Hearts of Ishira (Hearts of Ishira Saga) (43 page)

She gasped when Jace handed him a small leather band. Hunter showed it to her. He had intricately braided the leather in two different designs. One was a thick seven-strand flat braid. The other was a four-strand braid, below the wider one. She took it and touched the braiding carefully.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

“I had to guess at the size,” he told her, “So I could surprise you with it.”

She grinned helplessly up at him, her eyes shining.

“I love it, Hunter! I’m sure it will fit just fine.”

“You could try it on now,” he murmured, his grin turning a bit wicked. She found herself blushing at him when she caught the drift of his thoughts.

“I’d have to take off my gown,” she said demurely, holding her grin back. He arched his brows as though that hadn’t occurred to him.

“That would be a shame,” he told her, shaking his head in mock dismay.

“It would be hard, too,” she admitted truthfully. “I had trouble getting the darn gown on, because it still hurts to raise my arms over my head and wiggle.”

Hunter’s mind came back with some very interesting and flattering mental images when she mentioned wiggling.

“We would be more than willing to help you dress and undress until you’re better,” Jace offered sincerely. “Mostly undress, but we can put clothes on you, too, if you insist.”

Ri burst into laughter at that, and they all relaxed.

Hunter smiled and stepped forward to hug her to him. “That’s what your gown was missing. Now, it is the most beautiful gown I’ve seen in more than a decade.”

Before she could protest that it was probably the only gown he’d seen in all that time, he was gathering her against him. His kiss of admiration sealed her determination to make underpants, just so she didn’t have to sit around in her own stickiness when the men turned her on.

Which, over the next week or so, turned out to be rather frequently. Sometimes they did it without meaning to. They still slept naked and didn’t bother to cover up between their bathrooms and their bedrooms. Why should they, really? It was their space and, most of the time she pretended to sleep, just so they wouldn’t feel the need to cover up. Now that she was used to the unusual size of their cocks, she very much enjoyed looking at their beautiful bodies. And they seemed to rather enjoy her looking at them, if their smug, masculine grins were any indication.

They took turns sleeping with her, though neither one made a move to seduce her. Not that it would take much at this point to get her to make love to either one of them. She was in a constant state of sexual awareness around them. They were always sneaking touches, planting kisses on her whenever the mood or opportunity struck. They were also not shy at all about doing so in front of others. Apparently, their society didn’t think anything of love being expressed publicly.

A week had passed since she’d come to stay with them in their rooms, and her leg was starting to heal, again, though still not quickly enough for Jace’s liking. He insisted on making her stay off it for a few days more, however, when he examined it one evening and found that it was still too weak to put her full weight on it. She was apologetic at his frustration, which prompted a lecture from both men about apologizing for things that were beyond her control.

“It’s strange,” Jace murmured, almost to himself, sitting back on his heels. “It should be healed by now. The other girls with broken bones have been well for two days now. Alicia’s sprained ankle was completely healed two days after Amy’s attack. Your leg is nowhere near as healed as it should be. I wonder why it is taking so much longer with you?”

Arianna shrugged. She knew a little bit about medicine, but not enough to begin to offer an explanation for her body’s reaction to the alien medicines he’d given her. Just to be on the safe side, Jace gave her a booster of the nano shot. It made her a little loopy for several hours, which provided endless entertainment for her warriors that evening, as she giggled and bantered suggestively with them. She responded to their caresses and playful teasing with uninhibited delight. Her laughter and sweetness were intoxicating, and the men couldn’t help but find her enchanting.

Bev had given her the Nook the night Amy broke her leg again, but deciding to ease the chafing of her confinement, Hunter and Jace presented her MP3 player to her, along with the accessories that Bev had assured them she would need. Her reaction to having the electronics again was so gratifying that both men almost lost their resolve to wait to make love to her until her leg was healed.

She spent the evening playing them songs from her MP3 player, through speakers built into the apartment’s walls. She was exceedingly pleased when she played one of her favorite new-age groups and both Hunter and Jace requested that she leave those albums on for them to listen to, rather than quickly skipping to the next type of music.

Surprisingly, the Nook sat mostly unread unless she was trying to get to sleep. Back on Earth, her books had been an escape from a world she no longer wished to inhabit. But now she was living in the kind of world that she’d once longed to escape
to
. She didn’t need to escape from this one.

Hunter didn’t want to hand over her entire bag yet, as he was still transferring files over to the main servers. He wanted to make his own copies of all of her files before he gave it to her. Hunter wanted to know more about her, and he had a feeling that there were many personal and private things on her computer that would give him a great deal of insight into the woman he was falling for.

Because yes, was falling in love. He knew it, just as he knew his brother was, too. The tiny woman that had fallen into their midst was full of life and energy, compassion for those around her, and a great deal of wonder at her new world. She had endless questions for them, constantly reminding them that she had a quick and agile mind, well-honed problem-solving skills, and a creativity that fascinated the warriors.

She figured out within days how to extract color from some of the flora in their garden, and though she wouldn’t tell them how, she’d also managed to ‘fix’ it so that the color did not leach from the cloth when it got wet. When asked, she’d merely blushed and told them it was an old Earth technique, and they wouldn’t understand. She then proceeded to dye skeins and skeins of the kimi yarn with the rich teal of the tree leaves. Hunter asked her what she planned on making with so much of the color, but she simply smiled and told him that a woman had to have her secrets.

Knit and crocheted projects were scattered around the apartment, in various stages of completion. Hunter marveled that she could have so many things going at once, but she had reasons for each one. The socks on the balcony were ‘mindless’ for when she had company. The scarf out there was for the same reason, but used mainly when she was teaching people how to knit.

Several of his men had asked for lessons, which didn’t surprise Hunter at all, but seemed to make Arianna positively giddy with delight. She loved that so many of his men knew about fiber crafts, loved that they wanted to learn about knitting and crocheting. It hadn’t occurred to her that they were descended from cats, so of course they would love playing with string. Hunter didn’t clue her in on that. He wanted to see her face when she realized it for herself.

And she was always working on a little item that she then warily put out somewhere in their quarters. His heart melted a bit more each time they came back from various errands or duties to find that she had added one more small touch to their home, something pretty and sweet that she had found or made. It became a bit of a game to see which of them could spot the newest addition first, then lavish her with praise over the little item. She turned such a lovely shade of pink each and every time, as though surprised that they actually liked and appreciated her gifts.

What she couldn’t know was that the colorful little items charmed the men and reminded them of better days back home, when their mother and sisters had done the same sort of things. Hunter wondered if she yet realized that the home was firmly under the jurisdiction of the woman, and now that she was living there, she could do what she wished with the décor. She loved color, and he wanted very much to see what she might do when let loose with bolts of cloth, her imagination, and no supervision.

Scratch that… he would want to supervise, just to watch her agile mind at work. He and Jace both loved it when she talked through her ideas, because it gave them great insight into her thought processes, what excited her, and just how incredibly adaptable she could be. The brothers were often left breathless after one of her creative sessions, where she would draw, write, or just go through a number of ideas in rapid succession, finally ending up with something that would work, without having to experiment as much as most people would have. When Bev added her ideas, the mental energy swelled and multiplied, and they seemed to feed off of one another, to the great amusement and awe of their respective men.

The two ‘families’ spent more and more time together, often in Hunter and Jace’s quarters, since their living area was more spacious. The men enjoyed hearing stories of Earth, and the women were held spellbound, listening to the rich history of Thorsan, all of the Thorsani traditions and culture, their beliefs and their spirituality… which was very close to what Ri believed, anyhow. It was just one more way she and her men were compatible.

By the end of that first week in their tender care, Arianna had also cemented her leadership of and friendships with most of the girls, to the point that Hunter began allowing them to spend time with her on the balcony while he was away tending to his duties, as long as they promised to help her and keep an eye on her energy levels. The girls had fervently assured him that they would have done that anyhow. Bev actually had the temerity to give him a smack for his nagging one day, as though he knew better than to even question her abilities to help her friend. He had grinned and left Ri in their capable and willing hands.

She had begun teaching the ladies to spin, which they all embraced eagerly, especially the ones who already knew how to knit and crochet. Those girls were delighted by the incredibly soft yarn they were producing, and were already making plans for the various things they were going to make once they had enough yarn.

While Arianna was healing, the girls who weren’t already helping out elsewhere happily kept her company while Hunter and his men worked on the other buildings in the compound, hunted for food, or took their turns tending the gardens. Survival was a daily job in this place, and winter would be on them before they knew it. The summers and winters on this planet, the warriors had discovered, were brutal. Summers were very short, but humid and so very hot. The winters were bitterly cold, though if fires were maintained in the hearths, the buildings they had fashioned managed to insulate fairly well. Winter was also long and harsh, with deep snows that closed the warriors in for weeks at a time.

Smiling to himself now as he watched Arianna and her ladies knitting, spinning, and crocheting, Hunter thought that perhaps, for the first time since he and his men had crashed on this godsforsaken planet, winter might not be so unpleasant. With the women to keep them company, perhaps his warriors would be less inclined to fight among themselves this year. He certainly hoped that would prove to be the case.

As he listened, one of the ladies asked Arianna about spinning wheels. She sighed rather wistfully and lamented the fact that she had never had one, though she knew how to use various types of them. Hunter perked up when he heard that she had several different construction plans for the various types of wheels that had been used through the ages. He smiled smugly to himself, determined to search her laptop and see if he could make such a wheel, perhaps surprise her with it. She responded so very joyfully to the smallest of gifts. What might she do when faced with something that had taken him a lot of effort to create? The possibilities of her gratitude made his body hard with longing.

Speaking of small gifts… He looked down at the basket of fiber tools he’d been working on during his spare time over the past week. Stepping forward, Hunter let the women watch as he dropped the basket into Arianna’s lap. She gave him a sunny, welcoming smile, then pulled back the little scrap of cloth hiding the contents and gasped in delight at the tools lying there. He watched her face with baited breath. Her reaction was worth all the hours of fine work.

“Oh, Hunter!” she whispered reverently, holding up one of the niddy-noddies he had fashioned. It was smooth on the horizontal bars, where it needed to be, but the center post was decorated with intricate carving, depicting the flowers and leaves of their little balcony garden. The other girls oohed and ahhed over the gift, then exclaimed in delight as Arianna brought out the various implements that Hunter had fashioned for her. Arianna’s eyes shone with appreciation of the fine gifts. The knitting needles were straight and satiny smooth, perfectly sized for her small hands, and there were a multitude of different sizes for her to pick from. The crochet hooks he had made were smooth where required as well, but the bases of them were ringed in exquisitely carved designs, matching the niddy-noddies.

Arianna gingerly stood up and threw her arms around him. The incredible, deep kiss she gave him had the other girls gaping in shock, then giggling, then hooting and cheering when he picked her up and deepened the kiss. They laughed uproariously when her toes curled enough that her slippers fell right off her feet. Hunter left the gathering with a smug grin and a wink.