to a purr. “No, we’re safe.”

My eyelids grew heavy. Before sleep took me, a bushy gray tail flashed over JayJay’s shoulder. How strange.

I woke up in a dark and cozy heaven. Well, if heaven included muscle aches and bone-deep weariness. My nose was filled with a divine scent. But above everything else, a sense of safety oozed from every cell of my body, keeping me relaxed and content. Something I’d been missing.

As I roused further, I noticed the large arm encircling me. JayJay’s boulder of a shoulder pillowed his smooth head, his forehead ridge soft in his sleep, and the deep resonance of his snores reminded me of a bear in hibernation. To awake entangled with a man was a new sensation. Past boyfriends had called me too independent, and the wide stretch of sheet between us in the mornings seemed to confirm that. But JayJay’s closeness soothed me and surprised me in equal measure.

Wrapped around my back, and resting in the crook of my hip, JayJay’s arm enveloped me, one large palm spread across my entire abdomen. The cuts and scrapes along his wide fingers were almost healed, and I couldn’t stop the fingertip that traced over his rounded knuckle down to his exposed forearm. No stubble, no hair, just vast, endless smooth JayJay. His other slab of an arm rested on his bent legs, where they hugged me to his chest.

His velvety gray skin still surprised me. When we’d first met, I’d compared JayJay to a man in elephant’s skin. How wrong I’d been. Far from loose and wrinkled, it matched the softness of the rabbit skin I’d designed my last warrior costume from.

Already, I was sketching designs in my head for the wardrobe I would outfit him with. One that would do his immense frame justice. The clothes he wore now were nothing more than rags. When I finished with him, his outside would match the inside—a true warrior.

His snores quieted, and his eyelids flickered open, a forest of green I could walk through forever.

“Morning.” The deep bass rolled through me like thunder. A velvety palm kneaded my belly, the same way his thumb massaged the tight muscles in my legs. My eyes locked on his puffy lips and drank in the soft expression on his face.

“King Kong, who taught you how to kiss?” My fingertip moved from his forearm to trace his juicy lips.

His chest expanded on a long inhale before his eyes darted away. “Rock Dwellers don’t kiss.” Gruff and loud, his volume didn’t bother me, but his embarrassment did.

When his gaze returned, I bit my lower lip, letting it slowly escape, then dragged my tongue over my front teeth. He hummed, then it mellowed to a purr and his pupils dilated, turning them into a jungle at night. He continued to knead my stomach and hip with just the right pressure. If my muscles relaxed any further, I’d be liquid.

“Clearly.” With a gentle touch, I grasped his chin and turned his face toward mine. For a species that didn’t kiss, he showed an awful lot of interest in my mouth.

“Geo likes to be kissed.” His raspy voice washed over me. Each achy muscle relaxed even further as he kept up the mind-bogglingly slow knead.

“Does he?” How a giant could come off so innocently cute charmed me.

A slight tremble built up in his arms and traveled down to his hands, but his gaze remained locked on my lips. “I’ve seen Makir kiss him.”

Honestly, who hasn’t? Those two are about as discreet as my breath after a tuna and onion sandwich.

“Hmmm…. you like to watch?”

JayJay’s fingers drummed against his thigh. “Watch what?”

I brushed my hand up his trembling arm and mouthed the word, ‘kissing.’ I didn’t think he knew what his slow nod agreed to.

“You strike me as more of a man of action?” My words lingered in the humid air. Though masked in charcoal shadows, experience told me his excellent vision had no problem reading my lips. The tremble in his arm turned into a tremor as he held himself back, but it became clearer by the moment that his instincts were winning the battle against his self-control.

When I placed my hands behind his ears and pulled his face toward mine, I met zero resistance. His low, resonant purr sent vibrations all the way to my toes.

Finally, my lips grazed his while his dark-eyed gaze held me captive.

The puffiness had deceived me. Instead of the soft pillows I’d been expecting, my lips met firm plums. “I like to kiss with my eyes open, too.”

When he sucked in a shallow breath, I dipped my tongue in. The pointed tip coaxed his into the dance. Languid and slow, our tongues came together and parted again, only to suck on a lip, trace over teeth or press feather-soft against each other. Never had I been matched so perfectly in a kiss. My blood hummed, hot as the river of magma that warmed the cave.

My hand slid along his side to his stomach and—

JayJay’s wristport pinged with an alarm, shattering our temporary oasis. Within seconds, his emotionless lead guard mask returned as he scooted away from me. Licking his firm plum lips, he began stowing the gear back in our bags. Mushrooms and tinga filled every available space.

Desire swirled like a heady mist in the air, and I shuddered at his retreat. So much for friendship. That kiss had stoked an inferno in me.

“Blant, we need to move.” His words boomed through the small room like a grenade exploding.

“Why the sudden urgency?”

“The enforcers are preparing a diversion as we speak.” His eyes flicked to his wristport, calculating the time. The way they didn’t meet mine couldn’t be construed as anything but deliberate. “We’ve less than a sun to get to the entrance.”

I took my irritation out on my bootlaces, cinching each side with sharp tugs, though in hindsight, the interruption probably saved us from a boatload of awkwardness. Did Rock Dwellers even have one-night stands? “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

We’d spent all of yesterday together, for crying out loud. Was he looking for a café to serve us espresso before telling me about our imminent rescue?

His gaze rose to the domed ceiling. “You fell asleep.”

He could say that with as much arrogance as he wanted, but we both knew what a weak-ass response it was. Too bad my lips still tasted of his, sweet with the tinga juice and something smoky and entirely JayJay. It made my anger difficult to maintain.

At my eye roll, his forehead ridge morphed into a shy curl that made my heart trip. “I may have been distracted,” JayJay conceded before he jumped through the vine curtain, gripped my waist and placed me at his side. When he went to scoop me up like a helpless doll again, I’d had enough.

“If you manhandle me one more time, King Kong, I will…” My voice trailed off as I searched for something to fill in the blank, pushing against his chest to be let down. “I won’t gift you the fabulous clothing I’ve designed for you.” Man, that was weak.

JayJay’s lawnmower-like laugh cut through the tension as he lowered me. “Are you giving me a gift then, Ginger? I thought it was a simple thanks.”

Is he teasing me? What I needed to do was stop wasting time and start focusing on our rescue.

He grasped my hand and started a slow jog that had me out of breath in no time.

“Rock Dwellers are way too weird about gifts.”

The steep volcanic rock tunnel loomed ahead of me. Its brittle edges broke away whenever JayJay turned to assess my condition, our bags of gear smashinginto them.

“There’ll be no rescue. If we don’t increase our speed, we’ll miss the rendezvous point.” His forehead ridge shifted, full of wary caution. He was toeing the line, trying to balance how mad I would be if he carried me versus missing the enforcers.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “Fine. You win this time.”

JayJay pressed my side to his chest. “Stubborn human females. Are you all so hardheaded?”

I was pretty sure he didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“I think you mean fabulous and determined,” I teased, but then stiffened against his hard chest as the tunnel zoomed by. What if the enforcers couldn’t distract the hellsna? How much longer would the mushroom be able to relieve my symptoms? Would we remain trapped here indefinitely? My rubbery legs and swollen joints jostled over JayJay’s thick forearms, and his smooth strides lulled me into an anxiety-riddled doze.

I’ll just rest my head here for a moment.