The Barbarian's Owned(27)
Easing his hands onto either side of her, Rae’s body leaned back a few inches even while he tilted forward, until his mouth was near hers. She licked her lips, uncertain what he was going to do—and that uncertainty made her breath quicken.
***
He liked her like this. Timid, lips parted and panting softly while he examined her face. She had wide-open eyes, and though his presence intimidated her, it wasn’t terror. He’d have smelled that, as he had in the forest clearing. No, he only scented arousal.
Wanting to be closer to that scent, Garr slipped his nose near her throat, shutting his eyes and inhaling deeply.
Yes. She is what I want. She is everything that I want.
***
He dipped his nose to her throat, and the sound of him breathing in so sharply made her gasp, spine going rigid for a split second as her primordial brain thought he’d bite her.
Another part of her wanted him to. Wanted him to clamp his teeth onto her skin, his hands to her hips, and take her savagely atop the counter, in total careless disregard for their planned dinner or who might walk in on them.
Garr had cleaned off at some point after butchering his game, because when he came close, she could smell his clean skin. It hadn’t been a full-on shower, because he also carried notes of the forest, of earthen clay and the faint musk of exertion—that musk smelled different on a Ythirian. Better, somehow—not overpowering, as with a human male, but distinctly masculine.
“I like your scent,” he said. The scrape of his voice made her ticklish.
“You’re not so shabby either.” She remained where she was, absolutely still for fear any movement would entice him. The devilish part of her wanted him enticed.
Somehow, all her terror from before had been quieted—by the way his hands cared for her last night, by his promise to send her home. It had transformed this from a kidnapping to an adventure, and all it had required was knowing she would return in less than a week.
“But you never answered my question, Mr. Garr. What precisely is my role in this?”
“Women do not cook.”
“So what do we do?”
He leaned back, his expression confused again. “You dine.”
Dear patriarchy: the Ythirians say you’re doing it wrong. “Okay, wait a second. I need to hear you say something. If a woman tried to cook for you, what would you say to her?” In spite of his ferocious stance, Rae was smiling.
Brow furrowed, Garr eased back one-step and the little bit of distance seemed to release a pressure that had been squeezing Rae’s heart tighter than a fist. “I’d tell her to get out of my kitchen.” He seemed offended by the idea.
Covering her mouth to stifle a giggle, Rae glanced sweetly up at him. “Pretty please, just say it for me one more time like you mean it. And, oh, refer to me as ‘woman’ when you do.”
She beamed, using that high-wattage smile that worked so well on tough-guy types.
Unsure of her game, but seeming to like that smile, Garr relented. “Woman. Get out of my kitchen. Men’s work is about to be done.”
Rae howled with laughter and collapsed back on the island, stretched across it now. “No. I am a strong human woman, and I refuse to leave the kitchen!” She gripped the end of the island. “I will chain myself to this stove and petition for my right to cook!”
He was as confused as ever, like a dog trying to figure out why a human was talking to it.
Wiping a tear from her eye, she sat up. “I’m done playing now.”
“What was that all about?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
He drew a knife from a slot on the wall, snagged a handful of starchy vegetables, and diced with effortless strokes of the blade. “It makes no sense for women to cook. Men take care of the women.”
“That’ll get boring, though.” She didn’t like the idea of being taken care of. Okay, on occasion she loved being pampered. But if she didn’t get to do things for herself sometimes, it drove her batty.
“You’ll need to give me a job if you want to do dinner the proper, human way.”
“Your job is to be my mate.”
She guffawed. “So my job is to sexually pleasure you and make babies? Take care of your house while you hunt and cook? No thanks.”
He bristled. “I care for you. Because you’re mine.”
The vehemence in his voice was so powerful that she realized this was a significant aspect of Ythirian culture. From what she could ascertain, Garr had more testosterone pounding through him than any human male.
Witnessing his brutal rage in the forest clearing made that obvious. All that aggression could be occasionally directed at hunting activities, but perhaps their males needed a counterpoint to their destructive proclivities—something to make them feel less monstrous.