It seriously looked like her tits were wrestling each other to get free. The dress was see-through now, and her nipples strained against the fabric.
He wrenched his gaze from her nipples and kicked the water again, for lack of anything better to do. “If you’ve had enough of a wallow, let’s move.”
She paused, mid-turn, lifting her foot, face twisted with indecision, and it took him a second to figure out why. If she got the powdery soil all over her feet, she’d have to shove them back into her shoes, all wet and caked in.
“Hang on.” Feeling a thousand kinds of fool, he stomped across the sand, grabbed a towel from his bag and her shoes, and headed back.
She took the towel from him and dried her shoes. “Thank you.” She slid her silky hand into his and leaned over to dry off her foot, using his hand for balance.
“Those things are useless.”
She lifted a shoulder, and those tits rose too. It must take hours for her to stuff them into the damned vest each morning.
“For walking across a desert, I suppose they are. I don’t think the designer expected me to wear them for anything more than the odd stroll.”
He shook off her hand and tugged on his own socks and boots. “Time to go.”
Jasto’s black shroud stood in graphic contrast to the white soil. Except it wasn’t Jasto anymore, he reminded himself. Just bones and muscles and organs.
A life snuffed out.
He tugged his shirt back on.
“Perhaps, I could...” The proximity of her voice announced that she’d followed him. “I could carry the water bag for you. So, you’d be less encumbered.”
He jerked the backpack over his shoulders and dropped to a knee to heft Jasto’s body onto his back. “I’ll be fine.”
6
Oh, I’ll show you fair
KLYM TRUDGED ALONG in Torum’s wake.
Her shoes had long since rubbed the sides of her toes and the backs of her heels raw.
She’d stopped briefly and put on her stockings, thinking they might help, and had quickly decided they made the situation far worse.
That was the last time she’d dared to look, and a puddle of blood had already filled each shoe, slick and sticky.
That had been shortly after they’d left their shady grove. Hours ago. She couldn’t imagine the state they’d be in now.
She couldn’t bear to look.
Torum’s rudeness again proved a boon. He’d shoved his way in front of her as they’d left, the big body draped over his back, and had barely bothered to look at her. She could stagger along, as ungainly and undignified as she pleased.
Looking up at the sun, he paused. “Thirsty?”
She nodded, too tired to respond.
He spun on his heel, and she straightened her spine. His eyes were invisible behind his dark glasses. “Are you thirsty?” The tone of his voice was just like last night.
The night before hit her like a punch in the gut. The possessive, demanding way he’d pulled her body against him. His hands on her breasts, where no one had ever touched her before. And the confusing thoughtfulness of his actions by the water. Mean. Nice. Hard. Soft. Push. Pull. Gruff. Sympathy.
She was too tired to keep up. “Yes. Yes, I’m thirsty.” She couldn’t look at him, so she looked beyond him, at the sea of dust and sand and nothing that surrounded them.
“You’ll have to get it from the pack. I don’t want to put him down. We need to keep moving. Only an hour or two until dark.”
He turned around, so the bag and the bulk of the body resting across his shoulders were right in front of her.
She opened the flap with her pointer finger and thumb, trying not to think about what was inside that shroud. The bottle was blessedly cool in her hands as she pulled it free.
“Go ahead. Drink. We can’t stand here all day.” His voice was hoarse. A bead of sweat dripped down his neck, his chest moving fast with his breathing, all those thick muscles shifting in his damp shirt.
She didn’t want to stand there with him staring at her any longer than necessary. “I’ll carry it. So, I can drink as we go.”
He nodded and continued his steady ground-eating, lumbering trudge across the dust.
Manners got the best of her. “Would you like some?”
He smirked, or maybe it was a sneer, and ignored her.
No one had ever sneered at her in her entire life. Nor scoffed at her. Nor shoved her. Not once had anyone subjected her to this level of disdain and derision. And for no reason.
And her feet hurt. And the only person in the universe who was biologically programmed to love her, her father, didn’t seem to care a bit about anything but what political clout he could trade her for.
It was too much. Far too much. Manners be damned, everyone had a breaking point, and he’d just made one sneer too many. Besides, he insisted that she answer his questions.
“Why must you always be so rude?” she shouted at his back, fast-limping along in his wake.
He didn’t glance back, and she was glad because he wouldn’t see the silly, stupid tears that burned in her eyes and splashed down her cheeks.
She dashed at them with the back of her hand. “Why? Give me one reason you hold me in such disregard. You don’t even know me!”
He shifted the body bag on his back. “I know enough. I saw what you did to your future-mate back there.”
“Spiro?”
“I get why you’d be confused. There are so many of them.”
Mocking. He was always mocking her. As if she’d chosen to have more than one future-mate.
“My future-mate.” She picked up her pace so she could catch up to him. “Let me tell you about my future-mate Spiro. You heard what my father said. It was a political deal. I’m nothing but a pawn to them. My whole future sold away. All my father cares about is his war with your people. Spiro took
