Once free, she spun to face Jak’ri and the edge of the cliff.
Her pretty face lit with a smile. “Jak’ri! You’re here!”
He found it impossible not to smile in return. “I’m here.”
Brushing her hands together, she strode toward him. “I can’t believe I found this place again.” She wore the same clothing he’d seen her in before: blue trousers and a colorful shirt that hugged her slender form as she walked.
And the way she walked…
Feminine and alluring without being overtly sexual, he found it very appealing.
“I can’t either,” he responded belatedly, trying not to let his gaze linger overlong on her breasts and nicely rounded hips.
Her smile turned hesitant. “Is it… okay that I’m here?”
He tilted his head to one side. “What does okay mean?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. My Alliance Common isn’t what I’d like it to be yet. I was asking if it’s all right that I’m here or if you object to my presence.” She gestured toward the ocean and the wealth of nature that surrounded them. “I know this is your meditation place. At least, I think that’s what you called it.”
“It is,” he confirmed. “And I welcome your company, Ava. It’s good to see you again.”
Her smile stretched into a grin. “Truly?”
“Truly. Would you like to sit down?” He felt oddly weary, but didn’t want to admit it.
“Yes. Very much.”
She sat down facing the ocean, legs crossed.
Jak’ri lowered himself beside her. Bending his knees, he looped his arms around them and clasped his hands. “How did you come to be here?”
Her smile turned wistful. “I don’t know. I guess I just couldn’t stop thinking about this place. It’s so beautiful. So peaceful.” She glanced at him. “I feel safe here.”
Safe? Was someone or something making her feel unsafe?
She had been lost the last time he’d seen her, hadn’t she? She’d been looking for her friends.
He opened his mouth to ask if she’d found them, but she spoke first.
“I also hoped I would see you again.”
Whatever he’d meant to ask vanished as something warm unfurled in his chest. “You did?”
“Yes. You make me feel safe, too.” She sent him an impish grin. “Or maybe I was just hoping I’d see you without a shirt again.”
He laughed.
Pink crept into her cheeks as she covered her face. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
“I can’t either.” Lasaran women were not known for their boldness, and he kept forgetting she wasn’t Lasaran. “But I’m glad you did.”
Laughing, she dropped her hands. “I bet you are.”
Jak’ri reached up, gripped the back of his shirt at his nape, and dragged it over his head. Tossing it aside, he made a show of flexing his muscles. “How’s that?”
“Very nice,” she said with a grin, then assumed a comical look of wide-eyed awe. “Oooooh. So many muscles.”
Laughing, he looped his arms around his bent knees again. But he noticed her gaze strayed from his face and wandered down his body.
She tilted her head to one side. “Are those marks on your side scars? Or are they… um… I’m sorry. I don’t know the Alliance Common word for tattoos.”
“What are tattoos?”
“On Earth, some people use needles to inject ink beneath their skin to make permanent marks or images on it.” She motioned to his side over his ribcage where three lines marked his skin. “Yours are raised like our scars often are, but they’re so perfectly aligned that I thought maybe your tattoos were three dimensional to add texture or something.”
“They aren’t tattoos,” he told her, testing the word and wondering if she had marked her own body with such images.
“Oh. Then they’re scars?” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. Was it rude to ask you about them?”
“No. It wasn’t rude. And they aren’t scars either.”
“Oh.”
He could tell she wanted to ask but feared offending him. “They’re gills.”
She stared at him a long moment without blinking. “I’m sorry. I think my translator didn’t get that one right. They’re what?”
“They’re gills.”
“Like the kind fish have?”
“Yes.” He was going to assume by her stunned expression that her people didn’t have them.
Her eyes grew steadily wider. “Gills that let you breathe underwater?”
“Yes.”
Her brown eyes began to sparkle. “So you can just stay underwater indefinitely?”
“Yes.”
Grinning big, she reached over and gave his shoulder a friendly shove. “No freaking way!”
Chuckling, he managed to keep from toppling over. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I can’t believe it! I am so jealous!” she exclaimed, her face bright with delight.
“I’m guessing you don’t have gills?”
“No. Can I touch them?” Eyes widening, she covered her mouth. “I did not just say that. I’m so sorry. I’m just new to the whole meeting aliens thing and my excitement and curiosity sometimes make me blurt out things I normally wouldn’t.”
He assumed a look of bafflement. “So you don’t normally ask men if you can touch them?”
Laughing, she gave him another shove. “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”
He grinned. “I do. And yes, you may touch them.” He kept his arms looped around his bent legs so his gills remained unconcealed.
Rising onto her knees, Ava scooted closer and reached toward his side.
Jak’ri found himself holding his breath in anticipation of her touch.
Her fingers brushed his flesh, so light it almost tickled.
“You don’t have to be tentative,” he told her.
A look of amazement fell over her pretty face as she increased the pressure, sliding her fingers along his flesh and tracing each gill. “They feel like scars.”
His skin tingled as she stroked him. “Do you have scars?” he asked, giving in to his own curiosity.
Nodding, she sat on her shapely bottom, drew her knees toward her chest, and reached down to tug one trouser leg up. A network of white scars crisscrossed one ankle.
Jak’ri reached out and touched them. As she’d said, they were raised, the skin between and around them soft beneath his fingers. “How did you get them?”
“I was swimming too close to a reef and a wave crashed over me and drove me down into it. My foot got caught, and I cut my ankle up when I yanked it out.”
Cuts deep enough to leave scars like this would’ve wept enough blood to attract dangerous predators in the oceans of Purvel. Had they done the same wherever this happened? “You swim?”
“Oh yes. I love to swim, so I really envy your ability to breathe underwater.” Returning her attention to his gills, she reached out and touched them again. “They look and feel as if they’re sealed shut. Do they do that when you’re out of the water?”