“I had all this lumber to build out your room and make your bed. But I guess I don’t need it for that now.”

“Then what are you building?”

“A table,” he said, turning those odd blue-and-turquoise-veined eyes onto me. My breath caught. “And a chair.”

“Just one chair? Does that mean you won’t be sitting to eat with me?”

I meant it to come out like a joke. But it just came out sounding pathetic.

Silar didn’t seem to notice though, thank goodness.

“No,” he replied, rubbing his knuckles along the underside of his jaw. “It means there’s already a chair in the house.”

“Oh.”

Duh. I knew that. I’d told him to sit his alien ass down on it earlier, hadn’t I? When I’d tended to his ears. There was a very good chance Silar was beginning to think he’d married a total airhead. But I couldn’t make myself get too upset or embarrassed about that now. No, right now I was just basking in the completely unexpected delight at the fact that Silar wanted to sit down and take his meals with me. He was building a whole freaking set of furniture simply because I’d mentioned the lack of it.

I sniffed, worried I’d get all teary-eyed again. God, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become on Terratribe I. I hadn’t shared a meal with someone since Mama had died. I mean, I had my lunches and snacks in the shuttle factory cafeteria, but sometimes that was even worse than eating alone. Loneliness when you’re surrounded by people feels different than loneliness in the empty quiet.

I used to have friends on Terratribe I – like Maggie – but she’d moved to Elora Station. I would have done anything to join her. But I wasn’t able to snag one of the coveted seasonal work contracts there and I wasn’t a super-talented baker able to open my own business like Maggie had done.

She’d also fallen in love on Elora Station and was now married to an alien orc. I’d known for some time she wasn’t coming back.

I wondered now if that wasn’t some small slice of the reason I’d jumped at this marriage program. Certainly, I needed to get away from Magnus’ men. But had another, tiny part of me been looking for something beyond that?

Was Silar looking for that, too?

He was building the table, after all…

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “I thought you were going to bed.”

“I did. But…” I shook off the feeling that I was being way too whiny and just bit the bullet. “It’s too cold!”

He blinked his lashless eyes at me.

“Cold?”

“Yes! Don’t you get cold, Mister No-Shirt-Man?”

“Not in this weather, no.”

“OK. Well. I do! I was just wondering if you had any extra blankets or anything.”

“I do not.”

Well. That’s just peachy.

“Alright,” I said with a brittle smile, internally screaming at the thought of going back to shivering alone in that bed. “Do you um… By any chance… Do you not sleep very much?”

Silar stilled. Which was impressive, because it wasn’t like he was moving much to begin with.

“Why?”

“I was just wondering when you might come to bed.” I leaned forward a little and quivered when I felt the heat radiating out from his bare chest. “You could help warm me up.”

Holy Terra. That sounded dirty.

“Not in a weird way!” I cried. “Unless… Unless that’s what you were thinking? I mean, I am your wife after all, and… and…”

Shut up Cherry. Shut up, shut up, shut up!

If Silar was aware of my brain completely short-circuiting inside my skull, he was good enough not to mention it. He merely asked, “You require a heat source to sleep?”

“When it’s this cold? Yes! It doesn’t have to be you,” I added hurriedly, dreading the thought of him turning me down. “You could show me how to light a fire in the oven to heat up the house.”

“I only burn a constant fire in deep winter. I’ve run through most of my winter lumber and would have to cut new logs to have enough supply to burn the fire at night consistently. I will do it for you. But it will not help you tonight.” His eyes flashed white. He blinked and turned them away from me, almost as if trying to hide it. “The heat you require, I will provide.”

“Thank you,” I said, shifting from foot to foot. It was colder out here than it had been inside and now that I was standing still, I was really starting to feel it again. “Can we… Can we go now?” I shivered. “Are you ready?”

He didn’t say yes or no. He just said, “Let’s go.”

14SILAR

Cherry bounded back into the house and went straight for the bedroom. She crawled onto the bed, curling herself into a tiny, trembling ball. I followed and sat uneasily on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do next. Would simply sitting here provide enough heat for her to sleep?

Apparently not. She was holding the blanket open for me, grimacing as if it caused her pain to do so, and hissing at me to “Lie down!”

My body obeyed her before my mind could catch up. As if she’d tugged on a rope somewhere in the vicinity of my spine, I fell back against the mattress. I cursed myself internally, realizing I still wore my boots, and I kicked them off and onto the floor. Removing my boots without using my hands distracted me for a moment, and I did not at first notice the way that Cherry instantly flung the blanket and scarf over both of us before crowding her soft little body against mine.

Stiffness slammed through me. Every part of me. Muscles, joints…

Cock.

“Sorry,” she said in a husky whisper, even as she wiggled impossibly closer. It was as if my tiny human wife was trying to burrow inside me. Her fluttery fingers sought heat, skimming over my chest and making my breath hitch. “Sorry,” she said again. But perhaps she did not mean it, because she did not move away.

I did not want her to mean it.

“Don’t apologize,” I told her, for the second time that day. “I will provide you what you need.”

Even if it meant I did not get a moment’s sleep because of it. I certainly wouldn’t. Not like this. Not with my chest heaving as if I’d just wrestled a rogue bull into submission. My body burned. My cock stood hot, hard, and at attention, a bulging post beneath the blanket that I was fairly certain – at least, I hoped – that the darkness concealed.

Cherry would not want me to lie beside her like this if she only knew how my body was already responding to her. She was suffering, meanwhile all I could think about was what it would feel like if those little fingers drifted downwards. Down, down until she brushed them over the tightest point of my pants, feeling the engorged heat of my –

“Why do your eyes do that?”

“What?” I asked raggedly. A stupid question. If I’d taken a mere half a moment to process her question I would have known what she meant. But Cherry explained patiently, nudging herself harder against my arm as she did so.

“When your eyes get bright and white like that. It’s extra noticeable in a dark room like this.”

Blast.

I snapped my eyelids shut.

“You do not know?” I asked with some confusion. “Your eyes are white as well.”

“Yeah. But like I said before, they’re always like that. Same way the inner part is blue and then black. It’s just how human eyes are. The colour doesn’t change the way yours do. Well,” she amended, “the black point in the middle, the pupil, gets bigger in the dark to let in more light. But your thing doesn’t seem to be light dependant.”

“It happens when a Zabrian feels…”

Feels like he wants to rut his wife like an animal.

“Strong emotion,” I finished, my throat seizing on the words.

I did not go on to tell her that it was a sign of a male of poor control, a male of very low standing, if his eyes went white often. I did not tell her that good men, worthy men, barely showed the white in their eyes at all.