- Heidi -

Oh-kay. That's an answer as good as any, I guess. He plainly struggled with that, breathing and sighing deeply while he thought. But judging from Ar'ox and Jax'zan, if he thought I was his Mate, he would say so. Maybe he kind of wants me to be, but he also knows that I'm not? That's probably it.

Huh. I'm actually totally disappointed by that. Crushed, even. Fuck! I didn't want to develop feelings for my kidnapper!

If I'd been his Mate, I could understand the abduction. I wouldn't really blame a caveman who'd never seen a woman before for just taking someone he felt was his fated mate. It would be pretty romantic, really. He just couldn't help it. But now I can't be sure what he plans for me.

'Heidi is mine,' he said. But what does that mean, if it's not the Mate thing?

Dar'ax walks slowly around the edge of the clearing, probably looking for dangers. Or pretending to. I think he just wants to get away from me and my questions.

I chew on a crisp, juicy leaf, feeling the juice fill my mouth. It's not a bad substitute for a glass of water, and I'll show it to the girls when I get home.

If that ever happens. I don't like his talk about that Nusin tribe. If there's one thing the girls and I have learned about tribes here, it's that they're usually bad news.

Dar'ax has a lot of pain in him. Anyone could see it. He hasn't smiled once since I met him, much less laughed. Even when I was cavorting alone in the water he was looking at me with a stony face. That tribe he talks about – it has something to do with that. And I get the feeling he was not planning for me to be here at all.

Fine. But I'm not going to arrange my life around his whims. If he has no plans for me, then he better make some pretty good ones pretty damn fast or I'll have to escape again, despite the crazy risks. I may be as blind as a bat, and he may have first seen me when I was squatting over our pit, and I may have walked around naked all day, and I may have dangled over a branch with my naked ass in the air this morning, but I still have some pride left. And being dragged around aimlessly on a jurassic planet by a grumpy caveman, no matter how impressive and hot he is and regardless of how big his bulge is - that's where I draw the line.

I arrange the fire the way we used to do back at the cave, so that the firewood will feed it for as long as possible and keep predators away. Then I crawl into the hut and lie down. The night is balmy and warm, so the lack of a fur or blanket doesn't bother me that much. Dar'ax has placed soft moss on the ground, so it's not too uncomfortable and it smells fresh enough.

I lie still and seethe to myself for a while. So I'm not his Mate. Did I really want to be that? Wasn't I determined not to fall for my kidnapper?

But he's so great, too. The way he handles Gerk, the way he puts my safety above everything else and the way he makes sure I'm always well fed. And back there with the deadbites, I have a feeling he was preparing to die so that I could escape.

I want him to come into the hut so I can ask him more about his life and recent events, and I painstakingly prepare some questions, using my slowly expanding knowledge of cavemanese. If Dar'ax wasn't so damn quiet, I might have learned more of it, faster.

Let's see. What happened to your tribe? How did you tame Gerk? What are you going to do with me? Do you know how to Worship a woman?

Of course that last one I will only use if he really has some good answers to the other questions.

Or maybe even if he doesn't?

“Dammit!” I'm just a boiling mix of anger and anxiety and frustration and horniness. Because kidnapper or not, being around a male specimen like that for days has made the tingles almost permanent. Being naked all day hasn't helped, either.

Whatever. I've tried being nice to him and giving him a chance. When he gets in here now, I'll give him a piece of my mind. And then he can decide if he wants a pissed-off Earth girl to come along with him on whatever stupid errand he thinks he has.

I nod to myself in the darkness. That's what I'll do.

- - -

I wake up, and the tent is so bright it's obviously morning. I rub the sleep out of my eyes. The moss beside me is undisturbed. Dar'ax hasn't been in here at all.

I crawl to the opening and look out. Huh. Seems the landscape has changed completely. Where are all the trees and the grass? And the sky? Now all I can see is some kind of reddish cave.

I squint and rub my sleepy eyes, trying to bring my mind up to speed. Are those rocks? Triangular and yellow?

Then the smell hits me and I realize what I'm looking at: that's a giant, open mouth!

“Fuck!” I pull back so fast I fall on my butt in the tent, and then I scramble to pull up the branches at the other side so I can get out through the fur. I run fifty yards before I realize that I'm not being followed, and then I stop and turn around, keeping a solid tree between me and the creature with the mouth.

It's Gerk, of course. I recognize the steering pole going up his flank. He's just standing there, his giant head low to the ground in a way that looks as if he's relaxing.

Then he slowly raises his head and looks this way and that, before he lumbers slowly across the clearing to rub his side against a tree trunk as thick as one of those silos they have on farms. The branches at the treetop rustle mightily when Gerk leans into it, and I can hear the creaking from here.

I see no sign of Dar'ax, and while Gerk may never have threatened me in any way, he's still a freaking T. Rex and I'm going to keep my distance until the caveman returns.

I sit down on a rock, again reminded that I'm still very naked. I repeat the cavemanese questions to myself, but I'm not even through them the first time when Dar'ax saunters casually out of the jungle.

Now that he's here, I feel safer around Gerk, and I walk over to him, trying to seem just as nonchalant as him.

“Where you go?”

He unties a piece of dino skin that he's had tied around his neck and holds it up in front of me. It's my dress, the one I left by the river!

I slowly accept it, and for a moment I just stare as the pieces of information come together in my sluggish mind. “You go back to deadbites?”

“Yes.”

“On Gerk?”

“Gerk was here, to keep Heidi safe.”

“Oh.” Yeah, so, when someone leaves a freaking T. Rex to keep you safe, that's what you know it's a dangerous planet.

I process the whole thing with a mind that's still partly asleep. Then I feel my eyes narrowing. We rode on Gerk for hours yesterday. “You walk?”

“Yes.”

“But ... you walk all night? Alone?”

“Yes.”

“But the deadbites ...”

He draws his sword, and again the blade is wet with alien fluids. He looks at it thoughtfully, then rips a tuft of grass from the ground and wipes it. “Many of them were left. They did resist. But I was victorious, despite the darkness.”

He's been fighting a fucking swarm of deadbites in the pitch black of a cloudy night. Alone. After walking for hours. And knowing that he had equally far to walk back again.

“Just to get Heidi dress?” I demand. “Are you crazy?!”

“Not just to get your dress.” He puts his hand into a little pocket in his kilt, pulls out a little green package and gives it to me.

It's my glasses, carefully shined and folded together, wrapped in a soft leaf. They haven't been this clean since I came to this damn planet.

For a moment I just stand there and look at the old glasses in my hand while my face scrunches up and my eyes sting. I really needed these.

I throw myself around his neck with both arms. “You got my glasses. Oh, thank you!”

I sniffle and weep happy tears, unspeakably moved by his act, feeling his hard chest against my face and the manly scent in my nose. He puts his huge arms clumsily around me and squeezes while I let go some of the tension and the emotions that I've been bottling up around him. If feels real good, too, and he lets me bawl my eyes out for a good while without any signs of impatience. He may not be a talker, but it's starting to look like he's hard to beat when it comes to meaningful acts. And I once heard that actions speak louder than words.

I wipe my eyes and look up at him. “You know Heidi need these?”

He juts his chin out. “Your eyes don't look the same without them.”

“I guess they don't.” He didn't even know how much I need these things. He just likes the way I look with them. Stars, I could just kiss him, but another plan is forming in my mind.

Now that I have my glasses back, the day looks brighter and the jungle seems much more friendly. Even Gerk, still doing his mysterious dinosaur stuff at the other end of the clearing, now looks more harmless and goofy than huge and lethal. Weird how a little thing like this can turn everything on its head. I guess it's a glasses-wearer thing.

I keep my hand on Dar'ax's bulging chest and look up at him. Some other things are stirring, too. If this guy is a kidnapper, then he's the kindest, most considerate kidnapper there's ever been, on any planet. And he makes me want to do scandalous things.

I slide my hand around his torso, feeling the different texture of his yellow stripes, like rough suede. I know it's a kind of built-in armor these guys have, but that hasn't stopped him from acquiring all kinds of scars and cuts. I notice some fresh ones, too, curved wounds that look deep.

“Deadbites hurt Dar'ax?”

He shrugs. “Dar'ax hurt deadbites more.”

I point to a patch of clean grass. “Dar'ax is brave warrior. But Heidi is good for healing. Now brave warrior sit.”

He gazes at me levelly for three heartbeats, the yellow fire smouldering. It's the first time I tell him what to do, and it's obvious that he's not used to anything like that. This could go both ways.

Then he slowly sits down, probably curious about what I have in mind.

I can't see my panties anywhere, so I guess he didn't bring them. Which is just as well, really – I wasn't getting much use out of them. So I put on my dress, then run around the edge of the clearing, ripping leaves off branches. The girls and I have experimented a lot with plants and herbs on this planet, and some of them have medical properties that sometimes seem better than Earth pharmaceuticals.

I grind some of the leaves between two rocks until it's a green, fresh-smelling paste, and then I kneel beside him. “Heidi clean wounds, Dar'ax not ... umm ... infected.”

I apply the paste, enjoying the feel of his skin under my hands and the feeling that I'm doing something useful for him. The cuts close up nicely and the paste will disinfect them. Finally I apply another kind of leaf to each treated cut, and he ends up looking pretty colorful, with his tanned skin, yellow stripes and leafy green bandages.

Of course I can't help noticing the pretty major tent he's pitching in his loincloth slash kilt again. Maybe this time, I won't let it go to waste.

I scrape the green juices off my hands and innocently place my hand on his hard, ridged abdomen. It's the first time I feel that checkerboard pattern on anyone. I never dated bodybuilders. But I'm starting to see the appeal. The mix of softness and hardness, the skin pulled tight and smooth over the muscles, the sprinkling of manly hairs, the way some of the depressions in his stomach continue down beneath the fur, his covered manhood twitching visibly when I slide my hand further down, towards the edge of the very cavemanish loincloth ...

The breath catches in my throat and I realize that I have to be dripping wet. I'm tingling like crazy. I'm going to give in to my attraction, and right now it seems like the right thing to do and I don't care about anything else.

“I think you might like this.” I look him in the eye and unceremoniously slide my hand down under the fur and take hold of his cock. The whole caveman jerks at the touch, and I gasp when I feel the smooth, hot, living hardness in my hand. It has bulges and ridges and all kinds of features that I've never seen on any Earth man. Now I have no problem understanding that Emilia and Sophia are always so eager to get some privacy with their cavemen. If they're all like this, then ... well, then fuck it, I want some.

I slide my hand up and down the shaft, exploring it and enjoying the little sparks each newfound feature sends to my pussy. Just touching him with my hand does that, and it seems crazy to me. I realize that this guy turns me on just by existing, and he turns me on more than any college boy who's tried his damndest to get me off.

Dar'ax looks at me in silence, but his mouth is open in some kind of constant astonishment, and now there's definitely a glassy look to his crystal clear eyes. Yeah, he's enjoying this, too.

I tug impatiently at his kilt and pull down on it, and he lifts his hips to let it slide off.

And I sigh in delight. He has a large, veiny and incredibly alien cock. It's all ridges and bulbs and grooves and small protrusions, and if I were to design a sex toy, it would look just like that. And it would feel just like that, too – rock hard, but with a soft and smooth outer layer.

I jerk it slowly, using both hands so I can take around it. Yeah, he's girthy.

The huge, powerful caveman warrior who rides T. Rexes like it's nothing special sighs and groans at my movements and my touch, and I rejoice in the power I have over him right now. So far, he's been calling the shots all along. Now, I'm in control.

Hey, it's maybe a small thing, and maybe it won't last long, but to me, suddenly the balance of power has tilted more in my direction. I think I've just found my kidnapper's weak point.

Well, let's see how weak it is.