She deflates, her hand dropping back down. “Oh. Right. No cuddling in bed all night, I get it.”
I frown at her. “No cuddling in bed at all. We will not be joining. I have boundaries.”
Now it’s Isla’s turn to frown. “Then what the heck will we be doing?”
I open my mouth to speak but then close it. What do I want to happen tonight? Would I love to lay with Isla? Without question. But once she enjoys me, she could walk away. I want her so thoroughly attached to me that, even after we consummate our attraction, she feels as bound to me as I do to her.
A yearning glance around to the other human-and-Rakhii couples, all happily joined, proves humans are capable of making such binding commitments. And Isla shared that she’d like to explore the possibility of having a relationship with me.
I meet Isla’s stare. “I want you to thoroughly desire me.”
“Done,” she says almost before I can finish speaking.
“In a permanent sense,” I clarify.
“I’m all for commitment. And wow, I don’t know what to make of this proposed date night.” She smiles to herself and picks up the wrench that’s beside my smarting tail. “We’ve taken everything slow and backwards, getting to know each other before the sex. It’s so wonderfully unconventional.”
“I’ve tried building a relationship in the reverse. It didn’t work,” I tell her softer than I mean to say the words.
To my surprise, Isla’s gaze softens. Rather than attempting to change my mind on the topic of early consummation, she simply shrugs. “We’ll go slow.” She twines her two firstmost fingers until they’re braided, folding down her other fingers so that the crossed ones stand out, and then she puts her hand behind her back.
I eye her suspiciously, smoke puffing between us. “Slow. You? I'm beginning to think you don't know the meaning of the word, female. You're a whirlwind. You're… chaos.”
Something Isla confided to me early on comes back to me now. ‘Most fun I’d ever had to that point, I’d realize much later. I didn’t know it then because when you’re in the middle of the chaos you rarely enjoy it.’
I thought her statement true then. But right in this moment, wrapped right up in it—I still know I enjoy Isla’s brand of playful mayhem. She is quite simply the most fun I’ve ever had.
CHAPTER 32
ISLA
The end of the work day has me dancing up to Bash. He’s been overseeing a group of stonecutters for hours, and it was making him grumpy. Some were Rakhii, some hobs. All of them have stonework-roughened hands that have clearly never seen a bottle of Nivea with shea butter. The guys do great work, but apparently Bash gets stressed out during the quality-check process. He had a pair of calipers squeezed in one fist and a lengthy chart full of Gryfala-given specifications in his other.
Thanks to the shadow cast by the wall, the stonecutters did half their shift in the shade. The rest of the day though, they were under the hot sun, which they handled well—but God help the alien who asked Bash if he could be excused to go to the bathroom.
“You ready to let your captives go?” I ask sweetly.
Bash sends me a dark look. His stonecutters scramble while his attention is off of them, and he glances back to find them gone. He turns a glower on me.
“What? It was time for them to be set free.” I wave at the exodus happening up the quarry steps and at the Narwari ramps. “Everyone else is leaving for the day. And besides.” I smile at him, huge. “We’ve got a date.”
“No joining,” he warns me at the same time he sends me a hot (and bothered) look. He sets his calipers and specs chart on a work table.
I follow him, and he eyes me mistrustfully.
“How about a kiss?” I tease, lifting up on my toes and raising my face up as close to his as I can. “Are my lips pale?” I smile at him.
His eyes narrow—on my mouth. “No.” His throat scales stretch as he swallows. “I don’t trust myself to kiss you now without taking all of you.”
OKAY! “All right,” I say airily and drop back down til the heels of my work boots touch rock floor. “Maybe I’ll get lucky at the end of this date.” Abruptly, I’m being backed right into the wall. My eyes fly up to his in shock.