Page 15 of Alien's Heart
“Agree to disagree.” She yanked the wrench out of his grasp, her entire body swaying with effort.
And the robe did not budge. The fluffy white cloth strained to contain her chest, and he wanted nothing more than for the robe to lose its battle.
Ruth cleared her throat.
Nox jerked his gaze away from her chest and back to her face. “I refuse to apologize for appreciating what’s in front of me.”
Now she blushed. Interesting.
Nox took the wrench from her and set it aside. He planted a hand on the wall next to her head. He leaned down, holding her gaze. This close he could observe the scattering of dark speckles that decorated the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks.
He ran a thumb over the spots. His tail swayed from side to side, thoroughly pleased.
“I like your markings,” he said.
“My freckles?”
“Yes.” He had failed to notice them before but now he wanted to trace a finger over the pattern to memorize them. He wanted to do a lot of things with Ruth. To Ruth. Mostly to her.
She licked her lips.
His tail rubbed against her bare leg.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
The tension between them vanished.
Her brows furrowed, as if surprised by the question. “Umm, no. Not yet.”
“Let’s eat. Then I’ll repair the water heater.”
“You can do that?”
Not especially, but he could watch a video and learn. It was a box on the wall that got hot. How difficult could it be?
Ruth
It turned out that repairing water heaters wasn’t that easy.
Not that Ruth was going to complain. She certainly didn’t know how to repair the appliance. The professor banged it on the side with a wrench, so she drew two conclusions. One, no one knew how to repair it. And two, the water heater could take abuse and still function. Sort of.
Breakfast was oatmeal and toast. Nox emptied his bowl like a starved man. Good. Ruth wasn’t a great cook, but she could manage simple things. Cooking was just so boring. She got distracted and wandered away to look up one thing or write down an idea, and the next thing she knew, the kitchen was filled with smoke. Fail. Oatmeal and toast, though, she could handle with minimal fire hazards.
Ruth offered to give Nox the grand tour of the homestead after breakfast, but he wanted to get on the water heater straight away. She pulled out a toolbox from a hall closet and left him to face down the finicky appliance.
She took the opportunity to check the monitors on the agripods and fields. Cameras and sensors weren’t as good as walking through the fields herself, but she didn’t quite trust Nox enough to leave him alone in the house. Not that there was anything to steal. If there was, the professor buried it under junk years ago. Good luck finding it.
Bangs and curses drifted out from the bathroom. They never sounded too urgent, so Ruth told herself that she didn’t need to check on Nox. As the banging continued, resisting that urge grew harder.
Fine. She’d go check on Nox. She was only human.
Nox sat on the floor, the water heater cover and innards spread around him, and the barn wuap in his lap. The wuap had all his attention as he scratched behind its ears and praised it for being a mighty but tiny hunter.
The cuteness was too much. Nox wore the professor’s clothes. Early that morning, since Nox didn’t have any luggage of his own, she left a stack of the professor’s old things. Even though Ruth had seen that blue and white striped tunic a hundred times before, she was not prepared for the way it hung on Nox, clinging to his shoulders and biceps and flowing down to his hips. She wanted to travel back in time and thank the professor for his good fashion sense.
The utter seriousness on his face as he spoke to the wuap? Adorable. She couldn’t stand it.
Also, if it weren’t obvious, she needed to keep herself busy or else she’d start acting super creepy.
