A thunk vibrated into my bones, and snapped me to wakefulness as though a hand wrapped around my stomach and hauled me upright. I pressed my palm to my tantruming heart. Light shone through the room. I blinked against the brightness. A solid shape hovered in front of me.

A solid hairy shape.

I blinked again.

A solid horned shape.

And this was no fucking mask.

I leaped back against the cave wall. Two unfocused red eyes stared back at me.

Fucking space monster.

Horned, giant, baby-elephant sized monster inside the cave.

“Do not draw attention, Leila.”

My escapist heart shuddered against my ribs.

“The Jababeast is deadlier than you could imagine.”

Those vacant eyes stared right at me. Attention already gotten. A row of jagged yellow teeth protruded over its sagging lips.

Wrong. I could imagine. I could imagine just fine.

I plunged my arm down the side of the mattress, closed my hand around the box, drew it out, flipped open the lid and seized the knife with shaking digits. The Jababeast jerked, sliming jowls flopping onto the bed. Hot strands of drool flicked onto my knees in lava like tentacles.

I screamed, and leaped away from those festering jaws. One curling horn nicked my thigh. A flash of pain streaked but I scrabbled over its head and plunged the knife to its hilt at the base of the monster’s skull.

Vibrant green liquid shot from the wound and spewed over my hands.

I yelled, then my body wrenched backward. A solid thud landed against my back. I jerked, kicking out behind me.

“Be easy, beast not harm wife.” Thor’s rich voice rumbled hot against my ear.

I froze. “There’s a monster in your cave.”

His grip loosened and I turned in his arms, practically climbing him like a tree.

“Jababeast is dead. Not hurting you.”

I remained holding onto him but glanced at the beast. Green blood oozed into its fur. “Then what the hell is it doing here?”

He set me down. I kept my knees up for an instant, before working up the nerve to set my feet so close to it.

Thor stepped aside, then stood beside the beast. “Wife, see you proof of valor?”

My gaze flicked between him and the creature.

He repeated his superhero stance, extending an arm. “Present you dreaded Jababeast, and claim first favor.”

Huh? My gaze slunk back to the giant horrible dead thing. “Are you serious?”

“Always speaking truth.” His brow wrinkled.

“I asked for clothes.” Clothes . Crazy barbarian. “And you scare the bejesus out of me with a dead monster.”

“Not intend scare.” He frowned and plucked the knife from the back of the Jababeast’s skull, then held it tentatively across his palms.

Oh, shit. Macca spoke about the knife like it was really valuable. Would there be trouble for taking it?

He looked up, his attention a live-wire of electricity streaming right at me. “Wife savage and brave.”

I met his gaze.

His eyes had gone the shade of browning butter, and warm sweet things. A flush of heat moved over me.

I moved to tuck back my hair but stopped at the sight of my alien-blood coated fingers. “I’m not helpless.”

“No, not helpless.” There was a rumbling to the sound of his voice. Unmistakable appreciation.

My face grew warmer.

Then his grip changed on the knife and he flipped it over. “Pelt for clothing. Will skin beast.”

“Thor—” I held up my filthy hands. “Don’t you dare skin that thing inside this cave.”

He shifted, turning fully to me, then his attention flicked across my face. “Not impressed gift?”

“I asked for clothes.” I wiped a palm on the blanket which was the only covering I’d had since arriving in his cave. “Underwear. A bra. A shirt. Pants. I’d even settle for a dress.”

His expression evened to such blankness for a moment I thought something happened to him. “Desire Crestonian coverings?” His voice too was even, less of its usual vibration.

Crestonian clothes? From what I’d seen and heard so far that’d be close enough, and a hellofalot better than naked. “Yes.”

He remained still. “Not win favor?”

I swallowed. There’d never been an intention to actually go through with any of this craziness. Date an alien? Of course not.

This was an escape plan.

A buy-some-time plan.

A get-the-hell-out-of-here plan.

That he’d not gotten this right, bought me more time. So why did I feel like exactly the worst person on this side of the universe?

My lip caught between my teeth. “No.”

He turned and grabbed the Jababeast, hauling it over his back in a move that made my breath catch. That thing must weigh a tonne. An actual tonne.

He carried the creature from the room. The grind of the door sounded.

A strange sensation traveled up my back, as the image of his reaction burned deeper into me. “I thought they couldn’t control their expressions, but they can, can’t they?”

“Baratican’s do not conceal emotions from their own.”

“From their own…” I shook my head, and walked toward the room with the spring. He hadn’t before with me, and now he did. “He’s losing trust in me.”

“You have a bargain with a Baratican, and to them bargains are sacred.”

Water bubbled in the shallow pool. Blue light danced off the cave walls. The twang of sulfur and minerals entered my lungs.

I stopped at the water’s edge. “I haven’t broken the bargain.”

“You must choose your words carefully and honor your deals exactly. Whether or not you intend to mate with him, he must always believe that his chance is fair.”

He’d brought me a dead monster. A dead monster. How was that fair?

I moved the blanket aside and knelt on a rock by the pool. “Was there some kind of special significance to his gift I wasn’t aware of?”

“The Jababeast is the deadliest creature in this world and spoken of in countless others. Its fur is prized for its protective and thermal properties—but mostly for its scarcity and immense difficulty to procure.”

I dipped my hands into the water and washed them of the slime, and let out a deep breath. That was impressive. I bathed my leg where the horn had nicked. He had won.

If this were real then he would win favor.

The sound of the water seemed to expand in my ears. Oh, god . I’d only tried to buy some time, but now the significance of everything I’d bargained for swelled. There was no way out of it. Unless I wanted to risk him throwing in his mammoth warrior sized towel, and doing this his way—I’d have to play fair.

Actually date an alien…

Day and night were abstract in the cave. The stalactites brightened then waned with light from the surface. The feeling of the sunlight was there in my muscles and bones during “day” and also eerily absent. Now darkness settled through the cave, and there was no choice but to surrender to it.

I sat against the cave wall on the bed, my chest somehow hollow and tight all at the same time—in the dark. My pulse shuddered. Not unlike the nights I’d spend counting guard footsteps.

I’d gone from one prison to another.

I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose. The air despite being inside a cave, was evergreen, a piney burst on each breath. Like this, I could almost imagine being in my favorite place on earth. Uncle Syds mountain cabin.

Except for the silence.

No chirping birds. No hooting owls. No singing crickets.

Nothing to signal there was anything else alive down here but the two of us and an occasional Jababeast.

My nose tingled. I tried to push back a spiral of thoughts.

What happened if I couldn’t find a way out of here?

Rock groaned.

I scooted straighter, heart thumping. He’d been gone so long.

I listened in the dark for his approach. “Thor?”

“Wife?”

I squealed, the response coming from so close. “Jesus, don’t you have footsteps?”

“Warrior keep movement harmonious.” His voice once again blasted from apparent nowhere.

My head snapped in the direction. Whatever that means. “Can you make light in here?”

A slow glow built across the room, until I could make out shapes, and then color. Huh, I need to find out how that worked.

“Enough? He asked from across the room. Boy, he really could move fast.

I adjusted the blanket across my knees. “Yeah.”

He’d removed his cloak and helmet, and his big back rippled.

“I’d like to talk about something with you.”

“Talking much.” He turned.

I gripped my knees. Oh, geez . No wonder mood lighting was a whole thing.

He crossed to me. Shade played off his skin, casting deeper grooves in magnificent muscle. The plains of his face grew sharper, his hair darker—slinking and dangerous, yet in half-light the mood shifted too.

And it was all I could do not to touch him.

“Don’t you like that?” I cleared my throat. “All the talking?”

“Like wife sharing thought.” He stopped by the bed. “But more words make less meaning.”

I laughed. “Men on earth sometimes think so too.”

He cut clean through the mood with the fold of his arms over his chest. “What have you to say?”

Yeah, space was humorless.

“Honestly, would you sit down and stop being so dramatic—” I folded my own arms. “Oh, mighty warrior.”

He took a chair from the table and set it in front of the bed, and sat. “Talking now.”

I stared at him. Yes, it was darker in here. But it wasn’t just the lighting changing him, he still wore that damn robotic expression, and now I knew what it meant, each moment he maintained it made my fingers twitch. “I can’t talk to you while you’re doing that.”

“Doing?” He didn’t even have the decency to shift a brow.

“Blocking me out of your face.” I pointed to my face on both sides. “I’m not doing that to you, see. I’m trying to be honest with you, so be fair.”

“Fair?” His face curled with a snarl, but at least it was something. “Not sure wife doing this.”

My heart gave a guilty-heavy flip.

“I know.” I took a deep breath. “Thor—” I released the breath. Dammit, even in space some things were still a bitter pill. “My reaction wasn’t fair. I apologize.”

His brow smoothed and his shoulders lowered.

“Your gift wasn’t what I expected, and so I didn’t appreciate that your gesture is indeed, extremely impressive.”

He watched me unmoving.

What was going on—was he still blocking me?

“I’m impressed, Thor.” My shoulders dropped.

His lashes flared, but he didn’t so much as smile. “Have won favor?”

“Yes, yes, you’ve won favor.” I held out my hands. “You get first base.”

First of the made-up bases, thank god.

He stared at my fingers, then fell to his knees on the ground in front of me.

What the…

He raised his hands slowly, fingers hovering over mine as though approaching a live mine, then took my hands in his, and went entirely still. His hands engulfed mine like thermal mittens. He stared at me, his expression so ridiculously, adorably, serious, it took physical effort to keep laughter in.

He blinked, his features tight with concentration. “Do you feel my intimacy, wife?”

I looked at him, great big warrior on his knees, and the laughter I fought evaporated. “Oh, you…”

This wasn’t fair.

I scooted off the bed and joined him on my knees on the floor, and turned my hands over to clasp his.

His lashes flared, and he looked at the grip of our hands and pulled. I tipped closer, and he used the momentum to haul me against him. Now something new glittered in his gaze, and it brought a shiver to my flesh. If hand holding was to be first base, then it was clear he was going to hold the absolute fuck out of my hands.

The strain of tilting my head to look at him tensed my neck, but there was a worse strain. The strain of the way he watched me.

Directly.

Without inhibition.

With no sense of comfortable or uncomfortable or appropriate or inappropriate.

He just looked at me. As though he never wanted to look anywhere else.

Until I couldn’t take any more, and dropped my forehead to his shoulder. He shifted us closer together, his hands still so firm. And I let myself rest against him.

I’m tired . It was the middle of the night… That’s why I sagged against him. It wasn’t because I wanted to lean into him…

His chest rose and fell against mine, cajoling my breaths into the same lulling rhythm. He dropped his face to the top of my head, and his chin moved against my hair.

I knew he sniffed me again. But didn’t move away. Didn’t turn my face into his skin the way I wanted to. I smelled him with my check resting on his shoulder. A deep masculine scent that seemed more infectious every time I encountered it.

A subtle vibration started in my fingers, then spread up my arms into my chest, and everywhere our bodies touched.

“Understanding your ritual now,” his voice, graveled with desire, flowed right against my ear.

I eased my hands free. “I think we’ve held hands long enough.”

Even though, for the first time in my entire adult life—I kind of understood hand holding too.