He chuckled. “I’m sure you do,” he agreed. “But not all of you. Some part of you wants me to do this. Mm, feel how it wants me to do this!” He showed her his teeth and she flinched and looked away. “Now, I ask you. Is this the work of a man who fucks men?”

She shook her head, her jaw tight.

Kane stroked at her, tickling at that tender place of pleasure. He watched, smiling thinly, as she fought not to feel…fought and failed. She mewled once, her face twisting, and came, writhing slow on his hand. He kept her high, prolonging her climax and her misery, and finally took his hand away and let her slump against the side of the car.

He wiped himself clean on her skirt and gave her hip a pat. “Does that settle your mind, Raven?”

She nodded, her eyes shut tight.

“Good. I don’t usually bother to enlighten the humans around me on the subject of my sexual preferences. You’re lucky I like you so much.” He cast an eye upwards, measuring the hours left in the day. “Enough talk, Raven. Let’s get moving.”

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Chapter Fourteen

Daria came up slowly out of sleep, which was not her customary way of wakening. Usually, she had the covers thrown back and was halfway to the shower less than a minute after her eyes snapped open, but not today. Today, it was a slow, rolling catlike stretch that brought her almost writhing through her tangled sheets, feeling sleepy and sexy and very relaxed. She could remember nothing of her dreams, but there was a warm glow throughout her entire body. She ran her hands lazily down her breasts, over her belly and between her thighs. Her panties were sopping. It must have been a good dream.

She rolled over and fumbled with the little clock by her bed until she had turned it toward her. 9:47. Christ. Her alien was probably starving.

Assuming he was still here.

She closed her eyes, all her good feelings gone in the blink of an eye…or the slap of a hand. She sat up, feeling sick and sad and angry with herself, and then kicked off her sheets and stared at the wall. On the other side (well, with a closet and a bathroom in the way), was the den where Tagen might still be sleeping. Maybe with her handprint still on his face. She couldn’t believe she’d hit him. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t hit her back.

Daria got up, slid into a t-shirt and got an armload of clean clothes for after her shower. There was a damp towel hanging on the rod here, but not too damp. He’d been up in the night. She put it in the hamper and fetched out a clean one for herself, and after a moment’s thought, another clean one for him. Having another person in the house changed so many little things in so many unexpected places.

Clean, dried, hair and teeth brushed, dressed. Still no sound from the den. He might already be downstairs.

She did not see Tagen in his customary place at the table. She did see four glasses beside the sink, as well as two empty ice cube trays and an empty carton of orange juice, one she hadn’t even had the chance to taste. She cleaned this up, looking awkwardly at the ceiling, listening for him. She heard nothing.

She brought in the paper, fed the cat, sat and read the news front page to last (even the sports section). When she was done, she found she could not remember anything she had just read. She worked on the daily crossword for a bit, in pen, to punish herself, and eventually inked herself into a corner of dismal failure. Scraping the entire paper into a pile, Daria rose and set about making breakfast. A good breakfast.

Over the sounds of sausage sputtering, her ears at last detected a creaking of quiet feet in the room that Tagen had claimed, but he did not appear. Daria loaded two plates with sausage, eggs, and French toast, tossed some syrup and oranges into a bag along with a carton of milk, and carried the whole mess upstairs.

She hovered outside his door, listening to him listen to her, and finally cleared her throat and ventured, “Knock knock.”

“Good morning.”

Was it her imagination or did he hesitate before answering her?

“Can I come in? I brought food.” She chewed her lip as he met that with silence. “Are you still mad at me?”

“Some.”

Honesty could be a harsh thing. Daria felt her heart sinking and her eyes sting. She started to lean over and set his plate on the floor, but heard his footsteps a short instant before his door opened.

Daria straightened, but he still towered over her, one hand gripping the door and the other flat on the wall. He seemed to fill her field of vision, to overflow it, all broad, smooth chest and rippling musculature, narrowing down into the waist of his dark pants. His black hair was limp and damp, and plastered to his body in web-thin strands. His feet were bare, the claws digging at the carpet as if he struggled for balance. He was glowing with a thin sheen of sweat already; she could smell it in the air, a smell of heady, mineral musk.

He looked awful.

“I made you breakfast,” she said, and showed him.

“Thank you,” he said gravely, and held out one hand.

She passed his plate over, clutched her own with both hands and looked up into his golden eyes. “Can I come in?”

Again, there was a hesitation, scarcely noticeable but there, but finally he moved back and gave her room to enter.

The fold-out sofa was a heap of sheets and rumpled bedding, strangely incongruous in the otherwise immaculate room. His clothing was neatly folded in three distinct stacks atop three boxes along the wall—one for Dan’s old shirts, one for his old pants, and one for Tagen’s own uniform. He had cleaned off the desk for his own use, his machinery meticulously and efficiently arranged. He had found a trio of postcards she didn’t remember ever receiving—Oregon scenery in all its glory, one ocean, one forest, and one waterfall—and had pinned them to the wall in a perfectly-aligned row above the desk. All the random junk and little knick-knacks that had lined her wall and covered every surface was gone, presumably into one of the many plastic storage tubs stacked at the far side of the room.

Daria was amazed and a little unsettled to realize that this room no longer felt like it belonged in her house. There was nothing of her personality left in here, and in its place, there were bits and pieces of another life.

Tagen moved some of his devices to one side of the desk and held out a chair for her. When she took it, he backed up a pace and sat on the edge of the bed. He balanced his breakfast on his knees and looked at her.

She set out the syrup and milk and the small stack of oranges, avoiding his eyes. “I forgot glasses, but we can both drink from the carton, I guess. You don’t have anything catching, do you?”

She meant it as a joke.

He said, “No. I monitor my condition very closely off-world.”

“I don’t have cooties, either,” she offered.

“No. I scanned you when first we met and inoculated you against such things as your kind succumbs to.”

“You what?” she gasped, and if she hadn’t just put her plate on the top of a box, she’d have dropped it.

He looked up sharply. “This offends you?”

“Well…no. It was a smart thing to do.” But somewhere deep down, it did offend her. It offended her very damn much to think of him injecting alien microbes or whatever into her blood while she was insensible.

‘Be reasonable,’ she told herself sternly. ‘Remember what happened to the Indians when Spain showed up? Can you imagine what would happen if you caught the Jotan version of the flu? Polio? Ebola, for Christ’s sake?’

“A very smart thing to do,” she said again, and meant it this time. After a second, she asked, “Did I have anything?”