Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Maybe I can change his mind, she thought as a plan began forming in her head.
33
BEAR
Bear was glad to see how happy Aleena was as they left her mother’s house. It was more of a hovel, actually in a run-down section of the city that might once have been nice but now was going to ruin. He thought about finding a new place for her mother right away…but she could always just move in with Aleena once he had gone back to the Mother Ship. He fully intended to buy the house outright they were renting and leave it in her name along with plenty of money so she could live in style.
But the thought of leaving his curvy little wife made a knot form in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t help picturing her face from the night before when she was so upset—her big eyes filled with tears. He didn’t want to see that look on her face again—and he most certainly didn’t want to be responsible for making her cry.
Can’t be helped, a little voice whispered in his head. You know you can’t keep her—you can’t break your vow. You’ll have to leave her here, no matter how much you want her.
He pushed the thought aside, but it was getting harder and harder to put such ideas to the back of his head. The negotiations were complicated but they couldn’t last forever. Eventually he was going to have to face the truth…and face Aleena when he admitted that he wanted to disavow her after all…
“My Bear, are you well?” Aleena asked anxiously, drawing him away from his unhappy future and back to the present. They were sitting at the dinner table, having finished a delicious meal that she’d cooked just for him after their visit to her mother.
“Er…yes, of course, sweetheart.” He tried to smile at her. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you went quiet and your face looks like a thundercloud about to rain,” she said. Reaching out, she placed one hand on his. “Is there any way I can cheer you up? Perhaps tonight, I can give you a bath as you gave me one the night before.”
Bear felt his shaft begin to harden at once. Gods, she was such an alluring, curvy little Elite!
“What if we take a bath together and wash each other?” he growled. “I think the tub is big enough if we’re careful.”
Her cheeks went dark with a blush and she looked up at him from under her long lashes.
“I think that sounds perfect. Let me just clear the table and we’ll go.”
“We’ll clear the table together. Or better yet, I’ll clear it and you go run the bath,” Bear told her.
Her eyes went wide.
“But you are a man! You shouldn’t do women’s work!”
“You cooked the meal, so I’ll clean up,” Bear said firmly. “It’s not women’s work—it’s everyone’s work. We both live here and eat here—we both need to clean.”
It took a moment to convince Aleena of this but finally she went up the grand staircase to the master bathing suite to draw them a bath.
Bear cleared the table, anticipating being naked with her again…and trying not to think of their inevitable parting in the future.
34
ALEENA
Aleena loved bathing with her big, Kindred husband. He was so huge and muscular he took up most of the tub…and yet she found out a secret about him—he was ticklish.
It happened when she was scrubbing the muscular length of his side. As she rubbed his olive green skin with a soapy sponge, he snorted and jerked and then let loose a surprised gasp of laughter as he clamped his arm to his side to protect his sensitive flank.
Aleena took immediate advantage! She wormed her fingers under his arm, teasing the sensitive spots along his ribs and he roared with laughter. Then he caught her in his big hands and tickled her too, finding the spots that made her giggle uncontrollably until she begged him to stop. They both laughed until they cried.
It was the most fun Aleena could remember having in a long time—she’d never dreamed she might find a husband she could laugh with. Everything she’d been taught since childhood was about obeying and being subservient to the man you married—there was nothing about having a good time with your husband because to most women on her planet, marriage was most definitely not a good time.
But with Bear, it seemed like everything was pleasure. He laughed and joked with her and treated her like an equal whose opinion really mattered. Aleena had never been treated like that by a man before but she found that she liked it a lot.
After they finished tickling each other and laughing, Bear grew serious and decided it was time to wash her.
“I don’t think we need a cloth or a sponge…I’ll just use my hands,” he growled softly as he rubbed the liquid soap solution between his big hands to make a mound of bubbles. “Come straddle me, baby so I can reach you,” he told her.