29 – She Speaks Ruhi

Jaggar stopped completely. He couldn’t help it. Leilani had just spoken to him in ruhi. She’d said she was glad he was her mate. He hadn’t even realized he’d been telling her the same thing as they kissed, until her words came to him.

He pulled back from her, just a little bit, letting his hand move from the nape of her neck to her cheek. Two truths became apparent to her as he stared into her eyes and thought about what she’d said. The first was that he’d never dared to hope that he would get a mate. The second was that he’d been able to sense her fear of him since their first meeting in the forest but he hadn’t admitted it to himself. But now that her fear of him was gone… somehow, he could allow himself to think about it.

“You’re glad I’m your mate?” he said softly, barely daring to hope she would repeat it out loud. Could this sweet female in front of him really and truly accept who he was at his core? He was the beast. Could she really be good with that?

She flushed beautifully. “You heard me?”

Yeah, he told her in ruhi, smiling. The smile felt out of place on his face. He’d smiled more in the last few hours than he had since he’d joined the military. But Leilani gave him so many reasons to smile.

Oh! She said in his head and she let go of him to cover her mouth with her hands.

He pulled at her hands, his smile growing bigger until it felt goofy, so out of place he didn’t know what to do with it. Are you embarrassed?

“No,” she said out loud, but her face flushed again. “I’m just not used to this. I’m out of my element completely.”

He nodded, remembering who she was and what she’d been through. He had to go slow with her. He tightened down all his mental hatches, including the one on his cock, which had hardened in his pants. Take me to church, he repeated in the back of his mind, harshly, commanding his body to slow down, take a step back, to get itself under control. They would not be doing anything sexual until he was certain she was ready. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. It would not bother him if all they ever did was kiss.

“My fault,” he said, pulling away from her, trying to stand. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m moving too fast.”

She pulled at him, desperation moving into her expression, and he hated to see it. “You should have kissed me,” she whispered. “I wanted you to kiss me.”

Jaggar stopped moving. He let himself be pulled back down into a kneeling position. He fitted himself right up against his mate’s body again, her words melting him as surely as if they were water and he, salt. He would not deny her anything she wanted.

He leaned in and kissed her mouth again, keeping all of his sudden desire for her out of it, only exploring her mouth, her scent, her taste, the way the skin of her collarbone, her shoulders, and her soft neck felt under his fingers. This was about them getting to know each other. Not about sex. Not about sex at all. Take me to church, he repeated, willing his body to stay under the control of his mind. This was about her.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, skimming his hand across her neck, right where it met her hairline. She shivered under his touch, making his heart swell. He’d imagined this moment so many times as a teen, his first real kiss with his mate, but he’d never been able to conjure anything this good. It felt as right as anything he had ever felt in his life. He’d barely dared dream that he would ever find a mate who accepted him fully, the way that Leilani seemed to. If he was a different male, he would thank Rhen for her, but he wasn’t. He was him.

“Are we moving too quickly?” she said, stark fear in her eyes. Fear that he understood perfectly. She wanted this to be real, to be lasting, as much as he did. But neither of them knew how to make that happen.

He shook his head hard. “No way.” He grasped her hips and pulled her closer to him.

She stared at him, considered his words, her expression soft, and yielding, but then she dropped her eyes. “Even though I’m blind? And there’s something else you aren’t considering. How can we have a relationship outside of the meadow, out in the real world? My mind doesn’t work right, remember? I can’t even let you go without traveling through time or forgetting who I am…” She put a hand to her head. “I’ve got this… this thing in my brain, Jaggar, it’s ruining me.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, meaning it with every bone in his body. If he could never let her go again, then so be it.

She kissed him then, sealing them together with new passion. He almost lost himself to the urge to take her, to remove her clothes, to run his hands all over her body, to touch her everywhere there was to touch. He moved his hands off her, gripping the arms of the chair in order to keep himself still.

She touched him while they kissed, her hands roaming over his chest and his back and then down to his hips. Her breath came in short pants that made him think of-. The chair creaked as he gripped it harder. She couldn’t possibly be ready for this. He must be pushing her. He stopped kissing her with effort, drew back a bit, stared into her eyes. “I don’t want to move too fast.”

She nodded, but he thought he saw something that made no sense in her eyes: disappointment. He stood, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet, trying to get a handle on his feelings. “We should walk,” he said, his voice coming out rougher than he’d intended, his body overheating in its desire. He wrestled with it in a very different way than he was used to.

He pulled her to the door. “I’ll show you around,” he said, getting himself under control little by little.

She smiled at him and fell in step next to him as he pointed out offices and rooms and shared history with her.

They passed all of the police department offices, just walking, their hands clasped and swinging between them.

“I’m worried about Burton,” Leilani said.

“Me, too. We could check on him. He lives this way.” He motioned down the long dark tunnel. “I live this way, too.”

“Really? Down this tunnel? Can we walk there?”

“It’s almost three miles.”

“I don’t mind.” He could hear the smile in her voice and he smiled at it. He knew how she felt. Like there was nothing else they should be doing. Just this. Just being together.

They passed a dark off-shoot tunnel. She stared down it as they passed, then shivered.

“That one leads to Rhen’s body,” he said.

“She has a real body?”

“That’s the story. Some dangerous felen guard it, so don’t ever come down in the tunnels without m…” He trailed off when she stiffened, her hand tightening in his. Whoops. Of course she wouldn’t be coming down here without him.

After a few moments, she said, “Don’t you think it’s strange that there is a door that leads to the tunnels where Rhen’s body is, located inside Rhen’s meadow?”

He contemplated that for a few moments. “Yes,” he finally said. “It is strange. I want to see that door from the other side.”

You’re thinking like a KSRT officer again, his mind told him. Knock it off.

Knock it off. Right. None of that was his business anymore.

Fuck.

***

Leilani lost herself in the moment of simply walking, seeing, thinking, and feeling as they made their way down the relatively dark tunnel. The place felt more like home than she wanted to admit.

“Tell me about that place,” Jaggar said. “You lived there from when you were twelve until you were twenty-five?”

Her happiness dimmed, just a little. “Yes.”

“Was it awful?” he asked quickly.

“No, it wasn’t awful,” she said. “Most of the time. It was just boring, just bleak. You don’t have a future in a place like that and most of the time I couldn’t remember my name, much less think about getting out of there. It was just one endless day after another, all of them running together, mostly. I was able to read when I could dodge my medication or throw it up. I got to watch TV. They encouraged TV, even the news, so I was able to follow what was happening with the world a bit.”

He nodded. “Did you have… friends?”

“I did.” She smiled. “I had a few different roommates. My favorite was Dot. She was an older woman who truly believed every sitting president was turned into an alien when he put his hand on the bible to be sworn in. She kept mashing up seeds from her garden so they would look like chemical weapons and sending them to the White House. Her son committed her. She was super cool, though, and had the best stories about everything. She used to braid my hair for me.” Leilani touched her head, remembering how she’d felt mothered and loved when Dot would insist on brushing her hair one hundred strokes and then braid it according to her whims. It only happened when Dot was having a very good day, and so it hadn’t happened often.

She’d had other friends, too, even a few nurses. She told some of her stories, some funny ones, some sad ones, some boring ones that only served to show how quiet the place normally was. She specifically did not mention Joel, still shocked at Jaggar’s admission that he’d killed the man. Dangerous, but not to me, echoed through her mind.

Jaggar indicated a door up ahead. “Do you want to go to my place, or to Burton’s place?”

“Your place,” she said, feeling like she couldn’t get enough air all of a sudden. Jaggar’s home. Her mate’s home.

Would it be her home, too?