I looked down at Zaya and she was staring at me with such earnest concentration that I laughed. “What? Do you have a question?” She shook her head and her eyes refocused on mine. She had had the look of someone trying to read someone’s mind, actually… I grinned… Was she trying to reach me telepathically? I had pulled back from reading her mind at all, out of respect. But I had been pretty lax about my own guards. On Farian, we were trained from a very young age how to put up mental boxes and blocks, so that people couldn’t just easily read your mind. I hadn’t really bothered here, knowing it was unlikely I would stumble across any other telepaths.
But, was it possible some sort of connection had transferred to her from the mental link I had created when controlling her mind? I didn’t know all the nuances of how that worked… It was possible…
I moved back to my chair and settled in. I pulled the fur collar of my coat up close around my mouth, so she couldn’t see me smiling, and then closed my eyes, mostly. They were still open just a slit and I could see her from my leaned back position, the chair propped back just on two legs, my boot holding it steady against the wall. She was staring at me eagerly, earnestly, again.
I put forth, into the most accessible avenues of my thought, the idea of reaching out to her, of pulling her up from the blankets, taking her into my arms, feeling her hips in my hands, reaching around and grabbing her ass… I imagined licking my lips and I imagined her smiling and playing with my hair, teasing her hands through it and leaning down to kiss me. I imagined her pulling at my hand and entwining her fingers in mine. I imagined her telling me to smack her ass, and I reached back and smacked her soundly, imagining her giggling with delight and me crooning with desire as I pulled her up to straddle my lap.
All the while, I watched her expression. It swept quickly from eager curiosity as she stared at me to a heated glare, jaw clenched, chest heaving, staring daggers at me.
As I imagined burying my head in her breasts and her supreme delight at my tongue finding her nipples, she jumped up, the towels and cloak falling to the floor. She swung her finger at me, other hand on her popped out hip.
“You stop that right now!”
I chortled a laugh and dropped the chair forward to all fours, rising up and standing before her. She stumbled back against the wall, chest still heaving, anger flashing in those beautiful eyes.
“You’ve been reading my mind, you little minx.”
“I… I… I don’t know…” She reached behind her for the poker, hand frantic, afraid to look away from me to find it. I leaned over and picked it up, so close her breasts brushed my coat. I plucked the iron tool from its holder.
“What are you going to do with this?” I held the handle out to her.
“I don’t know… I just… Are you angry…?”
I furrowed my brow at her, frowning, trying not to let my true smile betray me. Then I laughed again and dropped the poker back into its place. “No, I’m not mad, Zaya. I think it’s amazing! Let’s see if you really can telepath. I’ll teach you. Go on, sit back in your pile of towels. You must be freezing.”
I turned away from her and pulled my chair closer. I sat down and gestured from her to the towels. She took a deep breath and piled herself into her warming garments again.
“Why aren’t you angry?”
“I think it’s clever. You realized you might have a power and you wanted to explore it. But, truly, you should have told me. Trying to teach you would have helped pass the time in this blasted storm a bit better. Now we have something in common that we can do!” I leaned forward, my hands clasped in front of me. I was pleased that she didn’t jerk back, but instead leaned forward, too. A little tentative, perhaps, but trusting.
I did wonder how much she had read of my mind in the last few hours of her being more cogent, and I slid up some more secure compartments immediately, especially any thoughts of Blatson, my mission, and the fact that I was worried she might have some connection to Blatson, too. I knew, for the sake of the mission, that I needed to ask her about it. I was just strangely reluctant to smash apart this little bubble we had… Even though the bubble was mainly awkward silence. At least teaching her to telepath, if that was even possible, would give us something to do. This was exciting!
“How did you realize you could read my mind?”
She shrugged, her brown cheeks blushing a little, which surprised me. She didn’t seem like a woman who would find much to be embarrassed about. Perhaps it was because she had been so angry about me finding ways to keep her captive mentally, taking advantage of her vulnerability? Then, once she found she had some of that power, she had leapt at it. That would be enough to have someone question their identity, for sure.
“At one point, I just wondered what you were thinking, and it was like your thoughts were inside me. Not really words, just an impression of what those words meant. I guess that’s similar to the way I understand you with the translator. I can hear you saying words in another language, but the impression appears in my mind of what you mean through your translator.
