“You’ve been dreaming about this?” My eyebrow arches.
“When I said you’re my every thought, I meant it.”
“When did you first begin dreaming about it?” I ask, warming to the subject.
“After I first saw you. My daydreams of you were nightmares,” he says.
“Do tell,” I say, all in for this conversation.
“I didn’t intend to smack you on your bottom—when you were pretending to be unconscious in the limousine on Earth,” he admits.
“Oh, no?” I asked him, suddenly not as tired as I was a second ago, feeling him caress my bottom now.
“I’d been next to you for hours with your perfume filling my nose, your hair tangling around your body—and then there were the sounds you made right before you became conscious—”
“The sounds I made?” My cheeks flood with color, trying to think of what sounds I could possibly make while I was unconscious.
“Breathy sounds—just like the ones you made a second ago when I was—”
“Got it.” I blush.
He peeks down at my face. “Are you blushing?”
“No!” I lie.
“You are blushing.” Bending down, he lifts my chin up so that he can give my lips a quick kiss. When I rest my head back against his chest, he continues, “And then, when you sat up and you called me a chester, I thought for sure that you could read my mind, or that everything I was thinking was written all over my face.”
“I had no idea you felt any attraction to me whatsoever,” I retort. “In fact, I thought you thought I was trash.”
He sobers immediately. “How could you think that? I thought you were the most remarkable person I’d ever met—surviving like you had, all by yourself—and you managed to escape us on the train. That never happens. We don’t lose prisoners.”
“Really?” I lift my face to see if he’s being serious.
“Yes, really.” He leans down and kisses me again, sucking on my bottom lip with a sensual growl that makes me feel it everywhere. “You mean you couldn’t tell that I was infatuated with you by the fact that I was holding your hand at every opportunity?”
“I thought you were making sure that I stayed with you.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing; my hand just kept seeking yours out on its own. Then you took my hand when we saw the Alameeda ships—” He sucks in his breath like his heart is being squeezed. “You were afraid the ships would see us. Do you remember?”
“Yes.” I’m fascinated by what he’s saying. I trace my fingertips over his abdominal muscles and watch as they tense.
Trey’s voice deepens. “You were wrapped in a blanket, but you held it to yourself so that your back was almost entirely bare. Your hair fell in waves down to here.” His hand moves now to caress the curving flesh below my back. “You were arguing with me about the direction we should take to avoid the Alameeda.”
“I wasn’t arguing. That was me suggesting we go the other way so no one would get caught and tortured.”
“You were inserting yourself into my heart was what you were doing. I never had dreams about anyone like the ones I’ve had about you. You are all I ever think about.”
“I am?”
“You and your stone heart.”
“It’s a paper heart now, like I told you before, and your name is written all over it.”
“I want it to be burned there permanently.”
“You brought me to the end of the Earth—then you made me jump off it with you. I can safely say that you stole me and my heart.”
“If it’s any consolation, you own mine,” he admits. “You should hear it beat when you’re near. My heart has a special rhythm for you.” He pulls me on top of him so that my hips straddle him. My hair runs over my shoulders and pools on his chest. His hand goes to my nape, pulling me down to meet the lust on his tongue.
“Show me this rhythm,” I murmur against his mouth. When he demonstrates the rhythm with his body, I cry out his name as my heart beats as one with his.
CHAPTER 11
STOLEN MOMENTS
What was that?” I ask, startling awake by the ground trembling.
“It was nothing,” Trey murmurs next to me. His voice is deeper; he must’ve fallen asleep too. It’s no wonder; he hasn’t slept much since we’ve been here.
“There’s something going on outside, Trey!” I hiss with alarm. “The ground is shaking.”
I rise from the bed, wrapping the sheet around me, taking it with me. I pass the high-backed chairs in front of the massive window wall. The smoky glass swirls around inside the panes, obscuring my view of the courtyard outside.
“How do you make this transparent?” I ask Trey over my shoulder.
“You don’t want to see outside right now, Kricket,” he says softly from the bed.
“Why not?” My alarm turns to deep-seated fear instantly. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
“It’ll scare you. I don’t want you to worry. I’ll take care of you. We’re going to remain safe. There’s a plan in place to move from this position. We just have to wait a few more parts until it is feasible to do so.”
“Is there a way to unsmoke the window so I can see what’s going on?”
“Yes,” Trey says reluctantly, sounding irritated that he isn’t able to lie to me, “but I don’t want you to see what’s out there.”
A part of me trusts him to know that I shouldn’t see it, but another part of me, the survivalist—the chameleon—has to know what’s happening—has to take it in—has to learn from it so that I can somehow avoid a similar fate in the future.
“Please let me see what’s going on.”
Trey climbs off the bed, his naked form a distraction from fear. He moves to the lavare, retrieving his clothes. When he returns, he has on black military-issue pants. He shrugs into a black shirt he normally wears under his combat gear. As he passes the closet, he ducks into it for a moment, coming out with a long, black robe. He brings it to me, holding it open.
“Won’t the person who owns that robe mind if I wear it?” I ask casually, but there is nothing casual about my question. It makes my stomach tighten.
“It’s Charisma’s and she wouldn’t mind—but it won’t matter anyway. She’s not coming back here,” he says grimly.