Heart of a Warrior

14

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BRITTANY WOKE AT DAWN WHEN THE BIRDS ON the two trees in front of her apartment building began their morning greetings. She didn't stir immediately, just opened her eyes and absorbed the fact that she was laying sprawled across a very big body and was utterly content to be there.

Dalden had moved down in the chair at some point in the night, to where he wasn't actually sitting in it anymore, was spread at a near prone angle, which was why she wasn't sitting either. She was actually laying on top of him, one leg bent across his hip, the other lost with his somewhere under the table in front of the chair.

She wondered what Jan had thought when she had come home and found them like that. The lights and TV were off now, showing that Jan had quietly passed through the room without waking them. And Brittany and Dalden would probably be gone before Jan got up to go to work, since her job started much later in the morning than Brittany's-which reminded her she had to call Arbor and the spa to let them know she was taking a short vacation.

"Did you sleep well, kerima?"

She lifted her head to find those lovely amber eyes on her. "The birds wake you, too?"

"No, it was the sound of your purring."

She gasped, sputtered, and chuckled all at once. "I did… no such thing!"

He smiled at her. "Perhaps it was myself, then. I believe I could wish for no other thing than to wake with you in my arms every rising."

Brittany was a little shocked-actually, a lot. Those words spoke of permanence, of forever after, of never being parted. They were something a woman might say or think, but a man? When men tended to go through a heck of a lot of agonizing before they even came close to thinking about commitment? But then he'd used the word "wish," which could put the statement back into perspective. He wasn't really saying, Let's get hitched. He was just being fanciful.

That conclusion annoyed Brittany somewhat, enough to have her pushing off of him. "Careful, big guy, or you might get your wish."

She didn't get very far in the pushing. His arms around her tightened, and she quickly found it pointless to try to squirm out of that. So she gave him a look that said release me or-actually, she couldn't think of an "or else" in his case, but she was sure he got the point. Not that it worked. He wasn't letting her move off of him yet, and that was all there was to that.

"What has annoyed you?" he asked.

"I'm not annoyed," she grouched.

"What has annoyed you?" he repeated, refusing to accept her evasion.

"Okay, you asked for it. I really dislike how men forever say things they don't mean."

"And women do not?"

"Not nearly as much, and besides-"

"Did you not just say something that you did not mean when you said you were not annoyed?"

"No. That was a flat-out lie. That isn't at all the same thing. I'm talking about things that get said between a man and a woman that can affect feelings, that can build hopes and dreams, that will finally shatter a relationship when it's realized that it's been nothing but BS."

"All this resentment over a wish I am inclined to grant?" There was suddenly a lot of screeching coming out of the earphone that was attached to his ear, reminding Brittany that they weren't still alone. "I am told you require asking, that I cannot decide the matter for you as I should."

"What are we talking about now?" she demanded.

"A difference in our cultures, one I find unacceptable. Asking can be done, but if the answer is not the right one, the question will be withdrawn and the matter seen to in the proper Sha-Ka'ani way."

She had the distinct feeling he wasn't talking to her just then, but to Martha. His own annoyance was sensed, rather than reflected in tone or expression, but it was still crystal-clear to her. He hadn't liked the interruption from Martha any more than she had.

She had to wonder why he hadn't spoken to Miss Coach earlier. If the woman could hear every word they said, and was speaking to him through that earphone, wouldn't it have been much easier for him to have simply asked Martha for clarification of the things he'd been having trouble with last night, rather than making her guess what he needed to know?

Brittany knew to the second when his attention was fully back on her. His eyes absorbed her. His body seemed to as well, and, oh my, that bulge was back. He even shifted her and pressed her against it in that very spot that nature had intended it to go.

Swirls of desire took flight in her belly, so it was like a dash of ice water when she heard from him, "What is the meaning of bee-ess?"

She managed to get off him this time. Thrusting an elbow into his belly for leverage helped.

"I know you can hear me, Martha. So why don't you explain that one to him," Brittany growled as she stomped off to the kitchen to make coffee and call Arbor. The spa would have to wait a few more hours until it opened.

She had that flare of passion under control again by the time she turned back toward the living room with the coffee cups in hand. She didn't get far. Dalden was blocking the doorway, a normal-sized bath towel around his neck that seemed more like a hand towel around that neck, his tunic removed. Not enough time had passed for him to have showered, nor did he look clamp, he just looked good, too good, good enough for her to want to meld with that body of his.

She'd already seen a good portion of his chest through the gap his tunic made, but it was nothing like seeing it all. The man was simply too huge. She'd never seen anything like his size before, not even in pictures. Without the height, he'd look really weird; with it, he simply looked gigantic. A fantasy giant came to mind, wielding a club as big as he was. She would have smiled at her own fancy if she wasn't so mesmerized by all that bare, golden skin.

No stressed muscles or overly taut skin to accommodate them, just natural bulges in his relaxed pose, the difference being that everything was oversized to begin with. And those arms, bigger than anything she could have imagined when they'd been concealed by his loose sleeves. The kind of strength represented by them had to be amazing. She wondered if they were registered as lethal weapons. And yet they'd held her with tenderness through the night. Her gentle giant.

She did smile this time, but had it and her fanciful thoughts wiped clear away when Dalden remarked, "Martha says that as long as you have spoken to her directly, you may be allowed to hear her voice."

"Wow, lucky me," Brittany said sarcastically as she shoved a cup of instant coffee in his hand.

"You can shelve that jealousy, doll," came out of the box clearly, which nearly made Brittany drop the other cup she was holding. "I'm not what you've been thinking. Try this one on for size: I was there for his birth, even assisted in it. That help? Yes, I can see that it does."

Brittany's face was going up in mortified flames. God, she had been jealous of a name, a voice, a faceless woman, without even once thinking the lady could be a little old grandmotherly type.

To cover some of her embarrassment, she asked Martha, "How can you see?"

"There are six viewers on the combo-unit attached to Dalden's belt, one on every edge, so no matter which way he's facing, I'm bound to get a good shot of what's going on around him."

"So it's a camera, too?"

"You could say that. Actually, why don't we call it a new advanced model of what's known to you as a cellular phone, under experimentation, and obviously failing. I should have whipped him up an old model instead, since I am now aware that your men of business walk around with them attached to their ears, so he wouldn't have drawn much notice using one."

"Not drawn notice?" Brittany replied. "Him? You're kidding, right?"

The distinct sound of chuckling came out of the box. "Aside from his looks. He needs to keep a low profile. We don't want Jorran alerted to his presence and having a chance to disappear on us.

"If he wants a low profile, we should probably stop by the mall on the way to City Hall and buy him some normal clothes. His rock star get-up might be fine for L.A., where people expect to see stars in fancy outfits, but we don't get many celebrities passing through Seaview."

None of those camera angles could have seen Dalden's blank expression, yet Martha still knew to share with him. "She's talking about their entertainment industry, Dalden, the gist of it being, she's going to buy you some local clothing this morning."

Brittany blinked. "I am? Okay, I suppose I am, but while you're on the phone, how about telling me why he seems to be lacking any ready cash, or was he actually sent over to this country without any?"

"File that one under hard to explain, kiddo. There's a good reason for his lack, but not one that we can divulge at this time."

No other explanation came out of the box. Brittany wondered if Martha was waiting for her to fire off more questions, now that she could. But she didn't really have any more at the moment, at least none that she thought might get answered instead of being dumped into the "hard to explain" file. Well, there was one…

"I notice you don't have his accent. You don't come from his country?"

"No, my origins are very far from his. But the voice I use is irrelevant when I can simulate any tone, accent, or language imaginable. What you hear is only for your convenience."

Brittany was impressed. "A master linguist, then, or an impressionist?"

More chuckling. "You could say both, though just plain old master has a nice ring to it."

Whether Dalden was feeling neglected or not, he became Brittany's center of attention again when he asked, "Will you create a meal to sustain us for the day?"

Brittany grinned at him. "Why do I get the feeling that a bowl of cereal and milk won't do it for you? Never mind, I'll whip up some eggs and other breakfasty-type things while you take a shower."

"You will need first to show me how the water is acquired for it."

She raised a brow, though she shouldn't have been surprised. A village without electricity was probably a village without proper sanitation.

Still, she'd rather not guess if she could get an answer, so she tried, "No showers where you come from?"

"We bathe in large pools."

She pictured big ponds with only a few trees and plants, an oasis, camels again-bah. She really was going to have to figure out just where his never-heard-of-before country was located. This imagining of primitive tents in a desert didn't say much for their ever being compatible. She and tents didn't get along well at all.

She headed to the tiny bathroom and leaned into the shower to adjust the single water control handle to get the water running at a comfortable temperature. The shower had been remodeled just last year by the landlord, and now had one of those newfangled spigots that concealed the shower turn-on valve under it. If you didn't know where it was, you'd never find it, so she could understand how Martha might not have been able to help him this time.

"My mother uses a different means, a solaray bath," he added while she was still leaning half into the shower, waiting for the hot water to show up.

"You mean a solar bath? Now that's a bit modern, and cost-effective, too. I plan to put up a few solar panels on the house I build, for the water heater at least. And I plan a really large bathroom, probably the same size as the bedroom attached to it. I've been dreaming of big ever since I first walked into this cubbyhole."

"I am accustomed to the bath being in the room of sleeping," he volunteered.

A pool in a bedroom? Now she was picturing a palace, or an incredibly large mansion.

She turned around to ask him once again just where the heck his country was, but found him towering over her, barely an inch separating them. Not surprising, since it was a really tiny bathroom. She couldn't turn around in it without banging elbows herself. With him in it, too, there was absolutely no space to maneuver without them bumping into each other.

It was hard to concentrate with him that close, but she managed to get out, "You can at least tell me the continent that your country sits in, can't you? So I can have something to relate to when you drop these little tidbits like pools instead of bathtubs and-"

That was as far as she got. Being lifted off her feet and deeply kissed worked pretty well to put an end to any kind of concentration. She was surrounded by his body, by his scent, by his taste.

Her senses began rioting with her morals and were coming out ahead. And then she was set down and pushed toward the door.

"Be gone from my sight quickly, kerima, unless you wish to share the water and more with me now."

That was about as plain as could be, that he'd reached his limit of sexual forbearance. Caution prevailed and got her out of there real quick.