“You have a mating dance?”
“I do.”
Her lips twitched as she fought the urge to smile. She failed and it spread across her face. He didn’t need her to say it to know what she was thinking.
“I’m not dancing for you.”
Instead of discouraging her, her smile only widened. Like he’d set her a challenge.
“So, youdodance? I love dancing.”
She started twisting her body. Rocking them in place. It was such a subtle movement, there wasn’t even any music. But there was power in it. More, he thought, than she even realized as she smiled at him, so innocent as to what she was doing.
“I do dance,” he agreed. “For my mate. It will be the only time I dance.”
She smiled, not saying anything. But what she didn’t say shined in her eyes. The eagerness to see it. To see what his people decided was a dance proper for mating.
And he longed to showcase it for her. To strip down to the simple loincloth that was traditional for a mating dance. To turn off the lights, allowing his skin to shine as he struck himself, letting their glow and patterns tempt her in further. The male’s mating dance was a harsh, loud thing, all sharp movements and stomping feet. He didn’t even need to know his culture to know that dance. It was ingrained in him. An instinctual thing that he was fighting even now.
The male wasn’t the only one who danced though.
If the female wanted to accept his mating, she had to dance for him in return, and the female’s mating dance was quite different.
It was slower. More sensual. Rocking movements. Tempting movements. Like she was using her hips to summon her male in closer to take them in his hands.
Much like Garnet was doing now.
“Are you thinking about getting yourself a mate one day?” Garnet asked, completely unaware of what her sensual, subtle movements were doing to him. The havoc they were wreaking on his instincts and senses.
This wouldn’t trigger his mating bond. He had to start the dance for that to happen. But the similarities to what his instincts demanded be fulfilled was too close for comfort.
And still, even with that alarm blaring in his head, he didn’t push her away.
“Garnet?”
“Yes, boss?” She smiled, so comfortable in her position in his arms, it didn’t even occur to her that she might not belong there.
“You need to go rest.”
“Iwasresting!”
“Your face is red again.”
“I told you, that just happens sometimes. One of the benefits of being human.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Blood rushes to your face; it turns red. That’s just what happens. Are you changing the subject?”
He gave her a look. “Your blood is red?”
“Well, of course it-… Wait, your bloodisn’tred?”
“My blood is gray.”
“That… How does that even…?”
“Are you trying to ask me why my blood is gray? I don’t know. It just is. Why is your blood red?”
