Page 14

Chapter fourteen

Nash

I ’d worried I was too rough with him, that I’d somehow broken my sweet human when he’d urged me to let go, to give him everything I could… but he was still curled against my chest, and the low sound he made when he stretched and I knew he could feel how hard I’d fucked him didn’t seem angry.

It seemed like he liked it. He’d made the same noise when I carefully laid him out on the bed after we’d finished and cleaned him up, first with my tongue and then with a cloth.

He’d made the same sound when I crawled back into the bed beside him and wrapped him up in my arms, refusing to let him go now that I had him exactly where I wanted him.

That damn sound could bring a god to its knees.

It was nearly enough to make me roll him beneath me again, but instead, I bent and pressed a gentle kiss to the side of his neck. It made him turn, and he smiled at me as he tilted his head.

“Uh, does that mean you forgive me?” His expression was so sweet I nearly melted into it, and I couldn’t quite summon up the irritation I knew I should have felt. The only thing I could feel was the warmth of his body, the way he was curled so close to me.

The way his fingers kept tracing the lines of my muscles, the dips on my stomach, like he was trying to memorize them.

“I was… worried. That’s all.”

Kai’s expression fell. Guilt, written in clear lines across his features, came out in his tone. “I really didn’t mean to scare you, Nash. I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. I just…” He made a slight face, blowing out a breath. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but as handy as I am when it comes to fixing things, I might not be the best when it comes to the whole… you know, wilderness survival shit.”

The embarrassed look that crossed his face was enough to pull a small laugh from my chest.

“I think I’ve noticed, between you banging your head on a barrier, running from predators, and getting lost in the woods when you were…”

“Trying to find flowers,” he grumbled. “See if I do anything nice for you ever again.”

It took me a second to realize what he meant. He’d mentioned going out to look for something when I’d found him, but I didn’t realize…

“Why were you getting flowers, Kai?”

Red chased across his cheekbones, but he lifted his eyes and glared at me almost defiantly. “I know you aren’t used to things that humans do, but when we like someone… we… fuck, we get them flowers, okay? I just wanted…” He trailed off as I rolled him over, and the sight of his confused and angry expression framed by my hair falling around his face was almost too beautiful, too much.

Too perfect.

“You were getting me flowers?”

“Nash, I swear to God—”

“Because you like me.”

I didn’t think he could get more red, but he somehow did. He clenched his eyes shut and tried to turn his head, but I caught his face in my hands and leaned down while he muttered under his breath.

“I’m really questioning if I do right now. You’re about to get hit with a third act breakup, Nash.”

There was something so sweet about Kai and the way he wouldn’t look at me, the pink dancing across his cheeks… and the fact that he’d tried to find a way with his strange human custom to show me he cared about me. I knew the draw between us because I could feel the strength of it… but still…

I leaned in, nuzzling against his neck until the tension in his body went loose, and he looked up at me with a grumpy expression.

“Next time you want to go pick flowers, ask me and I’ll go with you.”

He blew out a breath, slapping my shoulder. “That ruins the whole… I don’t know, element of surprise. I wanted…” Kai trailed off, shaking his head again, like the words he wanted to say caught somewhere just beneath the surface, at the back of his throat—too big to utter aloud, too complex to grasp.

I understood. There were a dozen human words to express affection, hundreds more in the languages I knew… but I still wasn’t sure any of it measured up to how I felt about him.

I’d known the moment I met my mate I wouldn’t be able to resist them, that I wouldn’t think twice about what I wanted.

But I still wasn’t sure Kai even believed in mates—I wasn’t sure that he’d truly accepted everything about himself when it came to what was between us.

At the thought that he might still try to leave, something in my chest twisted, and apparently the pain spilled into my expression.

“Hey, wait.” Kai sat up, fingers impatiently pushing through his hair so he could look at me. The concern in those two words was something I couldn’t ignore, and I let out a soft sigh before he even asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I worry that you will want to leave this world.” I spoke carefully, because it was on the tip of my tongue to promise him anything, to tell him I’d go back with him… but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t abandon my people any more than I could leave the problem with Koth unsolved. He was out there somewhere, and I knew he was probably planning something—he’d been quiet for far too long.

We just had to wait to see what that something was.

“I…” Kai’s brows dipped, one little line of worry pinched between them. “I don’t… I don’t want to leave?” He said it like he wasn’t even sure of it himself, and then he sat there for a second like he was tasting the words on his tongue. “Yeah… I don’t want to leave, Nash.”

The confidence in his voice the second time he spoke made my heart race.

“You want to stay?”

He nodded once, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Yeah. I think I do. I mean… I still need to find my friend—” He gave me a pointed look at that, but I wasn’t going to let guilt overtake me. Things were too dangerous to go to the city, and any man with half an eye would see how gorgeous he was… gorgeous and unmated and… “But yeah. I want to stay here. With you.” The last two words were spoken in a soft whisper, and he dropped his gaze when he said it.

It made me move forward, roll him until he was pressed to the mattress beneath me and I could cup his chin to bring his eyes back to mine. They were wide, just a little afraid, but they were defiant too.

Full of determination.

Emotion.

“With me?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll need to go back to my world sometimes, I’m sure. I have tools and stuff there. Books. Things that I could use to help, so…” That fear spiraled almost out of control, bursting across his features like glass shattering into a thousand tiny pieces, reflecting the light of the sun, the moon, the stars.

But he was still looking at me.

“Kai?”

“That means you need to mark me, right? So…” He tilted his head to the side, like it was that simple, that easy. Like what he was saying wasn’t the only thing I’d been waiting for my entire existence, my whole life. “Claim me, Nash.” He bit his lip and looked at me through his lashes. “I want you to.”