Alien, Mine by Sandra Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

breath puffed against her neck.
    He must have turned toward her.
    She opened her eyes and stared into his. Slowly, awareness sank in. Her hands were still buried in his shirt, her fingers splayed over his warm chest.
    And she was no longer restrained.
    She whipped her hands from him like they’d been scorched. Trembling with trepidation and arousal, she stepped back, battling to bring her too-fast breathing under control. Mhartak turned away. The straight line of his spine screamed rigid self-control.
    His shoulders rose and fell to huge breaths.
    She stared at the back of his head and wondered if she should be running like hell. If the amount of swelling in those cranial ridges was any indication of his anger, he was furious. Hell and damnation, she’d get herself killed arousing him to that level of high emotion. Why did her mind and body respond like this to him, leading to a regrettable lack of control?
    Because he rescued me?
    Maybe, but that single action couldn’t possibly account for the complex feelings spinning in chaotic free-fall within her.
    He moved, facing her once more.
    Shit, here it comes.
    She balanced her body on the balls of her feet, ready for flight.
    “Won’t you sit for a while, tell me of Earth?” His usually smooth voice sounded as though it came from the depths of a blazing forge.
    Gaping at him, she stood there a shaking mess from arousal and fear, and he wanted to talk of her home?
    “Earth?” she squeaked.
    He nodded, the picture of relaxation. “Yes.”
    You’re not about to tear me limb from limb?
    His unruffled gaze continued to question her. She rallied her wits. Okay, she could do this—from a distance. Steady, controlled effort took her to a rock a few feet away. She perched on the edge and ran clammy hands up and down the material covering her thighs. She couldn’t meet his gaze and settled for focusing on the insignia emblazoned on his shirt. The clenched tightness of his interlaced hands, resting in his lap, caused a wave of unease through her tense body. She swallowed.
    He’s not so calm as he wishes to portray.
    “What do you want to know?”
    His wide shoulders lifted. “Everything.”
    Everything? “Right. Everything. Well, um, about seventy per cent of Earth is covered by water and approximately thirty per cent of the land mass by forest . . .”
    She spoke on for a while, surprising herself with the amount of knowledge she could recall of her home, especially of flora and fauna. Her body relaxed as the threat of imminent peril receded. Mhartak’s queries encouraged her to speak of family and her breath hitched in a rough knot in her chest.
    She admitted to struggling constantly with the depth of her loss, that the despair she fought everyday felt like a toxic douche in her stomach. She acknowledged how much it hurt to accept the knowledge that the likelihood of ever seeing her family again was less than zero and that she never ceased to convince herself they were alive and well. His sincere commiseration over the brutal parting from her family unaccountably comforted her.
    He turned their talk to siblings and she laughed with him on antics they both admitted to perpetrating on brothers. She told him of her brothers’ chagrin, after their father taught them all how to fire a rifle, that they could never beat her in a shooting competition. It seemed obvious to her that Mhartak missed his brother, yet some soulful undercurrent in his voice hinted that a reunion had about as much chance of success as a canary surviving a cat convention. She questioned him about it and when he dismissed her concern with some offhand comment regarding a misunderstanding and growing apart, she felt cheated. After all she’d bared her soul.
    She caught the quick glance he speared at his timepiece and stood, offering apologies for keeping him. He rose leisurely and, casting one last glance at the sky, assured her she had done no such thing. Professing how much he loved watching sunrise