Kraving Khiva by Zoey Draven

Chapter Eighteen

“Who is my client this evening?”

Khiva was already in the mating room and Valerie watched him prep for the evening from the doorway. Twilight hours were spreading over Everton and Khiva expected his client within the next half hour.

Valerie didn’t answer right away. Soon, she would make her way to the second floor of Madame Allegria’s, where Dravka’s mating room resided, as was her routine every night, checking all the floors. Madame Allegria was currently off Everton, gone to Genesis, the largest of the New Earth colonies, for the remainder of the week. The relief that Khiva felt at that knowledge was dizzying.

When Valerie didn’t answer right away, Khiva turned to look at her after finishing with the fire.

It was Valerie’s serious expression that had Khiva straightening.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Khiva,” Valerie said softly. “Allegria…you know how harsh she can be. How controlling. I worry that…”

Valerie trailed off.

“Val?” Khiva questioned, wondering why she was acting so strange that night, or where these words were coming from.

Valerie asked him suddenly, “Do you think I’m just as bad as her, Khiva? Truthfully.”

“As Madame Allegria?” Khiva questioned slowly.

Valerie nodded. “I know you’ve never trusted me, not fully at least.”

Khiva looked past her into the darkened hallway, at the elevator at the very end.

“No,” Khiva said softly. “You are not. How can you ask that? You are trapped by her, just as we are.”

“But I have freedoms you don’t,” she commented softly. “I can come and go as I please.”

“Because you are human, on a human colony. Of course you have more freedoms than we do.”

“Do you…do you think Dravka resents me sometimes because of that?” Valerie asked.

Khiva said carefully, “I think Dravka knows of the limitations placed upon him when it concerns you.”

Valerie bit her lip and nodded, probably sensing that Khiva did not want to speak for Dravka and would say no more of their strange relationship.

Valerie said softly, backing out of the room, “Let me know if you need anything tonight.”

“Valerie,” Khiva called when she turned away. “You never said who my client is.”

Valerie gave him a soft smile, but it struck him as sad. “You’re right, I didn’t. Be careful, Khiva.”

And with that, Valerie closed the door behind her and Khiva’s brows drew down in confusion, before he shook his head.

He didn’t have much time before six, so he quickly bathed and then smoothed oil over his skin, knowing most of it would absorb by the time his client came. Some females didn’t like the feel of it.

Not Evelyn, he suddenly thought and he froze. For over three weeks now, he’d failed miserably at the pact he’d made with himself…the one where he’d told himself he would try not to think of the dark-haired beauty, who’d smoothed oil down his limbs and torso and back and made him so crazed that he’d needed to mate her right there and then. The human female who made him feel like himself, someone he hadn’t felt like in a long time, who looked at him like he was a male and not a whore. Whose smile made his hearts stutter and his chest clench.

Yes, he might as well have made a pact to stop breathing.

His ears twitched, hearing movement outside his door and he drew in a deep breath, relaxing the tight muscles in his shoulders.

Khiva tilted his head to the side, listening, when the door didn’t immediately open, though he sensed that someone was on the other side.

Briefly, he wondered if she was a new client, but when the door finally opened, revealing a familiar figure with a scent he would never forget, his mind went blank, even as his body responded.

Khiva let out a growl, immediately stalking towards her as his cock surged. His two hearts were thrumming wildly, catching up with his realization that she was standing in front of him and she wasn’t just a hopeful hallucination.

“Hi,” Evelyn said, her voice slightly breathless, her eyes wide. “Khiva, I—”

But whatever she’d been about to say got lost as he caught her up in his arms, making her squeak in surprise. The dress she wore bunched around her thighs as her legs automatically wrapped around his waist to steady herself. Not that he would’ve let her fall.

Khiva brought her to the bed and laid her down, lowering himself over her. Her breaths came quick and her lips were parted in surprise. Khiva groaned, remembering the feel of her body, and unable to wait another moment, he caught her lips in a fierce, hungry kiss.

Demav, she tasted divine, he thought, lapping at her pink tongue.

Through their kiss, he heard her murmur, “Khiva.”

Khiva reared back his head, noting her reddened lips, and ran his eyes over her face. A part of him still believed that she wasn’t real, though she felt real enough. But how could she be real when she felt so good in his arms?

“I have dreamed of you, leeldra,” he rasped down to her, trailing the edge of his nose up her soft neck, inhaling her scent where it was strongest behind her delicate, sensitive ear. She shivered and gasped when he suckled on the lobe. “I thought I would never see you again.”

Khiva had had many dreams of Evelyn since he’d last seen her. Dreams that left him aching and desperate upon waking, willing her to return to him, if only for one last night. Khiva was beyond questioning why he felt this connection with her, a connection that he had felt with no other female, not even on Kerivu. It simply felt right, albeit frightening.

And he hoped that she felt it too. He hoped that was why she’d come back to him. He hoped it was because he’d been on her mind as well, that he had perhaps appeared in her dreams, and that she’d ached for him just as much as he’d ached for her.

Vauk, how he ached for her…

Immediately, his fingers moved down to the hem of her dress, impatient for a taste.

Her hand on his shoulder made him still.

Her cheeks were flushed when reared his head back to properly look at her. A trill of masculine satisfaction rose up in his throat at the glazed look of desire in her eyes and the way she rapidly blinked, as if trying to clear the fog of lust in her mind.

“Wait, Khiva,” she said, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I…we…I didn’t come because…”

The tone of her voice made Khiva shift his fingers away from her dress and pull back slightly. Though surprise and arousal at seeing her still coursed through his body, it had been over three weeks since he’d last seen her and perhaps she needed time to become accustomed to him again.

“I apologize, Evelyn,” he murmured softly, smoothing her dress back into place and mentally trying to restrain himself. “I find myself always apologizing to you for being too…hasty.”

When Khiva pushed off her, he rolled to lay on his side so that he faced her, so that she was still close. It was difficult to process that she was there, that she’d returned for another visit. Something warm, but intense, surged in his chest, his hearts pumping with the unknown emotion.

Evelyn lay on her back, her breasts rising and falling with her deep breaths, and Khiva memorized the graceful lines of her profile, unable to stop himself from reaching over to trace her soft, small jaw.

At his touch, she turned her head slightly and looked at him as his fingers stroked over her cheek before brushing her softened, reddened lips.

Khiva’s chest squeezed again. Whenever she looked at him with those brown eyes, he felt…undone. Unhinged and spiraling, in the best possible way.

“Vellka,” he rasped. Beautiful.

She remembered that word because he watched with fascination as her cheeks grew even more pink and her lips tilted up at the corners in a small smile. He swallowed hard.

“Hello, Khiva,” she whispered across the short distance between them.

“I thought that I would not see you again,” Khiva confessed.

“I thought the same,” she admitted.

“What changed your decision?”

Strangely enough, her cheeks went slightly pink again. Khiva trilled in his throat, thinking that she’d come back for the reasons all the rest of the human females came back. His teela, the sex.

If she came back solely for that, he wouldn’t question it. He would accommodate her…thoroughly.

His hand skimmed over the front of her body, feeling the softness of her dress material, brushing over the generous curves of her breasts, her hips, before trailing further.

Again, she caught his hand and Khiva’s eyes flashed up to hers. Evelyn licked her lips and then after a brief moment of hesitation brought his hand up to kiss the very center of his palm.

Khiva froze. That feeling that he’d had last time he’d seen her…created when she’d stroked down his back returned full force.

And he’d realized what it was…affection.

Something he hadn’t felt in over ten Earth years. He’d forgotten the sensation.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Evelyn said softly, “but I don’t want to have sex with you tonight. I didn’t come here for that.”

His world stilled. Khiva’s brow furrowed. “Kruvu?”

“I just came to…to see you,” she said softly. “I came to find out if I hadn’t just…made it all up in my mind.”

Khiva didn’t know how to react, so he didn’t speak. At least not immediately. It was a difficult concept for him to wrap his thoughts around, considering that human females came to him specifically for sex. Evelyn, originally, had come to him specifically for sex. And for that constant to be erased away…it jarred him more than he thought it would.

“Is that a problem?” Evelyn asked softly, when he failed to answer, and he realized that her body had stiffened slightly. “Should I…go?”

“Veki,” he growled, panic flooding him at her words, his hand unconsciously holding her in place when he felt her muscles tense to move. Softening his tone, he said, “Veki. You are…you always seem to be surprising me too.”

Like when she’d told him she was untried…a virgin, come to a Krave to experience sex for the first time.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, pulling her closer.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Khiva,” she said softly back. “I’d imagine it’s an odd request.”

“You truly do not wish to mate tonight?” he asked slowly. Truthfully, he didn’t know how to feel about that. “Was it painful for you last time? Did you not like it?”

“No, of course I liked it, Khiva,” Evelyn said, frowning. Then she sighed softly, turning on her side so that they faced each other. “More than liked it. It’s just hard to explain.”

“Try,” he urged.

Evelyn’s gaze dropped to his chest, absentmindedly smoothing her thumb over his palm. When she finally spoke, she said, “My father was a merchant.”

Khiva trilled in agreement, remembering her speak briefly of him. But what did her father have to do with her visiting him? “Pax, you said he traveled the Quadrants often. He used Keriv’i firestones.”

She nodded. “He was wealthy, he was good at what he did, and he was trusted. And because of it he gave me a nice, comfortable life here on Everton. Then one day, I received news that his vessel had been lost. Destroyed in an unpredictable meteor storm. All the crew were presumed dead, along with my father.”

Khiva’s chest tightened and he squeezed her hand. “How old were you?”

“It was four years ago. I was 21. Even though he was never found, I feel it…I feel it with every part of me that he is truly gone from this universe and has passed into the next. We were very close. He was all I had for a long time.”

Khiva let out a trill, wanting to comfort her, but knowing that death, across all races and species, was a difficult loss, a pain that was never quite mended.

“He left me my inheritance credits, all of his Old Earth collections, vessels, and the townhouse that we shared in the Garden District,” she told him.

In the back of his mind, Khiva had wondered how Evelyn paid for Madame Allegria’s steep price, though it had been none of his business and he’d learned early on in Everton that credits were a sensitive subject to most humans. He knew most of his clients lived in the Garden District. It was the wealthiest of living spaces in Everton.

“I had never touched any of it,” Evelyn told him, looking up at him. Her words surprised him. “To me, it still remained his. His hard work, though he’d left it for me so that I wouldn’t have to ever worry about credits or a home once I retired from my shop job, so that I would never have to feel the pressure to marry, to let a husband provide for me. He gave me that freedom, his last gift. Even when I came to you, the first two times, I’d used my own credits.”

Realization was beginning to dawn on Khiva.

“But to see you tonight, for the first time, I had to use his,” she finished.

Khiva went quiet for a brief moment and then commented softly, “You feel guilt for this.”

Evelyn shook her head. “Not guilt. I don’t want you to think that I feel guilty seeing you, like you’re a secret I’m trying to keep. I wanted to see you again, so much, but I’ve struggled with the decision, knowing that if I continued to see you, I would have to use my inheritance credits for the first time since my father died.

“And to complicate matters…” she continued softly, trailing off before admitting, “I did not know if you truly even wanted to see me again.”

Her flushed cheeks told him that it had taken her a lot of courage to admit that, but Khiva felt the words climb inside his body and turn his emotions to tatters.

“Was it not obvious,” he asked slowly, trying to conceal those emotions, “how much I desired you, Evelyn? How much I enjoyed our time together?”

“This is all new for me, Khiva,” she reminded him softly. “I know…I know you must have a lot of other clients.”

Khiva saw the way her face tightened as she said the words. With a rasp, he said, “You know I do. We all do.”

She inhaled through her nose, nodding slowly. Then she admitted, “There was a part of me, the pessimistic, cynical part of me, that thought you might’ve just been acting during our time together, that you’re good at playing a role, a different role for every client, and you played the one you thought I would like most. I’ve thought about that a lot these past few weeks and the uncertainty was driving me mad.”

Those words tore at him, but he couldn’t fault her for her honesty. Because what she’d said was partly true…he was used to playing a variety of roles, each carefully constructed for every client. It was why he liked to know whom he was meeting with for the night, to give himself time to become that role. It kept a steady stream of steady clients because Khiva could please them better.

But Khiva hated that Evelyn thought he’d done the same for her, like he grouped her in with the rest of them, just another face among many.

He reached out to cup the sides of her face, to ensure that she was looking at him, as he slowly and deliberately said, “I can say with complete honesty that I never played a role with you, not in the way you think. I was myself. I did not have to think with you. It felt natural, it felt right. I did what I wanted, I touched you when I wanted, and I said whatever I wanted to say.”

Khiva felt her relax, if only slightly, but he wanted to reassure her even more.

“I have thought of you often, Evelyn,” he told her, his voice lowering slightly. “Selfishly, I wished you would return. I wanted to see you again.”

“Khiva…” she whispered.

“Do you feel it, leeldra?” he couldn’t help but ask next, brushing his fingers through her soft hair, feeling those deep brown eyes on him like a touch.

“Feel what?”

“This strand between us. My people called it nuvur’u drava. Though there is no direct translation in your language, it means something like linking.”

Her lips parted, but Khiva thought he saw realization there.

“I feel it when I look at you, when I think of you,” he confessed, “when I touch you. We have not known each other long, leeldra, but I feel it with you. As certain as a physical touch. Do you?”

Evelyn studied him for a long time, so long that Khiva wondered if he’d made a mistake telling her.

But then she said softly, “I used my inheritance credits to see you, Khiva, not for the reasons other women come to you, but because I felt like I was making a mistake by not returning. I knew I would regret it, for the rest of my life, if I didn’t see you again. At first, I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was all in my head. I had doubts because I never wanted to read into something that wasn’t there to begin with.”

He was about to interrupt, to say that there was something there, that she shouldn’t doubt that.

But she finished before he could with, “I came back because you are worth it. You are worth the risk and worth making a fool of myself for. I had to be sure.”

“Evelyn,” he growled.

“So yes, Khiva. Even though it doesn’t make sense, even though I have no idea what we’re doing…I feel it,” she whispered. “I feel it too.”