Page 23 of His Human to Learn

"I can worry about you," Tori says, her pale eyes staring up at me in a way that makes my beating feel like it will burst through my chest at any moment. "You're mine to worry about now."

My hands twitch at my sides, wishing to reach out and touch her. I turn my head to the side, hoping I can find Kal to ask if I am allowed to touch Tori if she is receptive.

Tonight is about whatever the human female is comfortable with, and my mate is more than comfortable enough withtouching. I do not find Kal in my quick glance, but I do see the human in charge. She gives me a reassuring smile and a thumbs up, which I have learned from the other humans means I have her blessing.

I need no more than that before I reach out and pull my mate flush against me until we are both inside the small square I have to stand in. Tori's laugh is a beautiful sound that bubbles up around us as she moves her arms around me and tries to hold me as tightly as I am holding her.

"You look so bad," she says, placing her chin against my chest and staring at me.

"You do not," I reply, loving how her cheeks seem to refresh their pink hue at my words. "You look very, very good."

Tori bites down on her lip before beaming up at me with one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Her beauty is always there, but it is even more pronounced when she is happy and smiling. Witnessing her look as stunning as she does makes me feel like I am one of the most blessed males, even more blessed when I remember that she will be all mine.

"I don't know how to call you a flirt." She shakes her head as she lets the words spill from her in her language.

For a moment, I think about the best time to make her aware of what I have been doing in my free time. I thought waiting until we were mated would make an excellent mating present. Right now, though, I cannot stop myself from replying to her.

"You just did,"I say, keeping my words quiet, just for my mate's ears.

The words don't sound as fluid as she speaks them, and they sound a little funny since I cannot move my lips in the same ways she can. I have been told I can be understood in English, which is good enough. I can see on Tori's face as she registers how I just spoke to her that it is more than enough.

"Can you?" She pushes away from me, a glassiness in her eyes that makes me fear she might be close to tears. Her throat moves to swallow, and she tilts her head. "Can you understand me?"

"Most of your words, yes. Some of them no."

Tori takes another step away from me, and I do not stop her. I worry for a moment that somehow I have overstepped, that she has not wanted me to learn her language, and that she does not find it as romantic as I want her to. I do not reach for her, but she does not keep me worrying for long.

She opens her mouth to say something but stops herself. Instead, she throws herself back against me. Her feet leave the floor so she can wrap them around me as she shimmies her way up my body. I stumble back at her enthusiasm and then wrap her in my arms, holding her so she does not have to work to keep herself wrapped around me. Her face is close to mine, her hands reaching up to grab my horns so she can hold me tight.

"Why?" she asks.

"You are mine." I pause for a moment, wishing both of my eyes were working so I could appreciate how close she is to me. "I want to know you. So I learned to know you."

Tori is crying now, but she does not move to wipe the tears from her eyes. Instead, she says something so beautiful to me, something that makes my beating quicken.

"I know you, Marron."

Her lips press against mine, and it takes everything in me not to mate her out here in front of everyone in the dining hall.

13

Tori

Ihave so many things I want to talk to Marron about. I want to tell him I know what happened.

Joll and his friends knocked Marron out when he was on his way to the mating ceremony, roughed him up while he was still unconscious, and then tied him to a tree outside the tribe's walls. Best case scenario, he was just supposed to miss the mating ceremony. Worst case, he could've died out there.

I'm not thinking about any of that anymore, though. Not when Marron talks to me in English, telling me he did it for me. No, when he tells me that, I can't do anything but climb up his body and press my lips against his. I don't care about the others around us. I don't care that I'm not entirely sure if this is within the rules. The only thing I care about is being as close to my male as I can.

"Can you leave the square?" I barely get the question out before I kiss him again, loving how he hisses against me andrattles our bodies. It's a much different sound than the one he made at Joll when he grabbed my arm, and that one was one of the sexiest things I'd ever heard.

Marron's fingers tighten where he's holding me. He's got handfuls of ass, and he's not hiding how much he's enjoying getting to support me.

"You lead." He manages to get out, telling me I can do whatever I want to him as long as I initiate it.

"I want you to sit," I speak to him in English and moan my pleasure at him understanding me as he moves toward one of the tables with a handful of chairs around it.

I expect him to grab one, pull it out, and sit down quickly. Instead, he shuffles my weight around to grab the back of one of the chairs and keep me in his arms. He pulls the chair back over to the little white square he was standing in and then turns the chair to face the wall before sitting with me in his lap.

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