Page 58 of The Pregnancy Pact

When she obeyed, parting her lips, I gently slid my tongue inside, touching it to hers, coaxing, tempting. I didn’t know where this was supposed to end. Logically, one would have thought on the bed. On the floor. Against the wall. Right here in the chairs. After all, we were not untried youths, either of us. We were both well versed in matters of love and the joining of bodies.

And yet…

And yet, despite my body’s growing need for hers, I drew back. Slowly, I eased away, lessening the fervor of the kiss until it ended altogether. Ended with me resting my forehead against hers, breathing heavily, bringing myself back under control.

“Ellax…” she whispered, my name a question. “Is everything…okay?”

“Everything is well,” I replied quietly. “Everything is very well.”

To prove my words, I moved my lips to her forehead, pressing a kiss to her skin that was meant to reassure and comfort, rather than coax and tease.

“Everything is very well, Lorelai.”

“Okay.” To my astonishment, rather than draw away as soon as possible, she pressed closer, actually moving into my arms, which automatically opened to wrap around her shoulders and back, drawing her into my warmth.

“This feels nice,” she admitted, after standing there clasped against me for several long, peaceful, quiet minutes. “I can’t remember the last time anyone just held me.”

“Nor can I,” I admitted.

Her hair smelled sweet from the shower she’d had earlier on board the ship. It felt soft against my skin when I lowered my cheek to the top of her head.

“Ellax?”

“Yes?”

Her fingers toyed with my shirt, wrinkling the fabric in an almost nervous gesture, as she’d wrinkled the fabric of her skirts earlier. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” I replied instantly. In that moment, I was so captivated by this female that I would have handed her my entire planet without a second thought.

“Can we go to bed, but just…take tonight to rest and—and be close?” she asked quietly. “We have the rest of our lives for everything else. After all the craziness of the past few days, I’d kind of rather wait on the striptease.”

Her candor pulled a chuckle from me. I eased back enough to look down into her face.

“You know,” I replied, reaching up to smooth my hands over her hair and gently remove the pins that held it up. “I would not have thought so, yet I feel the same. Let’s go to bed, Lorelai. And rest. Lie next to one another and sleep. We’ve all the time in the world, as you said, for mating later.”

And that is what we did. But not before she gave me a rather sheepish look.

“I, uh, I don’t have anything to sleep in. I don’t think my belongings have arrived from the ship.”

“You could sleep in nothing,” I teased. “I would not mind.” Half-teased, because I certainly would not have been opposed to her sleeping in nothing.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said in a rather dry tone. “Do you have a shirt you could loan me?”

My mouth went as dry as the Sindin deserts, on the opposite side of the Horbeb mountain range, envisioning her sleeping in one of my shirts. It went even dryer to actually see it. I pulled a loose, light shirt from my drawer and tossed it to her. Catching it, she went into the bathroom. I heard water running. Soon, she emerged wearing nothing but the garment in question. I could scarcely swallow.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the time to drape her gown neatly over the back of a nearby chair. “This will work.”

She strode past me and stopped at the foot of the bed, gazing at it, her hands on her hips. “Which side?” she asked.

“Side?”

I must have sounded like a fool. I didn’t catch her meaning, being too busy staring at her long, shapely legs beneath the hem of my shirt, which didn’t quite reach mid-thigh. Her hands on her hips unintentionally displayed the shape of her ass, despite the looseness of the shirt. And the shirt being white, and somewhat see-through, I could catch tantalizing glimpses of her breasts. She didn’t appear to be wearing any supportive garments over them, either.

“Yes, which side of the bed do you usually sleep on?” she repeated, giving me a quizzical look. “Do you have a preference?”

Preference? I was quickly finding I had a preference for human females—or this one in particular. It was all I could do to force my focus to her question.

“I, uh, it does not matter,” I replied. Stars, I stammered like a teen male who had never seen an unclothed female before. “I have never lain the night through with anyone.”

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