Instead of making him feel like he was lacking for getting them into this, she smiled and retorted with jokes that lightened his spirit. She didn't call him stupid or worthless. Or accuse him of condemning her to this.
She made him feel like the man he'd always wanted to be. Like maybe, just maybe, he had some degree of value and sense. That he was worth being lost with.
Pulling back, he buried his face in the crook of her neck so that he could smell the faint remnants of her perfume. Valerian had always been one of his favorite scents, and on her ...
His mouth watered.
Kateri held Ren close as she felt his heart pounding against her breasts. It'd been so long since she was close to a man. Not eleven thousand years by any means, but quite a few months. The one thing she and Fernando had shared was their philosophy that work came first, no matter what. That there were many discoveries yet to be made and papers to be written. Lectures to be given and kids to be encouraged. She'd never found a man who could respect that. One who would share her with her work schedule.
You're a geologist. What the hell do you have to work on at night and on weekends?
Research papers and class prep waited for no one, and writing took up a great deal of her time. For reasons she didn't understand, she seemed to get caught in strange time warps. She'd sit down and start working on a paper, then the next thing she knew, it would be five hours later and her phone would be buzzing or ringing with either a text or call about why she wasn't at home or wherever it was she was supposed to be. It was like the world stopped moving whenever she worked, and she would sit still for hours on end without getting up or sometimes even blinking.
But the simplest truth was that none of the men she'd dated had been worth her keeping up with the time to make sure she wasn't late meeting them. While they'd been fun to hang out with for a little while, they invariably started bitching about her schedule and weird beliefs and habits to the point she hit the door running to escape them. They were never her priority.
Ren was different.
His beliefs made hers seem normal. If she were to talk about raven mockers, instead of laughing or rolling his eyes, he most likely would be on a first-name basis with a few of them. And the moonstone he'd given her said that he understood her fascination with rocks and minerals. That he felt the power they held and knew what it meant to reach for one in the middle of a crisis. He got it.
Most of all, she found him fascinating. The things he knew ... the things he could do. She hadn't thought about work once while they'd been together.
Well, okay, granted they were running for their lives, but still ...
He held her attention completely. For him, she would gladly put her research aside. To make him smile a real smile, she would be late to class. How sick was that?
She barely knew him and yet ... she'd been with him for years. "Did you ever see visions of me?"
He pulled back to stare down at her. Cupping her jaw in his large hand, he teased her chin with his thumb. At first, she didn't think he'd answer. But after a brief pause, he gave a subtle nod.
"What did you see?"
Ren's first thought went to the images of her killing him. Now at least he understood why he never fought her for his life. But those weren't the only dreams of her he'd had. "I've seen you in a yellow dress with hummingbirds on it and a matching yellow sweater. You were a young teenager and had yellow ribbons in your hair. You were happy about something and you threw your arms around an older man."
A winsome smile curled her lips, reminding him of how she'd looked in his mind. "My sixteenth birthday. My grandmother made that dress for me. I hated it, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I wore it."
"And the man?"
"My stepfather. He adopted me right before my mother died. It's why my last name is Avani. He was from New Delhi and used to joke all the time about which of us was more Indian."
"What happened to him?"
"He died of cancer while I was in college."
"I'm so sorry."
She swallowed against the grief that choked her. She'd loved him so ... Every day, she missed him terribly. "Thank you. He was a good man. He married my mom when I was four and you'd have never known he wasn't my biological father."
"You were at a dance with him when you were older. You wore a short blue skirt and white blouse."
She nodded. "It was a father-daughter charity dance that was sponsored by his office."
He frowned at her. "Why did you burst out crying during one of the dances? Did he hurt your feelings?"
"Oh God no. He'd just been diagnosed with cancer and they started playing the Bob Carlisle song, 'Butterfly Kisses.'"
"I don't know it."
"It's a song about a woman and her father and-" She broke off into a sob.