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Imee crossed her arms over her chest, gripping her sleeves so her hands wouldn’t fidget. She hated being like this. She’d spent her entire career being absolutely sure and terrifyingly precise. The zero-G sense of disorientation Grenville created just by being around her was unwelcome. Or would be, if it didn’t also feel like flying.
She paced from the table to the chiller unit and then back again. Not that it was particularly far to walk. Hell, you could reach out and touch one while standing at the other. She was half tempted to pull a packet of juice out just to have something to do with her hands once Grenville arrived. The last thing she needed was for them to be idle and itching to touch him instead.
Djehuti had followed her in, refusing to let her out of his sight. Though she’d gotten better at spotting the hazy blur of the wolf’s presence, she’d not noticed him until the tik-tik-tik of Djehuti drinking from the ball valve of his water bottle gave him away. After that, the wolf had curled up in the corner, its invisibility occasionally broken up by the presence of one night-black eye opening and watching her with what certainly felt like amusement.
She knelt at Djehuti’s side, and he rolled over to present his belly and beg for rubs. Her smile threatened to break into a laugh. "At least you’re easy to read. Any tips for understanding your bondmate?"
"Trust me, that wolf’s as irritating as I am. Or so I’m told." Amusement tinged Grenville’s voice as he entered the tiny mess.
“Perhaps, but he makes up for it by being cuter, and not snoring.”
“I don’t snore when someone’s in my bed.” His grin rushed past sinful and straight into honeyed damnation. A streak of pale orange grease smeared his cheek, to the right of his nose. Somehow the little bit of dishevelment made him sexier. He tucked his hands into the pocket of his coveralls and leaned against the wall with a casual stance too perfect to be accidental.
She stopped petting the wolf and stood, which earned her a huff of displeasure. “Djehuti says you’re a liar.” She looked back down and nodded. “Right, sorry. He said a damn liar.”
Color rushed away from Grenville’s face. "Djehuti didn't actually say anything that you could hear, did he? You’re just fucking with me?"
Her laughter bubbled up before she could stop it. "I’m sorry, Grenville, but no. If I could actually have a conversation with your wolf, I'd have him in my quarters every spare moment until I learned all your dark little secrets." The idea held a lot of appeal, and once she'd spoken the words, she wished it were possible. It would be like being given a decoder ring to Grenville's mind.
He scoffed quietly. "You've already heard the worst of them."
"Maybe. I'd probably ask him to tell me what we do about this." She waved her hand in the space between them, surprised she couldn’t actually feel the resistance of the tension between them. Their kisses had certainly seemed mutual. Then again, so had Arnulf’s. Interest didn't make a particularly good indicator.
Thinking about their kiss drew her gaze down to his lips. He was, she had to admit, deliciously kissable. Like his mouth had been designed for it. Soft lips, full, but not too much. Imee caught him watching her, and her cheeks heated. She should feel worse about it, but him knowing she was replaying their kisses in her head tightened a knot of need in her belly.
She cursed her roommate. Not that it made Akomi wrong; Grenville was preternaturally attractive, in all the ways that fired her engines.
"You say it like there’s a choice in what we do about this,” he said at last. He dragged his hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck. “The Forces sort of made our decision for us."
He was right, of course. The gulf of rank between them created an assortment of potentially career-ending complications, which the various branches all lumped under the umbrella of fraternization. People were discharged for less, right or wrong. And she’d fought too hard to get where she was, against too much of the institutionalized boys’ club that made up the pilots, to risk that for a few kisses. No matter how hot they were.
Then again, she was interested in a lot more than kissing. She took a deep breath, not sure how to propose what she’d been thinking and still sound like the casual, no-strings-attached fling that he seemed to prefer. "Of course, while we are on this ship, we’re undercover. Neither one of us has any official rank."
“Undercover.” Grenville smirked, and she couldn’t believe she’d been so forward about it. "So, you’re suggesting that what happens on the ore hauler, stays on the ore hauler?"
"It would have to, right? This isn’t the sort of thing that could continue once we got back to the Cry. Like you said, the Forces made our decision for us."
Tension entered his shoulders and his jaw, the amber of his eyes darkening as he stared at her. She couldn’t help but think he was disappointed with what he found, until he moved, and the look shifted from hard into predatory. “I’m good with that if you are.”
He crossed the space between them in two steps, hands skimming over her hips. His nose brushed along hers, his voice whisper soft, and so close the air of it caressed her lips. “Tell me again this is what you want.”
“I want this.” It was a lie. She wanted so much more than this, but if this was all they could have, it’s what she would take. Her arms circled his shoulders, pulling him across the last hairsbreadth of space so she could taste his kiss again.
Hands grabbed her backside, lifting her slightly and highlighting the differences in their heights. She broke the kiss to speak while his mouth trailed fire down the skin of her neck. She wanted to burn everywhere. He was a star, and she was caught in his inescapable gravity.
“You know our heights would matter less if we were lying down.” She gasped as his teeth grazed the skin where her neck and shoulder met.
He looked up with a smug grin. “Lead the way.”
#
GRENVILLE LAY ON HIS side in the narrow rack and listened to the soft sounds of Imee’s breath. Though he’d always considered her beautiful, in the cabin’s soft light she was glorious—skin glowing with golden notes that turned her sienna skin into bronze. She looked like an idol, and he was more than happy to worship.
The sheets had pooled around their waists, showing off the wiry cut of her biceps. Pilots didn’t have the same physical exam requirements as rangers, but wrestling a ship around still required plenty of strength in addition to knowledge and skill. She looked more than capable of both. Her hair had flattened against her head slightly, damp with sweat from their exertions, and that combined with the satisfied smile on her face made him want to wake her up in any number of delicious ways.
But he didn’t.
Carefully he eased himself from Imee’s rack to the floor. A pair of night-black eyes blinked at him from beneath the bed, and Djehuti’s scorn scraped across the edge of his brain. He glared back and whispered, “Don’t you start.”
Clothes were scattered along the short distance between the door and the mattress, and he sorted through the piles until he found his boxers and slid them on. After stepping into his coveralls, he perched on the end of her rack to tug on his socks and boots. Each discarded piece of clothing set off another memory of her—the delicious curve of a breast, the soft gasp of her pleasure, her focused expression as she rode him. And underneath each of them, a single sentence played across the back of his mind on endless loop.
This can’t continue once we go back to the Cry.
If that was how she wanted it, how she needed him to be, he’d have to live with it. Have to let it be enough.
If they were on the Hunting Cry, he could at least go to the gym and punch his frustrations into the heavy bag until his hands ached and his brain turned off. He tugged on one of his socks before Djehuti slipped out from underneath the rack to nuzzle his hand. As it always did, the contact soothed Grenville’s anxieties, pushed away some of the bitterness that he spent too much time trying to keep at bay. He dug his fingers into the wolf’s coat, brushing against the fur and scattering bright rainbows as the quick motion disrupted the animals lensing effect.
He exhaled and tried to count his blessings. Every second with Imee had exceeded his most explicit fantasies. Together they had a unity of sensual purpose he’d never experienced with the other women who’d shared his bed. And the humor; they’d trusted each other enough to be comfortable. To be their real selves and laugh when the inevitable ridiculousness of sex in low gravity took its toll. That kind of openness felt precious and rare. He could count the number of times...
He shied away from the joke. Knowing what they’d found wasn’t going to last, that to her he was the same good-time Grenville everyone else saw, hurt worse than getting shot.
The rack shifted as she rolled over to watch him. “What are you doing?”
He forced a smile and looked back to her. She’d tucked an arm behind her head, one breast jutting above the covers. The dark skin of her areola pebbled and tightened as he watched, and it stirred his hunger anew. He let his eyes trail back up to her face. “Someone should make certain we don’t slam into any more debris. Or overshoot our target zone.”
She slid her omnidevice out of the pouch that hung from her rack. “I slaved all the ship’s sensors to my omni. It would let us know if there were something we needed to worry about.”
He raised an eyebrow and smiled, unable to keep the teasing hint out of his voice. “Why, Imee Lewis, did you think you might not be making it back up to your beloved bridge right away?”
“It wasn’t a sure thing,” she replied. “But I may have been hedging a bet.”
“That’s probably the first time someone thought I wasn’t a sure thing.” The words tumbled out before he could stop them, and despite the light tone, there was no missing the bitterness underneath them.
Her fingers brushed over his hand. “You’re not sorry?”
“No!” As though he could be. As though she’d understand he didn’t regret that it had happened, but that it couldn’t keep happening forever. “I just need to stretch my legs. I’m... I’ve got too much nervous energy.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“There are better ways to work that off.” She smiled and flipped back the sheets, revealing the rest of her amazing, delicious body. He’d spent hours trying to memorize every inch of her, and damn if he wasn’t ready to lie back down and start all over. Narrow mattress be damned. He settled for leaning down and placing a kiss on the plane of her stomach, tasting her salty skin still brushed with the smell of their combined sweat. “God, but I’d love to. But Djehuti really needs to get his run in.”
It was a lame excuse, and even if she’d considered buying it, his wolf was quick to huff displeasure at being made a scapegoat. Djehuti padded out the cabin door and across the hall.
“If I was that wolf, I’d be pissing in your rack about now.” Imee was still smiling, but her words were tired, the frustration she fought against obvious in the set of her jaw and the tension in her fist as she covered herself with the sheet once more.
“If he did that, then we’d have to share a bunk for the rest of the trip.”
“Until five minutes ago, I was okay with that as an option.” She flopped onto her back.
He tugged on one boot but winced at the way it pinched his foot. His profanity was as creative as it was sudden.
She slapped her hand onto the mattress. “Now what?”
He stared at his foot, then pulled at the uncomfortable shoe, but it refused to budge. “I put on one of your boots by mistake.”
The musical peal of her laughter almost made his discomfort worthwhile. The sound was whisper-edged, natural and unguarded. He could spend a lifetime learning how best to make her laugh. He had less than two weeks.
“It’s not funny! You have some tiny-ass feet. I’m losing feeling in my toes.”
“I don’t know, I’d love to see you report that to the infirmary. ‘I put on the wrong boot and—’”
“They look very similar, you know.” Which given that they were the same standard-issue boot, in different sizes, made sense. Not that he cared; he was more refreshed by the opportunity to change topics from his own nagging worries. “And you were distracting me.”
She rolled her eyes, her grin undeterred as she leaned forward to help him pry the boot off. “I just got those boots broken in. If you stretched them out and I have to get a new pair, you’re buying them.”
“I can probably cover that.” The PX covered two pairs a year, but even beyond that, the discount made them extremely affordable. The boot came free, and he wiggled his toes until the feeling came back.
She flopped back to stare at the ceiling tiles. “I notice that you’re still leaving though.”
From the tone in her voice, Grenville couldn’t decide if she was talking about now or the future. In either case, they both had to understand the answer was yes. He tied up the correct boots, stood, and zipped up his coveralls. “Don’t worry, it’s a small ship.”