Secret Things
by Nalini Singh
"You have to go now."
Andromeda looked up from where she was lying perfectly comfortably in a nest of blankets, reading her book. Cuddled up beside her was the large snow leopard that had somehow managed to climb his way up to the aerie and now refused to leave. She'd have been terrified of the dangerous growling creature if she didn't live with a dangerous growling creature anyway. "What?"
Coming to crouch down beside her, Naasir scowled. "You have to go."
She closed the book and set it aside before getting up into a kneeling position to face him. "Is there a reason you're throwing me out of our home?" If she'd learned one thing after falling in love with her wild lover, it was to take him both exactly at his word... and to look underneath.
Naasir was honest to the core, with none of the shields and shadows others kept between themselves and the world. He was also highly intelligent and found great pleasure in playing games. The games he played with her were always affectionate and wickedly amusing, but he had the capacity to be sneaky when he felt like it.
"I have to do something secret," he told her now.
Then he leaned in close... and snapped his teeth at her.
Andromeda snapped hers back.
Grinning, he tumbled her to the nest of blankets. He made sure to keep the upper half of his strong and muscled body off her so he wouldn't crush her--but settled himself firmly in the juncture of her thighs.
She shivered.
"We can't rut now," he told her sternly. "I have something very important and secret to do."
Digging her hands into the metallic silver of his hair, she pulled his face down to her own. "You're not supposed to tell me you plan to do something secret. That just makes me insanely curious."
A gleam in his eye. "Good."
Growling in her own throat--really, he was a terrible influence--she went to say something else when the snow leopard decided he'd had quite enough of being ignored and tried to nudge his head in between their bodies.
Instead of being irritated, Naasir scratched the top of the animal's head. "This is what it will be like when we have cubs," he said proudly. "They'll interrupt us and demand attention and be stubborn and we'll love them."
Andromeda's face flushed. He was so certain that they would have cubs that she could do nothing but believe. Naasir was too unique for anyone to predict what might happen; most people thought him a vampire but he wasn't. He was his own being, unique in all the world... unique enough to be biologically compatible with an angel.
Running her hands through his hair again, she lifted her head to pepper his face with kisses. He growled against her but it was a playful and smugly pleased sound. He never made any effort to hide how very proud he was of having "caught" a mate who adored him.
The snow leopard butted its head against her cheek until she gave in and, exasperated, kissed its face too.
Naasir laughed in pure delight. "He can stay, but you have to go." Pushing up off her with a fluid grace she'd seen in no other, he reached down and lifted her up onto her feet. Then he picked up her book and put it into her hands. "You like Jessamy. Go play with her--but no secret games. Those are ours."
Andromeda thought about arguing, but she was far too curious about his plans. "How long?" she demanded with a scowl. "I was enjoying reading in my nest." He'd made her that nest of blankets, high above the rocks and the snow of the Refuge.
"Until dinnertime." Putting his hands on her shoulders, he walked her out of their aerie and to the edge of their railingless balcony. The snow leopard padded behind them. When Naasir leaned in to bite and suck at her neck, pretending to sink his fangs into her flesh, the snow leopard pawed jealously at her legs.
Giggling, Andromeda turned to look over her shoulder--and into the eyes of the wild creature who was her own. "I'll be back at dinnertime and not a minute later. Do your secret thing."
A flash of brilliant white teeth against skin of darkest brown that held an undertone of true gold, her silver-eyed lover unrepentant and as untamed as the snow leopard that leaned against his legs.
~
Stepping off the ledge, Andromeda spread her wings, then swept across the snow-draped landscape around them, waving goodbye to both Naasir and the snow leopard before she winged around toward the Refuge proper. Naasir didn't like being close to too many people, but he also didn't like being too far from his friends and family, so his aerie was private from the Refuge but within an easy travel distance. It took Andromeda only a few minutes before she was above the pathway that led to the Library.
Jessamy glanced back at her as Andromeda landed a little behind the angelic Historian and Teacher. "Andi," she said, her lips curving into that deeply warm and luminous smile that was pure Jessamy. "I thought you planned to stay in with Naasir today?"
"He told me I had to leave the house because he wanted to do something secret."
Jessamy laughed. "Come, we can share a cup of tea while we discuss the surely astonishing possibilities."
Both of them knew that with Naasir, it would be nothing predictable.
~
She was all but bursting with excitement by the time she flew home through the colors of sunset. The snowy landscape below her rippled with red and gold, but she was focused on the home high in the trees that was now Naasir's and her own. He'd extended it by another two rooms after Andromeda moved in.
Naasir had been adamant that they add an extra room for the cubs they were going to have. Andromeda might've blushed through that entire conversation, but butterflies flooded her stomach each time she thought about having a wild little boy or girl with the man who was her heart.
She knew already that their children would not be well-behaved little angels. They'd probably accidentally eat the school's pet rabbit, would take great delight in hanging upside down from the branches of the aerie tree, run naked through the Refuge... and charm her to the very core of her being. Exactly like their father.
Frowning when she saw the surfeit of snowbirds perched near or around the aerie, she came to a neat landing on the balcony. "Is it my imagination or do these birds look really fat and well fed?"
A growling sound came from inside the aerie. It wasn't the snow leopard--he'd padded out to welcome her, was rubbing his body against her legs. Leaning down, she gave him a couple of strokes--he had a tendency to sulk just like Naasir if she didn't pay him enough attention.
Her mate walked out right then. "I burned it," were his opening words, his eyebrows drawn ominously together.
Andromeda's eyes grew wide. "Burned what?"
"Our romantic dinner."
Every bone in her body melted. Hand fluttering to her heart, she whispered, "You were trying to cook me a romantic dinner?"
Another rumbling growl from inside his chest.
Putting her book down on the small table out on the balcony, she walked over to press her palms against his chest. He was half naked as he liked to be inside the warmth of the aerie, his tiger stripes darkly visible. "I'm sorry it got burned," she said softly, "but it makes me very happy to know you were trying to make me a romantic dinner."
He leaned down and nipped at her lower lip--not sharp, not painful. Just a sign of his frustration. She was about to coax him into a kiss when he grabbed her hand and drew her into their home. She entered to the luxuriant smell of cream and cheese and other delicious, mouthwatering things.
He'd opened out the table they kept folded and out of the way unless in use. It was dressed in a crisp white tablecloth and in the center sat a large pot with a lid over it. Andromeda thought of the burnt dinner, and then she thought of Naasir's favorite food. "You remembered I don't like raw meat?" she asked, deciding that if he hadn't, she'd eat it anyway.<
br />
"You'd just waste it," he grumbled.
Tugging her to the table, he pulled out a chair and nudged her into it. Then he went around the table to stand across from her. Holding her eyes with the extraordinary beauty of his, he lifted up the pot lid.
Andromeda dropped her gaze... and gasped, both her hands flying to her mouth. "I thought you said you burned it." It came out a whisper.
"I did." His voice was a rough purr. "So I made it again."
Andromeda stared. It was a pasta, creamy and rich--and one of her favorite dishes in the coldest times. Naasir would often watch her as she made it, but she hadn't realized he'd actually been paying attention. Enough attention to make it for her.
Throat thick and eyes hot, she dropped her hands to her lap and watched as he dished out the pasta onto a plate, then took the plate and came around to sit on the chair beside her. Picking up her fork, she scooped up a bite and brought it to her mouth. The textures, rich and creamy, melted on her tongue. "This is really good," she said on a moan of sensory pleasure.
A wild, dazzling smile from her mate.
Barely avoiding stabbing him with the fork when he put down the plate and leaned in to kiss her, Andromeda wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back just as wet, just as deep. Afterward, breathless, she said, "This is the best romantic dinner."
Naasir's chest rumbled against her. Then he was up on his feet and leaving the table to head off deeper into the aerie. Used to her mate's ways, Andromeda ate a few more bites of the meal he'd made her and waited for him to come back. When he did, it was with two ornate candlesticks in hand. He put them firmly down on the table. "I forgot these."
Astonished all over again, Andromeda rose to go around the table until they stood toe to toe. Tilting back her head, she said, "Is all this because I said that it was so romantic how--"
Naasir interrupted her with a possessive kiss before she could repeat her words about the dinner another angel had made for his wife.
Digging her nails into his chest and able to feel the fine, fine fur that had appeared there, she pulled back to gasp in a breath. "This is wonderful," she said when she could speak, "but you don't have to be like other men with me. I love that you'd give me all your raw meat if I asked and that you bring me fascinating flowers you find in your prowls through the wilderness, and how we race on the ground and in the sky, and how you love me." Naasir's idea of courtship wasn't like anyone else's, but it was exactly what Andromeda needed and wanted.
Primal silver eyes locked with her own. "I know," he said, smug and arrogant and wonderful. "But you need this sometimes." A wave at the table and the candlesticks. "I'm your mate. It's my job to give it to you. Just like it's your job to play secret games with me."
Joy bursting inside her, Andromeda rose on tiptoe to speak against his lips. "Isn't it your job to rut with me too?"
Three seconds later, he growled playfully as he tumbled with her into her nest of blankets and she thought how very wonderful it was to be loved by Naasir.
(c) Copyright 2018 by Nalini Singh
Nalini Singh, Secret Things
(Series: Guild Hunter # 8.20)
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