Page 53 of A Lion's Heart
CHAPTER 13
The moment he entered his room Decan knew he wasn’t alone.
The pear scented candles on the dresser, the nightstand and the bookshelf was sort of a giveaway. But it wasn’t the only one.
She was here. Her scent—their scent—was stronger than the candles and he eagerly stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. The room seemed to be full of her and not just by aroma. Decan actually felt as if the cold and unfamiliar room that he’d been assigned for his stay was somehow warmer now. He knew it was silly, just as much as the pain in his shoulders had ceased the second he’d opened the door. Still, it was no less true.
“What’s this?” he asked when she stepped out of the bathroom.
She looked better than Kyss and all her efforts to be sexy and alluring and she was only wearing shorts and a tank top. A very sheer red tank top that allowed him to see her black lace bra without applying any heightened senses.
“I thought I’d bring dinner to you,” she said. “You know, since you obviously have something against the dining hall here.”
He didn’t have anything against the dining hall. But he had tried to convince himself that the pain in his shoulders was because he hadn’t worked out in the last few days. He needed to work out and then his muscles wouldn’t feel so tense. It had worked, hadn’t it? His muscles weren’t feeling tense any longer.
And he was no longer thinking about the gym.
“I wasn’t hungry,” he told her when she continued to stare expectantly at him.
“Well, I am,” she said and moved to the bed where she’d spread a blue blanket over the plain white sheets.
A brown wicker basket sat in the center of the blanket. She climbed onto the bed on her knees and reached inside of it to take things out—napkins, paper plates, utensils and food. Sandwiches, chips, drinks. Decan walked closer to the bed.
“I was told we should have a date,” she talked while she worked. “That’s what normal…I mean humans, do right? They go out on dates and then talk about stuff.”
“Stuff?” he asked and rubbed a hand down the back of his head.
She looked up at him, smiled and then shrugged. “Yes. Stuff. I tell you about my life. You tell me about yours.”
“You’re the daughter of the Assembly Leader and a Topétenia shifter. Your mother is a beautiful and compassionate leader. Your father is a deadly black jaguar who leads with conviction. You like to sneak above ground and run wild through the forest. Your cat is as breathtaking as you are,” he said. “Is there something else I should know?”
“Ah,” she said and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Nisa smiled again and Decan resisted the urge to climb onto that bed, push all the food to the floor and strip her. After the stripping there would be moaning, and clawing, and yes, more pleasure than he’d ever known.
“But what about you?” she asked. “All I know about you is that you were ten years old when your parents left you above ground to go to school. You have two sisters and you grew up with Gold.”
Decan shrugged. “That’s all there is to know.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “But let’s eat first.”
Decan was hungry, but it wasn’t for food. The fact that he could see all that she’d gone through what she called a “date”, said it was important to her. That made it important to him. Besides, it would be a lot easier for him to talk to her about which direction her work for the Assembly should go in next.
“You were in the military which is a group of soldiers fighting to defend its country, but you do not particularly care for working with a team,” she said after they’d both finished a whole sandwich.
She was sitting on one side of the huge bed and he was on the other.
“I’m not adverse to teams,” he told her. “I’ve just found that it works out better when they’re all working toward the same goal.”
“Equality for all,” she said. “Isn’t that what we should be working toward?”
It sounded good, Decan thought. It also sounded a little naïve, all things considered. But a big part of him wished for what Nisa had just said, if for nothing more than to make her happy. When had that begun to make a difference for him? A long time ago, Decan admitted. The nights when he decided that it was better to follow her above ground so that she could have her run instead of telling her father that she was sneaking out.
“I’m glad you brought that up,” he told her. “How soon do you think you’ll have the new computer system up and running here in the Central Zone?”
Changing the subject seemed like the right thing to do. Until she blinked and looked over to him with eyes Decan had never seen before. There was disappointment in the brown orbs. Undeniable and packing more of a punch than if she’d physically assaulted him. He wanted to kick himself for not giving her the type of date she’d wanted, for just a little bit longer.
“I’ll be working on it for the next couple of days. Since my dad gave the order for all zones to migrate to the new system, we were able to have the groundwork installed throughout the last few months. X did the traveling to oversee the initial process,” she said without skipping a beat.
