Riv's Sanctuary: A Sci-fi Alien Romance, A.G. Wilde [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

as plain and unaffected as she could. “They’ll heal. It’s only blisters from raking too much. I probably—”

“This is because you were raking?” He gripped her hand again, careful not to touch the blisters, and stared at it.

This time, his expression was clear: growing horror.

“It’s nothing really…” she found herself saying, her voice lower than usual. The look on his face almost made her feel sorry for herself.

“La-rehn…”

Lauren froze.

The way he said her name.

The complete concern there was startling.

“It’s fine, Riv.” She blinked. “It’s fine. I’ll just bandage it later. It’ll heal.”

Riv rested her hand on the table and sat beside her.

Next, the bowl in front of her was pulled away along with the scoop he’d placed beside it.

She could do nothing but stare as she watched Riv dip the scoop into the bowl and held it out to her.

She blinked.

“Wha—”

“Don’t talk. Eat.”

Lauren blinked again.

He didn’t wait for acquiescence. The scoop was brought to her lips and she only had a second’s thought before she opened her mouth and sipped on the warm fluid.

It tasted like what she’d expect a bowl of heated chlorophyll to taste like. Lucky for her, her taste buds no longer protested having alien foods.

They’d had a year to get over themselves. The hard meal bars had made sure of that.

Riv seemed to be focusing intently on the scoop as he brought it back to the bowl and refilled it. His eyes didn’t rise to meet her gaze or anything else in the room.

“I can feed myself, you know.”

“Debatable.” He put another scoopful at her lips. “Your hands are unusable.”

She took the food into her mouth and waited as he filled the scoop again.

“You don’t need to do this.”

He seemed to huff a breath through his nose.

“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.”

She swallowed yet another scoop. “Then why are you?”

Maybe she’d asked too much because he stopped moving, the scoop paused in his hand, which was outstretched halfway between them.

The seconds felt like ages as she waited for him to reply.

“Because, La-rehn,” his gaze finally met hers, “I’ve realized I’m a fool.”

His words left her stunned and for the next few moments, she took the scoops into her mouth as he fed them to her.

She wasn’t blind.

He was obviously going through something, processing something, or fighting something. Whatever it was, he still refused to meet her gaze.

Instead, he focused on the scoop and on feeding her the rest of the soup.

Maybe because she was stunned by this sudden change in his behavior or maybe it was because a part of her liked the fact he was being so attentive for a change, but she sat in silence allowing him to feed her.

And the longer it went on, the more intimate it felt.

“Why did you make this for me?” she asked.

His eyes met hers for a second before refocusing on his task of feeding her. “You hurt yourself.”

Lauren huffed out a small laugh through her nose. “It almost sounds like you care.”

Riv glanced at her again, giving her the last scoop. “I shouldn’t.”

That wasn’t a no. That was a yes. Yes, he cared.

He put the spoon in the bowl and leaned forward, his index finger brushing against the corner of her lips as he removed a droplet of soup there.

It was such a sudden, unexpected movement that her breath hitched in her throat.

He must have caught himself then, because his finger froze by the corner of her lips.

His gaze was heated when he finally looked at her.

“I apologize,” he finally said.

Two more words she hadn’t expected.

“Apologize for what?” Her voice was almost a whisper and his gaze fell to her lips as she spoke.

“You’ve been overworked.”

A small, nervous chuckle huffed through her nose this time. “Hardly. I’m just not used to working with my hands. Back where I’m from, work consisted of sitting on my ass around a desk and clacking at keys on the computer. It wasn’t…” She glanced around the room. “It wasn’t anything like this.”

Riv dropped his finger from her cheek, his gaze moving with the same slow precision from her lips back to her eyes.

“Do you miss your planet?”

Lauren’s eyebrows rose a little. He’d never asked her about Earth before.

“I do.” She paused. “My planet has blue skies and green forests. It’s nothing like Hudo III with its pink sky and yellow-orange grass. I had friends, family, coworkers…life was okay.” She paused again. “I can never return there. I have to make a new life now.”

“Is that why you overworked? You didn’t need to.”

“I know,” she used his words. “But I’m a fool.”

Was it just her, or was the air around them suddenly now thick?

He was still leaning forward, close enough for her to make out the small pattern of bumps that dotted the bridge of his nose and rose over his eyebrows.

Still, she didn’t move away, and neither did he.

Tentatively, she outstretched her hand, and Riv’s gaze snapped to it immediately, mild alarm widening his eyes slightly as her hand moved forward and she traced a finger over the bumps on his nose.

He jerked a little, almost as if he wanted to pull away, but he didn’t. He looked down the bridge of his nose at her finger then lifted that same slightly alarmed gaze to her.

“I—”

“Don’t,” his whisper was hoarse, restrained.

Don’t touch him or don’t speak? She wasn’t sure.

The air around them was so thick now, she could hardly breathe and when she pulled her hand away, she saw his throat move in unison with hers.

Whatever was happening right now was dangerous.

She needed to regain control or what happened that night might just happen again.

A girl needed to learn from her mistakes.

“Come.” He stood suddenly.

“Come?” Her brows furrowed a little.

“You need a warm cleanse.”

Ah. The shower.

“Right,” she said, standing and trying not to wince with the effort. Was she really that unfit? She’d tried to keep exercising while in the terrarium. It hadn’t been the greatest way to spend her time but it had helped