“You will be the death of me,” he murmured gravely, looking down at me again.
“Me?” I gave a wide-eyed look of innocence.
“I have some comfortable clothes you can sleep in. They’ll be big for you.” He gave me an unexpected, crooked smile that snuck in under my guard. It was so rare to see him smile. My heart warmed, and my lips curled, mirroring him.
“Thanks,” I said quietly. I still wanted to understand his behavior from earlier, get some feel for how he could go from one end of the spectrum to the other in so short a time, from enemy to love interest, but now wasn’t the time to ask.
Maybe when we were alone again we could talk.
I was likely going to get hurt in this, but there seemed to be a momentum building between us that was way beyond my control. Maybe the universe had a plan here, because I didn’t. There was nothing usual about this situation in the least, and all I could do was have faith that I could manipulate whatever hand of cards I was dealt. I’ve always been a survivor.
In for a penny...
Chapter Twelve
I’d expected to feel sore after everything I’d been through the last few days—much less the last few hours—but as I got out of bed, I felt surprisingly good. Restored. Plucky, even.
“Call out if you need anything,” Ryder had stated, leaving reluctantly. I’d gotten an eyeful of his lean hips and gorgeous backside as he walked out, and I’d felt like giving off a bawdy whistle. My world was feeling A-OK once again.
The sex kitten in me mocked me. See what a hot guy can do for you?
Shut up, I replied, then smirked because I was actually telling myself to shut up.
Besides, he wasn’t just any old hot guy, he was Ryder. I’d been around other good-looking guys before. I mean, c’mon, I worked in Hollywood. But they’d never put me in such a strangely confused, overly emotional, unreasonably lustful state of mind before.
My summation made me smile. I guess I was feeling better.
The floor-to-ceiling window overlooked the forest below. Sunlight slanted at an extremely low angle across the sky, letting me know it was early evening, evidence that I’d truly slept a chunk of the day away.
This time, seeing the green canopy of massive trees didn’t frighten me. Seems I was getting used to being there. If I stretched my imagination, I could even imagine being in a tropical place, maybe on vacation with Ryder in a rain forest back on Earth, just the two of us trying to get to know each other better.
That was a pretty far stretch, though. Curiosity got the best of me. Taking a moment to wander was too hard to resist. A big soft bed dominated the center of the room, with quilted covers making it ultrafluffy. I would kill to have a bed like that at home. It would be dangerous, of course, because I’d never want to get out of it. All I’d need would be a TV and someone to bring me food.
Like the rest of the dwelling, the walls and floor were the same vibrant blue polished stone. It was calming. I liked it. Various floating shelves were nailed into the walls, holding books and knickknacks, and there was a large, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf built into a chiseled-out wall nook in front of Ryder’s bed. Man, this guy really liked books. I found myself running fingers along the spines of the books, most of which were in foreign languages. I recognized ones in English and saw that others were in Spanish and French.
How many languages did he speak? And not just speak, I realized, but also read and—I assumed—write in? He must have had to study for hours and hours. How unexpected. I guessed I could see him turning all that intense focus on his studies. For all his hot maleness, he was a pretty serious guy, not a party guy. He wouldn’t have been the beer-bong-drinking, fraternity-pledge kind of guy on Earth.
One of the books that I did recognize, which totally stuck out because it was so different from the others in content and appearance, was a softcover edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Wasn’t that interesting?
Gently, I pulled the book free. It seemed an old copy. The pages were yellowed and slightly brittle. It was comforting to see something concrete that was from Earth. I couldn’t help carefully opening the book, which made something fall out of the pages and flutter to the floor. When I picked it up, I saw it was a palm-size picture of a beautiful young girl with dark hair, green eyes and an infectious smile.
Written on the inside front cover of the book was the name Asily Rose Langston. Wasn’t Langston his last name? A cold chill skated my spine when I figured this was likely a picture of his sister, the one who’d died, whom he was memorializing in one of her books. The book took on a sense of reverence. I could imagine a girl enjoying the beautiful romantic tale and maybe doing a little daydreaming of her own future Mr. Darcy. It made me ache to think of that girl gone in so harsh and painful a way.
Tears pricked my eyes.
After taking an extra moment to look at her picture, imagining the fear and pain she must have gone through in her death, I put the photograph back in the pages and replaced the book without damaging it.
The picture was a harsh reminder that this was no vacation. Asily Rose Langston had died. According to Cynthia, she’d been raped and killed in this life-and-death struggle between peoples. Today, again, I’d almost gotten killed. Gutted. As much as I thought I had nothing to do with what was going on here, somehow I seemed to have found myself in the middle of it all. And not only that, there was a feeling of rightness in it. I was serving my purpose.
Wait. Where had that thought come from?
Serving my purpose.
My memory felt as if a xylophone had pinged a true note, struck a nerve connected to a forgotten file of information. It wasn’t a new thought. It rolled off my brain so easily. The feeling that there was knowledge sitting just out of reach on the edges of my memory taunted me, and the more I tried to reach for it, the more it slipped away. Damn, but I was tired of feeling frustrated.
Not in the mood for analysis anymore, I shook it off.
Time to dress. No more poking around. Ryder was probably wondering what happened to me, at this point, and I was wondering how things were going to be different between the two of us, or if I even wanted them to be. Being objective was hard at the moment.
The clothing Ryder had found for me was, of course, extremely large. He’d provided me with a T-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants. The sweatpants only stayed up because I cranked down on the drawstring, tightening the waist before tying a feminine bow. The T-shirt was thin and ultrasoft. It smelled like him, and I know that, because I engaged in the purely girly activity of burying my face in it and taking a deep breath. I loved the way he smelled.
When I put the shirt on, it was a bit like a dress, so I loosely tied the bottom in a knot at my waist. It exposed some of my midriff, and I wondered if Ryder would find me sexy like this.
But if he did, what then? I felt an attack of nerves coming on at the thought. Flashbacks of embarrassing groping and disappointing conclusions popped up from experiences with my college boyfriend, and I had to wonder if I was just not sexual, which didn’t feel right because all I had to do was picture Ryder to get all hot and bothered. Hmm. Confusing.
My inner sex kitten batted her lashes and told me not to think about it so much, and given that I didn’t know how to think about all the sudden changes in my life, I decided to relax and see what happened. No way was I going to figure it all out now. I had to admit to feeling excited, though.
I wasn’t sure what the three-ring circus would have in store for me when I walked into the main rec room again, but I didn’t have long to wait. As I came down the hall, I heard a whispered, angry conversation between Nick and Cynthia in progress. It halted as soon as I made some loud, obvious noises, which consisted of me doing a bit of throat-clearing and scuffling my feet, coming down the hallway.