Alessan caught her hand and she stopped her babbling, suddenly shy. They were alone, even though Desdra’s amiable taunting of Capiam for his timorous dexterity and B’lerion’s cheerful encouragement of Oklina were audible.
“You said that we could remain here as long as it took to complete the harvest,” Alessan said quietly. He was kneeling beside her now. “And return with no more than an hour elapsed there… . .” His eyes searched her averted face, and his hands captured hers before she could reach for more needlethoms. “Can we not make a little time for ourselves?”
Oklina’s delighted laugh rang out, followed by B’lerion’s startled curse.
“Damn things bite!”
Moreta grinned at the outrage in the bronze rider’s voice and her eyes met Alessan’s, saw his amused reaction. She lifted her hands to
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Alessan’s face, her fingers tracing the lines that tension and anxiety had etched on a young man’s countenance. Merely touching him in light intimacy evoked a response in her body, and she swayed quite willingly into his arms as they kissed. The resurgence of her own sensuality dispelled the last vestige of restraint and she slid one arm about his neck, the other clasping his strong hard body against hers as they knelt together by the needlethom bush they had been stripping.
“What more can you expect of a one-handed man?” B’lerion demanded in a loud complaint.
Moreta and Alessan broke apart, but the bronze rider was still out of sight, if audible. Alessan grinned for their discomfiture, expressing regret at the parting.
“It will be far too hot to work midday, Alessan, and I have no doubts that we can find some privacy then.”
“Clever of you to bring mixed pairs, wasn’t it?”
“One is always more sorry for the things one didn’t do than the things one has done.” Moreta spoke with mock severity, and Alessan quickly silenced her the most effective way.
“Personally, I don’t like it when it’s too hot,” Alessan was saying, releasing her lips to give her eyes and cheeks and ears and throat equal attention. An injudicious movement brought his arm in contact with the needlethom bush and he spun away, dragging Moreta with him. “They really do bite, don’t they?” He rubbed his arm where a fine row of bloody beads rose on the skin.
“Oh, dear, they do.” She reached for the cut ging and squeezed some of the sap onto the punctures. “There, that’ll seal them too. Really, Alessan”and she gave him a quick kiss, fondling his ear “we have to do what we came here for!” She tried to be stem, but he was still frowning from the indignation of having his ardor abruptly pricked.
“I’ll settle a score for myself, too,” he said, snatching handfuls of the needlethoms from the bush that had wounded him. “That’ll teach you, my spiny friend! There! There! and There! You’re stripped!”
Laughing at his outraged monologue, Moreta worked as fast as she could to pack the products of his vindictive harvest.
“You picked the first one. Now you pack for me!” Alessan said with a growl. But his hands impeded hers as she worked to close the
262 More/a: Dragonlady of Pem Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern 263
last package. He kissed her at the base of her throat, then on her chin.
“Fastest packer on Pem,” he said in a complimentary tone while his hands made investigations of their own.
“Now it’s my turn to pick,” Moreta said, nibbling at his ear and running her hands through his thick hair. “Someone must be able to give you a trim,” she murmured solicitously. Alessan was beginning to look like his former shaggy self, and that annoyed her.
“I’ll trim you if you don’t get to work, Moreta.”
“I work faster than you.” She allowed herself to sound peevish as she snapped quick handfuls off the nearest bush, piling them for him to pack.
“Can’t you two get along together?” B’lerion demanded, bursting suddenly from around a bend of the ravine.
“She’ll leam!” “He’ll leam!” they said in chorus, waving cheerfully. B’lerion looked at them for a long moment then stalked off.
“Work now, play later,” Moreta said, continuing to strip the nee-diethoms down.