It wasn't easy to convince herself it was time to start the day. She liked sitting in his lap. With his arms wrapped tenderly around her, it was easy to forget that he was almost an entirely different species. She wriggled herself more tightly against him, cradling the mug against her chest, enjoying the heat and its scent. Almost too easy to forget it. That he was a supersoldier, gene-crafted to perfection by a nation that only existed in history, didn't matter to her, but it was still strange to think that the being softly nibbling on her neck and showering her with careful devotion could just as easily grind her bones to dust. She laughed out loud when she realised his absurd physique was probably the least weird thing about him. He nudged her with his chin and she knew he was giving her a questioning look. It was simultaneously frightening and endearing how well she could read him by now.

'Just remembering you adjusting to us,' she replied, giggling as the memories flooded. She felt him nod. He took it as a serious remark. Even now the concept of humour was something that translated badly between the two of them and only rarely had they things in common. Stars! When their relationship had developed she had all but died of embarrassment when she discovered that amongst the very many fields that he had been edited to excel in, sex hadn't been one of them. He was aware of it in theoretical terms but having to explain to a grown man how it was supposed to go had been interesting. Still, it had worked out in the end.

Speaking of which...

She wiggled in his lap and turned, aiming to give him a kiss and draw him back into what she had broken off a bit earlier. The start of the day could wait a bit longer.

His fingers grabbed hold of her chin and pressed down on her cheeks.

'No, it cannot,' he replied to her unvoiced thought. If she could read him well, he could read her perfectly if she had his sole attention. He had said he wasn't psionic but there were times she doubted it. She glared at him and forced her tongue out between her flattened lips, blowing a raspberry at him. He got up and she found herself floating on one arm in the blink of an eye. The movement made her slam her arms around him in surprise. She let out a short growl and a brief hesitation in his step told her that he was sorry about it. Even now, after more than three years of knowing one another, he struggled with adjusting himself. It had gotten worse recently, now that they were getting more used to one another and the barriers they unknowingly held between them withered away.

He carried her inside and walked to the shower with her, dropping her off with a short kiss, before moving to the pile of neatly folded clothes laying on the nightstand. As she turned on the water and reached for the soap, she watched him get him dressed. A strange desire on his end to have no walls in their house and use curtains instead, but she didn't complain. She liked being able to see him at all times.

She closed her eyes and embraced the hot water streaming down her face and soaking her hair. She enjoyed these moments, early in the morning. When she met him on that fateful day, three years ago, both of their lives had changed so much, all for the better. She had been bored, overly educated and confined to the village and its surroundings, prohibited from travelling to the city, let alone to space. She had been lucky her parents had allowed her to finish her education after she had been drugged and kidnapped in the final year of her studies. She had been even luckier that her friend had become suspicious and called in the police, who managed to track down her cellphone in time to free her before anything had happened to her. Her parents had been sick with worry and when she came back they had kept her in the village and made sure everyone else was in on it. She could travel around, they had left her that much freedom, but the village was remote enough that she had no hopes of reaching civilisation proper.

So she travelled around the village, climbing the smaller, more navigable mountains and cliffs, tracing the river, chickening out at the cave entrances, bivouac'd in the forests and generally spent as much time outside as she could. The alternative was sitting on her ass in the village with five degrees to her name and half a dozen suitors chasing after her that offered her absolutely nothing of worth. Most came with the promises that she'd heard a million times before. They'd take care of her, cherish her, love her. That wasn't what she wanted. That had never been what she wanted. She craved adventure! Excitement!

Then Mentuc had arrived in the village, although he still called himself Dreamer then. He had drawn her attention immediately because he was so weird. He had moved strangely, as if he was ill, but had brushed off the attempt of Catie, the village doctor, to look at him. Politely, but insistently. He had tried to buy land, showing up with a satellite picture of the area and had given strange looks when people told him that you just took what you needed if nobody minded, the planet wasn't that settled yet. To all the villagers he had looked like a drunk lad who had come into more money than was good for him, especially since he was wearing sunglasses. Whatever he was, he had been interesting. A delightful change from the boorish life that she suffered through day after day. She had watched him intensely from afar, at least until her mother had dragged her in by her ear, throwing good advice about weird strangers at her every step of the way. She hadn't heard the rest of the story until her father had arrived and by then the tale was spreading through the village like wildfire.

'The lad's set his eyes on the bit past the Wall!' her father had said, hinting at the small valley that was only accessible by aircraft. 'Never had a wacko like waltz into here before. Then started buying up all kinds of stuff! Tools left and right, axes, saws, knives, honestly don't know what he was thinking. Didn't know the price for any of it either, Sam was robbing him something fierce until his wife came out and bashed him over the head for ripping off the nice lad. Lad did the damnedest thing though, he still paid the price Sam'd asked, saying it was fair since he didn't know. Then he went off through the market again, bought the cart from ol' Fermer.'

'He didn't!' her mum had interjected. 'That old crummy thing?'

'Aye! Sam did good though, immediately yelled at the lad to bring it in to fix the axles and reinforce the plating. Was as good as his word, he was. He told the lad to finish his shopping, that he'd be done in half an hour. Refused any payment for it too, reckon he was feeling ashamed.'

Her mother had nodded solemnly at that. 'Good of him. It ain't right to rob people settling in, especially if they're not that right in the head.'

'Are you sure he's not right in the head? If he has that much money on him he must have come by it somehow?' she had asked.

'Listen lass,' her father had replied, rather sternly, 'the stars know how people like 'im got hold of that much money and the lad seems nice enough, but he came in on foot and unless he has a Vertigo stashed 'way somewhere near, he ain't getting into that valley. You know what the Wall's like!'

She had pretended to agree, more to get her father to quiet down than because she actually agreed, even though the Wall was hard to scale.

'What else did he buy?' had her mother prodded, curious for the rest of the story.

'Lots of seeds mostly. Bags of wheat, oats, carrots, damn near everything! Like he was stacking up for winter but unless he got a good cellar it won't last the month before it goes rotten and he'll be back then. Tried bargaining with the Ulsons' to buy their cows too, pro'lly to pull the cart! They called him mad and daft and all sorts of words before telling him to sod off and catch a cow in the wild.'

'Now that's uncalled for, the poor lad being crocked doesn't warrant them insulting him like that!'

'You know what they're like. When it comes to their cattle they're protective somethin' fierce. Still, the lad's reaction to that was probably the weirdest of all. Just nodded, didn't even get angry. He thanked 'em, Nyna. Thanked them! For the advice! Then he went back to Sam's, threw it all in the car and left the village, pulling it himself. Catie insisted we'd sent some fellas after him to make sure he didn't hurt himself but nobody was quite willing, harvest approaching and all that and everyone being busy.'

Her father had kept on rambling quite a while longer, which had allowed her to sneak out of the house unnoticed. She went to the marketplace and after asking a few quick questions she knew which way he had left the village. She ran onto the road, after him. Despite that they were a remote village the road was still well maintained and the regional governor had people passing by every two weeks to keep it repaired, an easy job with their Vertigos and the depots stashed alongside the road. It was their lifeline, after all, and if something happened to it both the village and those further in would be cut off from the power grid that ran through it.

She had run for mile after mile and still failed to catch up with him. At first she thought it was merely because he had too much of a headstart, but after three hours of chasing after him she realised he must have had a Vertigo parked nearby. Then she realised how silly that sounded. A Vertigo was typically a small craft. You had bigger ones with proper equipment, but none of the types she knew had the ability to pick up a cart like that and anything bigger than that type of aircraft would have engines you could hear roar from miles away. She had been so deep in thought she nearly missed the tracks on her way back. She froze as her eyes followed the trail that departed from the road. The tracks of the wheels went on for a few yards in the soft grass, accompanied by the man's footprints before they disappeared. The tracks of the wheels did. Not the footprints.

She screamed when the water turned ice-cold and she was out of the shower in a heartbeat, into his arms and hammering onto his chest while screaming in mute rage and hurling obscenities at him. Both the words and the blows bounced off him without having any effect what-so-ever.

'What do you think you are doing!' she said, shivering, huffing as he wrapped a large, warm towel around her and started drying her off.

'We've got a long day ahead of us,' he reminded her, doing that damned pokerface of his again. It wasn't fair! He could close himself of perfectly and when he did she couldn't read him at all anymore, although she knew it signalled that he was up to no good, or already had been and she hadn't figured it out yet.

'Yes, I know, I know. Very busy. Spring season. Deal with the calves, tend the fields, I know, I know,' she grunted, raising her arms so he could dry her off more quickly. She realised her mistake and his goal the next moment as he closed in on her, towel caught between her back and his chest, covering her ever so slightly as he made his move. She was trapped and she knew it. She was strong, she had been exploring the wilds for years and it had left her tough as nails. In front of him, however, she was as helpless as a newborn kitten.

His hands slid underneath the towel and his fingers slowly danced across her skin, his touch infuriatingly light and disgustingly delightful. She shivered again, not from the cold this time, goosebumps following his movements. Then she became aware of his lips softly pressing into her ear, his tongue teasingly running just underneath it and she mewled helplessly in his embrace.

'Or you could let me move normally. We'd have time to spare then. You could get back underneath the shower...' he offered, his hands drawing too near. She struggled but he adjusted his hold slightly and she was pinned. What was worse is that it only made her more aware of his touch, made her feel it clearer.

'I could even join you,' he whispered.

'Mentuc!' she whined, her words ringing hollow as his hands closed in, eroding her resistance with every passing moment, with each delightful stroke. She stopped complaining, stopped resisting, knowing it to be futile. Her breath quickened and her heartbeat sped up as the downward presses of his fingers became more insistent. His teeth tugged softly at her earlobe, teasingly at first, but with more need as it progressed, as the intimacy escalated and her passions heated up. Just as she was about to demand him to let her go so she could turn around and kiss him, just as he was about to finally put his hands where she wanted them, he withdrew, leaving her behind with nothing but desire and the towel.

She turned around to him, mouth agape, not believing what just happened. He winked at her.

'Payback for this morning,' he explained and stepped outside.

She took a moment to compose herself, then tossed off the towel as she reached a decision. Reaching for the poker she grabbed it, threw her slightly wet hair onto her back and screamed his name, promising bloody vengeance as she charged after him.