Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“Do you have one of those too?” I asked Zane and both men looked at me.
“I do.” Zane lifted his hair above one ear and I spotted it.
“I understand her now,” Pace said. “The sound of her native language was fascinating, but I must say, this is much easier to work with.”
I gave him a hesitant smile. Zane’s eyes were on me. He put the tool he’d used to attach Pace’s ear stud down and folded his arms across his chest.
“We should have a quick conversation just to ensure it’s working okay. How are you enjoying our planet so far?” Pace asked.
“It’s beautiful,” I replied.
“Very different from your home? Be explicit, please, so we can test this software.” He smiled big and leaned back against the counter opposite me with his arms folded across his broad chest and one ankle crossed over the other.
Gosh, his harem pants looked so odd. And socks with sandals? What a way to take someone’s ‘hot’ factor down. If you saw Pace from the waist up, you’d be all, ‘Ooh. Hot muscled alien.’ But the whole picture was just… strange.
And I didn’t imagine he’d have won that race to us the day before with those sandals on.
I giggled at my own thoughts, by accident, and then looked at his face and he looked a little confused by my laughter. I went ahead and started to babble, though my face felt red and hot the whole time.
“Well, the sky is different. We don’t uh… fly in cars. We have airplanes so flight is common but they’re larger and someone highly trained has to fly them. We just do local travel on the ground, really. And your food is phenomenal. And your wine. I love the wine. Everything is beautiful. We don’t have flowers that drop precious gems. Those are precious gems, aren’t they, Zane?” My eyes bounced between Zane and Pace.
Zane was watching me with intensity in his eyes. “Yes, they are.”
“And your food. Whoa. Delicious. So good. If I stay here, I might get a humungous butt. Well, even more humongous than it already is. I’ve already got plenty of junk in my trunk. How was that? Enough babbling for you?”
Pace looked at Zane and let out a hearty laugh. “She’s delightful, Zane. Just… delightful.” Pace’s eyes swept over me playfully.
I giggled nervously.
“Wait. Flowers dropped gems for her?” Pace’s eyes were on Zane.
“They did,” Zane said soberly.
Pace’s eyebrows shot up.
“What does that mean?” I asked Pace, since his eyes were on me.
“We need to go,” Zane said abruptly.
My eyes bounced between the two men.
“Can we meet for ten minutes first?” Pace asked.
“Not now,” Zane said curtly. “I need to get Tanya home. I’ll contact you in a few hours.”
“Very well. Lovely to meet you, Tanya.” Pace reached for my hand again and put his mouth to it.
My eyes immediately moved to Zane. I felt animosity rolling off him. I snatched my hand back.
“Same,” I said, looking at Zane, whose nostrils flared a little at his colleague. He reached for me and swept me up into his arms rather fast. So fast, in fact, that I let out a little gasp as I felt myself sort of zinging through the air.
Zane bent to grab his leather satchel and we were on the move, back to the roof and in the sky car.
As his car shot up into the sky, I grabbed the edge of my seat with a gasp. His eyes shot to me, looking a little annoyed.
No, maybe a lot annoyed.
And then the annoyance disintegrated.
“We’re fine. This is perfectly safe.”
I nodded quickly and looked away.
CHAPTER 14
ZANE
Zane wanted to throttle his employee for the way the man kept looking at Tanya. He felt fiercely possessive of her.
“Why did he ask about the jewels falling out of the stones?” she asked in a soft voice.
That deep and husky feminine voice had quite an effect on Zane. Especially when it held that hint of shyness. He felt his trousers go tight once again.
“Those flowers haven’t bloomed in over four years,” Zane told her.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted.
“They bloom either between dusk and moonlight or with touch to drop their jewels in shade or indoors. They respond to the environment they’re in. Different colors mean different things with those particular flowers, fortune moon flowers. They grow specifically in this region and haven’t been blooming. They’ve been growing and just… waiting it seemed. Yet, your touch caused all sorts of blooms, each dropping a different colored stone.”
“Um… what does that mean?” she asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Zane said. “It’s quite intriguing, isn’t it?”
“It felt like a miracle, watching beautiful jewels fall out of flowers when I touched them. And they kind of lit up from inside, too.”
“I think it was a miracle,” Zane said.
“You have gems everywhere, though.”