Page 14 of Rescuing Mara (Warriors of Arracate #2)
CHAPTER 14
Mara
H is words make my frozen heart crack, and tears threaten to spill. And I never cry. Crying is a weakness, a vulnerability I can never show because it will get me killed. But these words, this man. Nobody has ever spoken to me like that, at least not that I can remember. This… this is not what I expected, not how Ananta told me it would be. “I don’t want to cry,” I whisper.
O’Rec steps closer, his hands moving to frame my face. He wipes away the tears that escaped my eyes with a gentle caress.
“You can cry if you need to, I’m a Warrior, I have seen many things and am not fazed by some tears.”
I sniff, the need for crying passes, but deep inside me I feel something else.
“Can you… can you hold me?” My voice breaks with all the vulnerability I give him.
He doesn’t hesitate but steps in close and softly but firmly pulls me against him.
“Always,” he says.
We stay like this for the longest time, with me sitting on the tabletop and him holding me close. He’s warm, and his skin feels soft. His heartbeat a steady drum in my ears.
When he finally pulls away, I shiver from the loss of warmth and yawn, suddenly feeling very tired.
“Time for bed,” he says before silently leading me towards his bedroom.
I follow him through the ship until we stand before a door. He hesitates before turning towards me.
“You were in my bedroom earlier. That is where I very much prefer you to be, but if you wish to sleep somewhere else, we have guest quarters.”
His hand moves towards a screen to open the doors, but I stop him before he reaches the surface.
“I want to stay in your room, please.”
He smiles before he takes my hand and takes me back to a door on the other side of the hallway.
“You can open the door by putting your hand on the screen here.” He points to a shiny screen on the right of the door. “Only we can use the lock to open the door. Once inside, you can open the doors by using voice control.”
I give him a nod before I follow him into the room.
“We have cleaning bots that clean the room when it’s not occupied,” he says, continuing his conversation toward the door on the far right side, next to the windows.
“The bathroom is in here,” he says, then turns around. “I would really like you to sleep in my bed. I can make a bed on the floor or stay in one of the guest rooms. You can choose.”
I stare at him. “I can choose?”
He nods, and I bite my lip. I was never given any choice at all, and the idea of choosing is spiking my anxiety.
“I don’t know.” I whisper, panic threatening to overflow my brain, the numbness getting within my grasp.
He pulls my hand and places it on his chest, above his heart.
“Do you feel that?” he says softly.
I swallow. His skin is warm, his chest moving with the rhythm of his breath.
“Breathe,” he commands softly, and I inhale. “Again,” he repeats. The process repeats itself until I feel steady again.
I drop my hand and look up at him.
“Stay.” I say it with a certainty I feel in my bones. He smiles, and I turn around before I feel overwhelmed with the fact that I just made a freaking choice.
The bathroom opens with a push to the screen next to the door, revealing something I couldn’t have thought up in my wildest fantasies. The room is enormous, light is coming from a high ceiling, and the stars outside shine through oversized windows. The far wall is curved, making it smaller towards the inside, where a short wall hides something from view, a toilet, maybe? On the long side is a shower so big, I have no clue what to do with it. It looks like an enormous glass closet with a huge mirror and a sink on the opposite side.
But what’s really making me catch my breath is the enormous bathtub sunken into the floor next to the windows. It’s so big, it’s almost a pool. I give it a longing look before I step back and call for O’Rec.
“This is no ordinary sonic shower, is it?” I turn to him when he enters, making him laugh.
“No, we Arracate like some things the old fashioned way, and bathing is one of them. Have you ever used a water shower?” When I shake my head, he continues.
“You have to set the temperature right and choose which shower heads you want to use,” he says as he makes his way towards the shower, with me in his tracks.
Patiently he shows me exactly which buttons to use, before he leaves me alone.
The shower is fantastic. I have had a bath or two, but sonic showers are my standard. The luxurious feeling of the water cleaning my skin gives me sensations my body is not used to. Being naked and not having to be scared of someone barging in is another new sensation in which I revel. I lose myself in the new sensations and the blissful, clean feeling.
A knock on the door shakes me from my musings. “Marra, are you okay?”
I turn off the shower before I reply. “Yes! Sorry, I lost myself here for a while!” I can almost hear his grin through the doors.
“How do I turn on the dryer?” I realize I’m soaking wet with nothing to dry myself on.
O’Rec curses. “I forgot to give you a towel. Do you mind if I come in?”
I look at the glass doors, but they are so foggy you can’t see what’s on the other side.
“Yes, please.” And I wait for him to enter.
I hear the breath leaving his lungs as he gasps when he enters.
“Marra,” he breathes out, his voice all raspy, filled with lust.
I turn towards the door, his shape all I can make out through the fog. He… he doesn’t have super eyes now, does he?
I swallow as he stands there, frozen. “Are you okay, O’Rec?” He lets out a muffled curse before he moves out of my sight.
When he reappears, he is much closer. I can see the shape of his horns and tails, which means…
“I will put your towel on the sink,” he says, sounding like he is struggling. “I also brought you clean clothes.”
“Okay, thank you.” I manage to respond. He turns around and walks away, but not without one last look over his shoulder, and I shiver. I have goosebumps all over my body and a strange feeling inside of me. Tears spring into my eyes again, making me curse myself.
I step out of the shower briskly and dry myself. The clean clothes lay neatly folded on the stool, where I left my dirty clothes. They’re a bit long, and I have to turn over the sleeves three times. They must be Lauren’s clothes. She is a giant compared to me.
Suddenly, I freeze—my old clothes. The transmitter is in my pocket. Fuck, fuckerdyfuck. Ananta is going to kill me if I don’t do what she says.
“O’Rec?” I say as I hastily emerge from the bathroom, panic lacing my voice. “Where did you put my old clothes?”
He turns from the corner of the room, where it looks like he is making a bed.
“I put them in the laundry bin, and the bots will clean them. Is something wrong with the clothes you are wearing now?”
The trust in his eyes as he looks at me makes my stomach knot with guilt. “There was something in the pocket I need.” I bite my lip and he interrupts me with a big smile.
“That strange little button! Yes, I found that. It is right over there at that table.” He points at a little table near the wall.
A sigh of relief hits me when I grab it and safely tuck it away in my hand. If only he knew what that strange little button could do…
I give him a tight smile. “It’s my lucky button, just some stupid superstition…”
He smiles, then returns to making the bed. For a minute, I’m frozen, awkwardly standing next to the wall. Should I just go to bed? Or wait until he is done?
My inability to make a choice is raising my heart rate. I close my eyes to prevent panic, but then I sense his calming presence.
“Breathe, Marra,” he says. “You can go to bed, and you do not have to wait for me.”
I open my eyes, and he stands next to me, his presence enveloping me without a single touch. I look up until our eyes meet.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He lifts his hand toward my cheek, hesitating just before our skin touches, a silent question lingering in his gaze. When I give a small nod, his thumb gently brushes against my cheek, soft and warm.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. Sleep and tomorrow will be better, and the day after that, and the day after that. I will make sure of that.”