Riv's Sanctuary: A Sci-fi Alien Romance A.G. Wilde (most life changing books .TXT) 📖

caring big brother.”

Riv paused, his fingers stilling. “I was more than a big brother. I was everything.”

She didn’t know how to reply to that so she remained silent.

As he washed the soap from her hair, Lauren realized something.

She was lying naked in a tub in front of him.

She’d slept in a room without any protection while he was nearby.

And not once had she feared for her safety. Even now, when she was vulnerable, there wasn’t that feeling that he might take advantage of her.

She frowned at this realization, not because it angered her but because it puzzled her.

“Riv?”

His fingers paused.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you being so nice?”

A few seconds ticked by.

“I know you think I’m a nuisance, that I’m property—”

“I do not think you’re property.”

A small chuckle left her lips. “You think I’m a nuisance, though.”

“You talk to the animals. You sing to them. When you’re gone, they will want me to do the same.”

Right. The smile dried on her lips.

This wasn’t permanent. He was still intent on getting rid of her.

“Right.” She’d forgotten she wasn’t welcome at the Sanctuary. She looked back at him. “Thank you. Are you finished?”

He froze, opening his mouth to say something before it slammed shut again.

With a nod, Riv stood and walked toward the door, opening it and sliding out silently.

When a part of her protested at him leaving, she took it by the neck and stomped on it.

She didn’t need to be nurturing feelings for Riv.

He was the sort of guy you crushed on in high school but who would look right through you.

A girl didn’t find herself in another galaxy, so far from home, to be having juvenile feelings for an alien who didn’t want her.

She didn’t survive this long to die from heartbreak on another planet.

She’d rather die alone.

26

That night she couldn’t sleep.

Combined with tossing around in bed, she just couldn’t get her mind off him.

He’d left some long thin strips of moist material on the bed in her room. The strips smelled medicinal and she’d assumed they were to bandage her hands, so that’s exactly what she’d used them to do. She’d bandaged her palms and left her fingers free.

She guessed he’d had enough of her for one day because after the bath, he’d disappeared.

But it was amazing what a good warm bath could do—or maybe it was those healing salts.

Her muscles didn’t ache so badly anymore and with the bandages over her hands, she couldn’t feel the pulsing of the blisters.

Sighing, Lauren tossed this way and that.

Why was it so hard to sleep?

No matter how she told herself it was bad, really bad for her to think about him in any other way except the fact he was a bit of a dick, her mind—no, her vagina, wasn’t listening.

Maybe she had daddy issues.

Her father had left when she was young.

Maybe this was her way of acting out, albeit that it was happening a decade too late and on the wrong frickin’ planet.

She was attracted to the hot guy who was bad for her psyche even though her mother had warned her about such men.

She should know better.

When she did manage to get some sleep, images of Riv came to her in her dreams.

She imagined how his hands had felt against her scalp, how he’d touched her gently by the lips…she imagined what it must feel like if he touched her in other ways…

She knew what this was. It was that human trait of wanting what you could not have.

That’s what this was.

Turning, she clenched her thighs together and closed her eyes.

Her clit ached for her fingers and the longer she ignored it the more intense the need became.

Fuck.

Turning to lie on her back, Lauren stared up into the roof.

She couldn’t believe she was about to do this.

His sat phone pinged in his pocket.

What now?

Sliding the device out, he frowned at it before he realized who it was.

“Sohut?”

“Riv,” his brother sounded breathless. “I phekked up badly, brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something I have to deal with. I don’t know when I’ll be coming back to the Sanctuary.”

“Something like what?”

“Remember that exotic animal I’m here to catch?”

“Yes…”

“She’s not an animal.”

“She?”

There was momentary silence as he waited for his brother to continue.

“She, brother. She. The same species as Larn.”

“You mean La-rehn?”

“La-rehn. Yes.” Sohut’s voice lowered to almost a whisper. “Well, I helped capture one of her kind and…” his brother paused “…I phekked up, brother. I think I’m going to have to do something stupid.”

Riv’s eyes narrowed.

Sohut’s definition of “stupid” was the same as that of “dangerous.”

“Explain.”

“No time. I—”

The call clicked off and Riv stared at the device.

Phek.

It was just one problem after another.

He knew Sohut could handle himself. He’d been the one to teach him how to fight.

That didn’t make him feel better, though.

If his brother had indeed found another human, he wished he would leave her alone.

From his experience, humans were nothing but trouble.

They secretly invaded then wheedled their way in until they became entwined in every aspect of your life.

Speaking of humans…

Riv looked down the corridor at the human’s door.

He needed to check on her.

The way he saw it, she’d almost killed herself by working too hard, even though he’d made a point to do ninety percent of the work himself.

He should just enter the room and check quickly.

It was his house. Why was he hesitating?

She was probably asleep, anyway.

He could slip inside the room, check on her, and slip back out without her even realizing.

He was hovering in front of the door before he could change his mind.

Punching the locking mechanism, the door opened with a soft hiss and Riv stood in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the light in the room.

But the gasp that reached his ears had him freezing as he took in the sight before him.

For a moment, he didn’t know what to do or say.

His eyes had already adjusted to the light in the room and he couldn’t look away.

She was awake and looking at him, her