Alaska. All my scattered memories of hiking and skiing and the mountains are suddenly making sense. My dad loved Alaska. Loved the independence of it and having a cabin deep in the woods and coming up for supplies when he had to. That’s where I’ve gotten all my knowledge from. Now I’m remembering that Dad didn’t like the Anchorage boyfriend because he just wanted sex from me.
Turns out Dad was right.
The memory makes me smile instead of frustrating me. I don’t mind that it’s a piecemeal sort of memory because I don’t need details. All I need to know is that I’ve got a lot more experience than Skarr when it comes to this sort of thing. I’m going to have to take the lead if I want him to know how to pleasure me, how to make me come. Luckily he’s eager to learn.
Once we’ve cleaned up, we snuggle under the furs by the fire again. I peek outside and see the snow isn’t going anywhere, so I sit in his lap, naked, his limbs curled around mine as we discuss everything and nothing in particular. We talk about the weather, and I tell him about Alaska, which was so beautiful in the summer and so unforgiving in the winter. I tell him a little about my father, and then I try to explain how skis work to an alien man who has never seen snow before landing here.
It goes about as well as you think.
“I still do not understand,” Skarr says in a grumpy voice, his arms around my waist and his chin on my shoulder. “Two oversized planks on my feet would slow me down, not speed me up.”
I’ve been laughing at his confusion for a while now, because he’s so delightfully clueless about skis. “I told you—they’re oiled. You glide over the top of the snow instead of sinking in. That’s how you go faster.”
He grunts. “Oil up anything and it will glide faster. I don’t see why it has to be a giant wooden plank strapped to my foot. You are pranking me.”
“I swear I’m not!”
He makes a sound that says he clearly doesn’t believe me, and it makes me laugh even harder. “I’ll show you when the weather gets a bit better. Hopefully the sun will come out and melt some of this snow away.”
“There are two suns,” Skarr reminds me, pressing a kiss to my bare shoulder and sending shivers of delight down my spine. “And if you think those puny things can melt anything you are crazy…which might explain why you want to strap wood to your feet and hike through the mountains.”
“Bone,” I remind him, giggling. “There’s not much wood here.”
“Bone. That’s even worse.”
“That’s for later, though,” I say, sliding my hands over his and linking our fingers. His are still a little cold, which means I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. “The first order once it’s warm enough to leave the hut is to go out and pick up more fuel. I know there’s enough for everyone in the supply tents, but I want to have a stash of our own for the really cold nights when we need to burn more.”
“Like last night?”
“Exactly.” I don’t tell him that I’m also thinking of ways to make the hut warmer, like lining the walls with stitched-together leather to make yet another layer to protect us from the outside. I’m also thinking thick rugs to cover the stone floors, and so many furs in bed that Skarr will be sleeping like the princess and the pea with twenty mattresses under her.
“I will help,” he says, pressing another kiss to my shoulder. “Even though it is beneath a gladiator of my caliber to shovel shit like a drudge, but if you do it, so will I.”
“That shit keeps you warm,” I remind him, tilting my head so he can keep kissing my neck, because it feels amazing. “The others aren’t going to give you a hard time for hanging out with the women, are they?”
A few of the gladiators—Valmir and Chalath namely—have balked at the thought of learning some tasks because they are “not warrior work.” I’m not sure how Skarr feels about it.
He shakes his head, his mouth trailing up to nibble on my ear. “They only say that because Valmir is frustrated with a female and Chalath is jealous that no one has resonated to him.”
“A female?” I ask. “Which female?”
Skarr shrugs. “The weak one with the dark mane.”
That could be literally anyone. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
“I don’t know. They all look the same to me because they are not you.” His tongue traces the curve of my ear. “Why do you taste so good, Vivi?”
“Mmm, you’re biased?” I know I am, because his mouth is making me crazy.
His hand slides down my belly, brushing his fingers over the curls between my thighs. “Can I touch you?”
I bite my lip and nod, leaning back against him. We’ve been casually touching all morning after our make-out session and my khui is humming so loud it feels feverish in my chest. I know this isn’t going to do anything but temporarily scratch the itch, but damn it’s fun.
Thinking about the khui also makes me think about resonance. “What do you think about babies, Skarr?”
With one finger, he circles my clit. Such a fast learner. I bite my lip to keep from moaning aloud. “I do not think about them at all, if I am being honest.”
“Well, resonance comes with babies.”
He slips a second finger down to my clit and then frames it between his digits, rubbing from both sides. “Ours would be the best baby ever, obviously.”
I press back against him, gasping as he teases me. It’s difficult to concentrate when he’s determined to make me come all over his fingers. “Yes…but…do you…have you…been around…babies…?”
“Never.”
His response is like a splash of cold water. Reluctantly, I lift his hand from my pussy so I can concentrate on my answers. I don’t want to be distracted. “We’ll need to figure out how we feel about babies before we move forward.”
Skarr immediately puts a hand to my breast, plucking at my nipple. “What is there to figure out? Resonance makes babies, does it not? There is no deciding anything.”
He’s both right and wrong. “Flor told me that the healer can stop resonance, but it doesn’t feel good. That would mean no baby and no link between us except for what we choose. Or if we decide to have the baby but we’re not ready to be parents, we can give our child to someone else to raise. It sounds callous, but if you’re not going to be a good parent and I’m not ready to be one, we might want to consider it.”
“Give our child away?” Skarr seems shocked at the suggestion.
“Only if we can’t hack it ourselves. I would rather the baby have two loving devoted parents instead of two crappy ones.”
“How do you feel about being a parent?” he asks. “You have not said.”
No, I haven’t, because I don’t want to influence him. He needs to be honest with how he feels about babies before I state how I feel one way or another. If I tell him I want a baby, he’ll declare that he does, too. If I say I don’t, I worry he’ll agree just as an attempt to please me.
I’m honestly not sure of my own mind right now. Two days ago I would have said I didn’t want resonance or a baby at all, but everything has changed so quickly. I’ve never given thought to being a parent, but I think about how cute Penny’s little girl Brenna was and how sweet her hair smelled. I need to think about babies seriously myself, too. Luckily the camp is full of them, so I can watch how the parents here handle raising their children. I can’t imagine that being a mother in this environment is a cake walk. Maybe it’ll be too much for me.
“I haven’t decided,” I answer him honestly. “I’ll let you know when I do.”
His hand creeps down my belly again. “If I am honest, I have not given much thought beyond mating.”