Aimee
She pushed open the door to her apartment with one hand, holding the two medium-sized bags in the other.
“Well, that was a successful trip, I must say,” she said, eager to take another look at her prizes. “Don’t you think?”
Behind her Rhys turned sideways to make it in through the door, his hands, wrists, and arms all supporting straps to various bags filled with items.
“I miss the days when it was acceptable to hire someone to follow me around and carry all these things,” he moaned.
“Oh, don’t be such a whiner!” she said, pointing to the section of floor where he was to gently deposit her items.
“You spent everything we had. I gave you three bars’ worth of gold, and you spent it all,” he said, more awed than upset.
“I’ve never been able to go so buck-wild before,” she confessed, feeling embarrassed about the complete and utter lack of restraint she’d shown after he had handed her the three bars to get changed over into proper currency. “I’m sorry for spending it all.”
He waved it off. “I’m not overly concerned about the number. It was more the speed with which you spent it all. After all, you’ve seen what I’ve got.”
“Point of fact,” she said absently, pawing through a light-blue bag filled with tissue paper. “But I actually haven’t seen what you’ve got.”
She buried her head in the packages several seconds later as her words registered home, followed by a polite cough from Rhys. Aimee thanked her stars that he too clearly had no idea how to react to her sexual joke.
“Also,” she said, her head whipping around to meet his gaze as she changed the subject. “If you ever, and I mean ever tell any of my coworkers about this, I will find you, and make it very, very painful for you, right before I bury your ridiculously tight senior-citizen ass back under that mountain and steal all your gold. Got it?”
Rhys nodded tightly, pretending to take her threat very seriously. “I get it, though I don’t understand. What is the problem with telling them?”
She frowned. “Look at it all. It’s so girly. They can’t ever know that I’m actually super girly when I’m not around them.”
“Uh, why would they not know that?” he asked, bewildered.
She stood up and took off her winter jacket and gestured at herself. “Seriously? Look at me. I’m way too tall, I have no boobs, a small butt, and quads that could make an ice skater jealous. My shoulders are more square than a carpenter’s tool, and my hips definitely do not qualify as child-bearing. Tell me again what there is about me that screams ‘girly’?”
Aimee took a deep breath as she finished, trying to calm herself. Where the hell had that outburst come from, she wondered.
“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Rhys said roughly a few seconds later. “Not in the slightest. You are purposefully insulting yourself and not seeing what others see. Why is this?”
“Don’t try to tell me that women back in your age didn’t have issues with self-esteem, because I know that’s bullshit. I’m pretty sure at this stage of the game it’s ingrained in our DNA, a genetic trait that we pass down to others.”
Rhys didn’t reply right away, and she knew she was correct.
“I won’t deny that. But beautiful women have been misjudging themselves for as long as I’ve been around, and then some.” He looked up, his eyes focused elsewhere. “One of the must beautiful women I knew was actually a forge worker. She worked the bellows, most days. She would be covered in dirt and grime, and always wore cheap garb, because it would get ruined. Because of this, she thought she was ugly. Unattractive and unwanted by any man.”
Aimee watched him speak, wondering where the story was going.
“I told her one day after work that I thought she was beautiful, and she scoffed at me. ‘I’m not pretty. What are you, drunk?’ she said. ‘Look at me,’ she scolded. So I did. I told her what I saw.”
Rhys stepped forward, and her mouth went dry as his bright blue eyes refocused. On her.
“I told her I saw the beauty that she missed. Anyone gets used to something if they see it all the time. So they don’t see how height is a trait desired by some, especially those even taller.” He stood up straight as he took another step toward her. “They miss how their eyes twinkle and dance with laughter when they’re happy, or darken with thunder when a storm rolls in.” He came even closer. “They don’t see the respect others have for them, when they clearly put a lot of effort into the way they look. That their legs are long and shapely in many a desiring way.”
Aimee tried to swallow, but her throat was too constricted.
“Or how their long, golden-blonde hair catches the sun’s light as it dances while she walks.”
Rhys was right in front of her now, and he lifted a hand to her face. “Or how their smile can make a heart flutter.” He smiled at her, and suddenly she understood.
“Oh.” Her voice was little more than a squeak of noise, but it was the best she could manage.
“You looked amazing trying on those clothes,” he growled, his anger at her self-hatred showing through at last.
He reached into one bag and dragged out a mesh top. “I must admit, I have no idea how the hell things got so depraved when it came to clothing, but that doesn’t change the fact you looked fantastic in them.”
“You do remember that I wear something under this, don’t you?” She reached out and snagged the shirt away from him.
Rhys’s lips twitched as he fought back a smile. “Yes. But do you recall that for me seeing ankles is a big deal? Compared to that, this is scandalous for everyday wear. The only place you might see something like this is—” He chopped the sentence off as fast he could, but the look on his face indicated he was well aware it was too late.
“Oh, do go on,” she purred. “This ought to be good.”
“Please don’t make me say it,” he pleaded. “I spoke without thinking.”
“And this is your penance.” She crossed her arms, lifting her chin at him slightly.
When he did speak the words came out quickly and mumbled.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she said, acting like a cat who had just trapped a mouse, moving in slowly for the kill. “Could you repeat yourself?”
Rhys looked absolutely pained as he spoke again. “I said the only place you might see something like that is the whorehouse.”
“That’s what I thought you said.” She was just teasing, and he knew it, but it was fun just the same.
Their flirting had been increasing over the course of the day as they spent more time together. To the point that when they were done shopping—which only happened because the mall closed, the nerve!—she had driven him back to her place without thinking twice. Now that he was here, combined with the way he had touched her face earlier, Aimee was beginning to feel some tension between them.
“I think you’re going to be rather stunned by the general acceptance of nudity and sex these days.” She paused to think. “Perhaps not in this country—we’re full of notorious prudes—but the world has generally decided they are not wholly taboo topics anymore.”
Rhys winked. “I doubt that I will find this development, ah, hard, to deal with.”
She felt her cheeks flush as she giggled in response to his innuendo. That was the second time today he’d blatantly referenced something like that, and despite her best efforts, her curiosity was starting to get the better of her. After all, so much else about his body was superhuman. It was only natural that she would be curious about his, ah, stamina, wasn’t it?
“Good.”
“Does this mean that I should be prepared for you to start walking around naked?”
Aimee shook her head. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up on that happening anytime soon.”
All at once her insecurities came crashing back, and she turned away, burying herself in her prizes once more. It had all been a joke, hadn’t it? He was just teasing with her. It’s not like Rhys would actually want to see her naked. There was nothing feminine about her, except the body parts. None of the looks. She appreciated his compliments, but they were only there to help her feel better.
Even as she found herself drowning in self-doubt, the gentle touch of his fingers on her face came back to her. Deep down in the darkest depths of her mind, a flare of brilliant white hope flared.
After all, she’d only said it wouldn’t happen soon. The word “never” hadn’t been used.