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Ginger shot up at the sound of my voice. Her silky white hair fanned over her shoulders. Blant, there went my stupid loud voice, startling her again.
“Ugh, I didn’t mean to fall asleep in your bed.” She planted her face in her palms.
A warmth I was beginning to associate with her presence spread through me. But what in Sola’s blazes was she doing in my bed?
“Why are you here?” After a week, her scent had just started to fade from the cave, and now I’d be back to rolling up in Ginger-saturated blankets, waking from impossible dreams.
Horrified, her gaze caught mine as she lifted her head. “You don’t know why I’m here?” Then her eyes lingered on my chest and dropped lower and lower, freezing as her jaw dropped open.
“Nope”—she crawled backward on her elbows until she met the wall—“nuh-uh, no way! This is never going to work.”
Her gaze locked on my stiffening coil, and I cupped it with my hands, reaching for a long tunic. “Shhh…calm down,” I soothed. Was she afraid of my nudity? “I thought I was alone.” My right side throbbed as I pulled it over my head. Everything hurt. Weariness ate at me. I couldn’t think.
As if a light had switched on inside her, Ginger lurched toward me on the bouncy moss. “Why didn’t you say you were injured?” The blanket dropped, exposing pale legs. The curve of her bum under her silky pink underlayer drew me in like the flashing firebird’s tailfeathers called to its mate. She dipped a cloth into one of the trumpet-shaped flowers.
My stomach flipped as I watched her. “I’m fine.”
Her tiny fingers, the nails covered in chipped paint, wrapped around my wrist, sending the elephant charms jingling as she lowered me to the bed. Her brow furrowed, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and smoothing the space between her eyes with one finger.
“Quit being a goof.” She swatted my hand away from her forehead, but her lips had turned up when I touched her. She liked it.
I moaned when she guided a warm cloth over the long gouge on my head.
“Lay down.” She dragged the fabric over the length of my thigh, setting every nerve on fire as she pushed the edge of my tunic up. My coil stiffened, lifting the cloth further. No amount of thinking of hellsna and starbug guts would stop my erection now, so I succumbed. Ginger would have to deal with it.
Warm water combined with her soft touch lulled me into an almost drugged state. My eyelids slid shut, and when cool fingers massaged salve over my body, the tension from every sore muscle melted away.
“I didn’t think anything could harm you” was the last thing I heard before I drifted to sleep.
Much too soon, a loud screech jerked me awake. The dorat had one paw planted in the center of Ginger’s chest. Her fur glittered, each of her long hairs strobed with the colors of the rainbow.
“Get it off,” Ginger whisper-shouted, so close that her lips nearly brushed mine. Her hair drifted over my arm in a silken waterfall. My hand had found her belly during the night, and I shifted it to her hip, my soft coil hardening against her side.
A deep rumble stirred in my chest. Even if my body still ached, waking up with Ginger in my arms filled me with contentment. Below that satisfaction, bone-deep desire waited with bated breath.
“She won’t hurt you, Ginger. This dorat has claimed me, and she doesn’t show herself to many. You’re special.” I smoothed my hand down the dorat’s spine, and she strutted from Ginger’s hips to my chest, where she kneaded my pectoral muscles.
“Dorat…is that her name?” Ginger asked, more awed than scared now. Her eyes flicked between my chest and the dorat, as if equally captivated by both.
The dorat tossed its head and narrowed its eyes.
“No, that is her kind. She has no name.”
Color bled back into Ginger’s pale cheeks, flooding them with a pretty pink. “So, she’s your pet?”
The dorat jumped off my chest, snapped her tail in Ginger’s direction and camouflaged into the room’s background.
I laughed. The deep boom filled the small cave. “Dorat aren’t pets. They come and go as they please. This one has been an invaluable guardian this week. She has saved my ass multiple times.”
Ginger groaned and massaged a muscle spasm in her thigh before rubbing her eyes. Dark crescents shadowed them, and her cheeks appeared more hollowed. Her frailness angered me.
“Why aren’t you taking your medication?” She did a terrible job of taking care of herself. “Hasn’t Geo sent you to the medic?” I stood and slipped my last pair of ragged pants back on. Maybe the next runner to Yurstille could stop by the market and purchase a new pair.
Ginger’s glassy eyes lingered on my legs as I drew my pants up, and I couldn’t help but slow down and flex my thighs. I grunted when two hard points appeared beneath her thin shirt.
She tossed her head in the same way as the dorat. “What…? I am taking my meds.”
“Get dressed. You need to eat,” I growled, tearing my eyes away from her enticing mounds, dismissing the heat that built under my skin. The way her eyes roved over my body did things to me.
