Oh yes, Shay. It’s a promise.
Despite a thousand other scents on the air, hers was the fragrance he noticed, the fragrance that filled his nose and rushed to cloud his mind. He longed to touch her, to feel her warm, soft skin beneath his palm, to peel off her clothing and lick her from head to toe and back again. He wanted to taste every centimeter of her body.
Just the thought of it had his mouth watering. Barely suppressing a growl, he forced himself to turn his attention ahead and keep walking. This was neither the time nor the place—though the way his body reacted to her, he knew in his heart there could benowrong time or place. The only thing that would stop him was the audience. Shay was for Drakkal alone.
Kraasz ka’val, we’re just sharing a meal, not rutting!
…Not ruttingyet.
Drakkal led her to the closest place he could think of—a borian restaurant specializing in roasted meat. The aroma of fresh, hot, juicy meat slowly cooking in the kitchen struck him immediately when he entered, making him realize just how hungry he was. But it wasn’t quite enough to overpower Shay’s scent.
Not that he wanted anything to overpowerher scent.
Shay slid into an open booth, folding her arms atop the table, and Drakkal seated himself across from her. For a few seconds, her eyes roamed the room, studying everything—and giving him an opportunity to study her.
Though he’d seen her up close several times now, he found something new in her features each time he looked, and her beauty only grew as he became more familiar with her appearance.He’d always assumed his mate would be an azhera—a huntress, a strong, agile female with sharp senses and steely nerves. For a little while, he’d even thought he had that…
But that had been nothing compared to what he felt now—and he hadn’t even claimed Shay yet. She was simultaneously exactly what he’d imagined and nothing like it at all, but he already couldn’t picture his mate as anyone other than her.
Though the restaurant was dimly lit, Shay’s hair, which was pulled back into a tie at the back of her head and rested over her shoulder in a thick strand, glistened pale gold. She’d let him touch that hair when he was at her apartment; would she object now? How far could he push before she’d had enough? How fast would she be willing to move?
She hasn’t agreed to anything more than lunch, stupid. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
Hard advice to take when he’d already mated her in his mind.
“Nice place,” she said, turning those bright blue eyes back to him. “A bit fancier than I’m used to. You trying to impress me?”
“Only if you’re actually impressed,” Drakkal replied, unable to keep a small smile from tugging his lips up. He reached to the side and activated the menu. A holographic screen appeared over the table between them, displaying all the available dishes and drinks, each accompanied by three-dimensional representations. “Order whatever you want.”
She scanned the items and huffed a laugh. “You loaded or what?”
Her question made Drakkal think of Murgen Foltham and people of that ilk—the elite, the wealthy, the ones who looked down on everyone else simply because they could afford to. He’d never felt ashamed of the success he and Arcanthus had achieved, not until that moment.
“I’m comfortable,” he grumbled.
Shay met Drakkal’s gaze through the holo screen, positioning her face between two platters of steaming meat. She was, by far, the most delectable thing on the menu.
“Didn’t mean to offend you,” she said. “You just seem to throw credits around left and right.”
Drakkal frowned and leaned forward, settling his elbows on the table. “Not offended, and I don’t throw credits around. I only throw them straight ahead—lately at you.”
One of her eyebrows rose, and her cheeks darkened faintly as she looked back at the menu. After a few seconds, she tapped her selections—roasted polovi meat with a side of fajetta, which was a flowering root native to the borians’ homeworld. Drakkal let his gaze linger on her a little longer before he made his own choices, foregoing the plants in favor of a variety of meats. He added an order of breaded and fried glehorn meat to the order for good measure; he knew Shay had been conserving her credits, and doubted she’d been eating as well as she should. She and her cub needed nutrition. They needed protein.
Providing suitable food for her was amongst the simplest things he could do to satisfy his instinctual need to care for her.
When the prompt screen came up, he took out a credit chip and let the system deduct the bill without checking the price. It didn’t matter.
“So, terran, how was the passing out flyers on street corners business?” he asked once the holo-menu closed.
“Shitty, as you already know.” She leaned closer to him. “What is ityoudo?”
Drakkal inhaled slowly. “Private security.”
“Which is how you hacked into the city’s surveillance system to find out where I lived, right?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. I have a friend who’s good with computers.”
“I’m calling bullshit.”