he was alive. It did him no good, but maybe he was still part human. And that mattered to him.
She tilted her head and looked long at him for a minute, her eyes moving from his eyes, to his lips, staying there for a second and then over his jaw. It made him want to run a hand over his short beard, to make sure he didn’t have some peanut butter sticking to it. But he stayed still and let her study him. She seemed to like what she saw and he was curious, wanted to know her thoughts, but had no idea how to ask.
What do I look like to you? I was human once, but now I’m part animal. Which one do you see? And why aren’t you afraid?
He’d crawled.
He’d cried.
He’d eaten mud and bugs and dead grass when he was so starved he thought he’d die.
He’d begged.
He’d killed.
Could she tell? Could she see in his eyes how low he’d gone to survive? To live?
“I’m glad you have what you need,” she finally said, turning her head and looking at the food on his table. “I’ll leave this stuff anyway.” She looked up at him. “Is there anything that you do need? Matches? Or . . .” Her white teeth caught her bottom lip and slid over it, and it made his body tighten with want, his muscles filled with that heat that made him want to move. Toward her. “I don’t know.” She shrugged, letting out a small laugh.
He tried his best to ignore his body. “I do need matches, but I don’t have anything to trade.” He frowned. “And I know that’s not how things work in—”
“Oh, you don’t need to pay me in any way. I told you, you’ve already given me a gift. Let me repay you for your help. Your time.”
He watched her, not liking the idea of that, but not able to say why. He had always worked for the things he got. He didn’t know how to take without paying. The way she was looking at him though, with that something lighting her eyes and her lips pressed together like she wouldn’t breathe until he said yes. And he wanted to say yes, not only for the matches, but because he wanted her to come back. “Okay.”
She grinned, letting out that breath he knew she had been holding. “Great. What other foods do you like?”
He stared. He couldn’t remember. His baka had cooked for him. Meats and vegetables wrapped up in something he couldn’t remember the name for anymore. “Orange drink with bubbles,” he said, feeling shy, thinking he was probably saying it wrong.
But her eyes lit up. “Orange Crush. Yes, that is good. I’ll bring you some. What about bread? Do you like bread?” She smiled happily again and his stomach flipped, all thoughts of food disappearing. But she was looking at him waiting, so he closed his eyes, trying to remember bread. Bread. Yes, he’d liked that. It was soft, and he’d eaten it with peanut butter. “Yes.”
“Okay, great. I’ll bring you Orange Crush and bread and . . . oh, I’ll surprise you. How’s that?”
Lucas gave her a small not-knowing nod. She said the word surprise with a smile, but he didn’t like surprises. To him, surprises were not good. Surprises came out of the clear blue sky and knocked your head for a loop. But she was still smiling, so he’d trust that her surprise really did only mean food, nothing else.
Harper looked at the cans. “I can heat this up for us if you don’t mind sharing?”
He nodded quickly and she smiled again, using the little ring on the can to pull the top open. He had one pot that he got for her, and she started heating the chicken noodle soup on the top of his wood stove. Lucas watched her as she moved, his eyes moving from the curve of her backside as she bent over, to the female shape of her legs under her jeans, the straight line of her back. He loved the look of her, loved seeing all the ways a woman’s body was so different from his own. He wanted to see her naked, undress all the secrets hidden under her clothes, wanted to know what a woman’s skin felt like against his own. His male parts throbbed and he turned away from her, pretending to be busy moving the cans uselessly to the other side of the table.