“Taylor.” A gentle caress over my arm was followed by a quick squeeze. Momentarily, I was distracted from my worries. “I’m getting a shower. I’m being called to the border.”
“You’re leaving?” I mumbled, blinking up at him blearily. He was looking down at me from behind the sofa. He’d taken his call in the other room and come back with his device still in hand.
“Pretty soon. I’m sorry about this. An emergency has come up. If you get up, I can make you some food, and we’ll have time to talk.”
“Okay.” But I really wanted to pull a pillow over my head. Wasn’t going to happen.
He left me alone on the sofa with the blanket still tucked around me, squinting into the light that was pouring through the large window. Pulling the blanket off my body, I realized my damned high heels were still on my feet. Muscles, stiff and sore, protested their movement, and it took a moment for me to fully come out from under the blanket and set my aching feet on the floor. I winced as I stood and put weight on my cramped feet.
Taking pity on myself, I unbuckled the heavy platforms and stepped down from them, appreciating the extra-soft, cushy floor covering that my feet sank into. I even took a few minutes to rub the balls of my feet, gritting my teeth with the pain of it. But before long, I had to face my reality.
The window called to me, and I went to look out at the valley of absurdly lush, overgrown trees, feeling like I was in an episode of Land of the Lost. Next I would expect a Sleestack to come after me.
A series of blaringly loud, hornlike caw-caws jump-started my heart just as several boat-sized birds in vibrant peacock colors smashed up through the tree canopy. They soared over the trees with crazy-enormous wingspans before disappearing one by one beneath the canopy once again. Awe inspiring. A Nat Geo moment.
And I was back to breathing rapidly, wondering what else could be out there. At least on Earth, I knew where the dangers were. In Africa, I would be aware of lions. In South America, I would be aware of panthers. In the deserts and mountains around California, I would be aware of mountain lions, bears and snakes. What was I supposed to be aware of here? Maybe those great big birds were actually carnivores. Who knew? I didn’t.
Most areas of the forest were so dense that it was impossible for my eyes to penetrate the canopy and see the forest floor. We were so high up! I looked left and right but didn’t see any kind of road or village. There was nothing that would even hint that we were near any form of civilization. Where were the people?
WTF! What am I supposed to do now?
The edge of a panic attack threatened, and I tried to just breathe my way through it. Ryder had my back here. He wasn’t going to let anything hurt me. I’d be back home soon.
It didn’t help that his arms looped around me from behind when I wasn’t expecting it. I jumped a mile high and almost swallowed my tongue. Okay. I needed a vacation after all this excitement. When the drama was over, Taylor wanted a trip to the Bahamas or something.
“Whoa.” He turned me around. “Still a little jumpy?”
I gave him a nonhumorous look. “I’m trying to keep it together,”
“Breathe.” He pulled me to his chest. It was bare and smelled heavenly. “Nothing’s going to hurt you here.”
This really did help me to back off the edge of the cliff and feel calm again.
My face nuzzled his chest. It began as a means of seeking comfort, but then my lips lightly touched his warm skin, and it felt so good and he smelled so good that I badly wanted to taste him, bite at him. I heard him groan as he heard my thoughts. His arms tightened around me. One of his hands lightly fisted the hair on the back of my neck and pulled me more firmly into the curve of his body. My breathing went shallow again, but for an entirely different reason.
Taylor...what’s happening?
I don’t know.
Can you feel it?
I don’t know what this is. Everything is so new to me.
You...affect me. He admitted this hesitantly, darkly.
“I’m not trying to.” I pulled back to look into his troubled face. I could see a shadow of vulnerability in his eyes that touched me. I wanted to reach out to him.
He frowned and stepped away from me. I can’t be distracted. It was the last thought I read from him before he put his shield up once again. Strangely, it pained me when he did that. The mood officially became more businesslike, a shutter coming down over his eyes.
“You’re okay?” His words became more formal. He leaned casually against the window.
“Cool as a cucumber” was my clever reply, though partly I wanted to see more of his vulnerable side. I was tired of being the only one with a visible, fragile underbelly. Reluctantly, I put up my own mental shield. It felt warm and intimate to have him in my mind, but it was a sure way to get hurt. That kind of feeling was addicting, but it wasn’t going to last, so why invite pain? Funny how quickly you could learn new habits.
Part of my daily ritual now was going to be the need to watch my mental exposure. I wondered briefly if there were laws here against mental public indecency?
“Hey, so what is it you keep calling me? There’s a word, and I kept meaning to ask if it is a word from your language? Lin’de?” I tested it softly.
He nodded.
“What does it mean?”
Was that a light flush spreading across his cheeks?
His eyes burned into mine. “It means...beauty.”
My smile spread across my face shyly. I could live with that. His name for me was Beauty. If I thought on it too long, it would make me get teary.
“You okay now?”
I did a quick internal schematics check. “I think I’m okay now.”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“Isn’t it though? What am I doing here, Ryder? I shouldn’t be here.” I shook my head helplessly, gesturing toward the vast jungle that was so beautifully framed below us. “I just...”
“What do you need? I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t know. A shower?” Maybe getting clean would help me feel human again, would help me get my head on straight, so I could start thinking my way through this problem.
“I can set that up for you.”
He smelled all spicy, like he’d just taken a shower with that good-smelling soap. It reminded me that I likely had raccoon eyes from the makeup I’d worn yesterday, and that probably my hair was half up and half down and sticking out all over the place. Damn, but I needed some makeup remover and a brush. Only Cynthia had ever seen me so unkempt before.
I was reaching new lows.
I turned to look out the window once again and took a deep breath. “So, are there like reptile-man people out there, like on Star Trek? Or maybe dinosaur-kangaroo hybrids with large sharp teeth made for ripping human flesh apart?”
He smirked. “Humans. No hybrids. But don’t expect to find exactly the same animal species here either. There are some that are similar—some feline creatures, some wolflike creatures—but also some extras. Some are safe, others aren’t, so don’t touch anything unless you know for sure it’s a friendly.”
“I’m not likely going to be here long enough for it to matter, I suppose,” I replied. I was saddened by the realization. I felt this connection, this mixing of our physical energies, as absurd as that seemed in so short a time. Maybe it was artificial and based on our series of life-and-death circumstances, but there you have it. I was beginning to care about him.
My eyes stared out the window as I contemplated my words.
We’d shared kisses, and he’d saved my life, but there was no way this was going to go anywhere. Right? I mean, talk about your long-distance relationships! We weren’t even in the same solar system. With some amusement, I figured I needed to stop my runaway thoughts, or I’d end up practicing the supergirly act of writing his last name after mine with silly hearts around our initials, or something else equally foolish.