| |
ANDIE HOPED SHE WASN’T walking funny when she got breakfast. There’d been an intensity to Xandr that she’d never seen before and while they’d been in bed she loved it, but now she was paying for it with sore muscles and an ache she couldn’t quite get rid of.
Worth it. 100%.
But the question of her clothes had fallen by the wayside again, and by the time Andie remembered the worry they were already cuddled up and drifting off to sleep. Worries had a way of disappearing like that when Xandr fucked her like the universe would implode if she didn’t get off. And this morning she was too content to let that nagging issue get to her. Instead she’d pulled on some of Xandr’s ridiculously oversized clothes, run to her room, and stuffed some of her own things into a bag before bringing them back to Xandr’s. He was gone by the time she got back, so he couldn’t tell her she’d overstepped, and after the night before she really didn’t think he would.
It might have been a celebratory fuck, but it was also so much more than that. More than she was willing to contemplate, even.
If she let herself fall for him all the way...
Who was she kidding? Like she had any control over that happening. All she could hope to do was slow her descent.
“Someone looks well... rested,” Sayevi, the ship’s pilot, teased as Andie grabbed breakfast and sat beside her in the galley.
Andie’s brown skin hid her blush even as she felt her cheeks warm, and she’d started to get used to the crew’s teasing in the weeks since it became common knowledge that she and Xandr were sleeping together. Even before they’d told everyone it had apparently been the worst kept secret on this side of universe. And while not everyone on the crew was completely happy about it, Sayevi’s teasing and good-natured acceptance made Andie feel like she really could belong here. There was no family waiting for her back on Earth, but the crew of the Seventh might be the one she’d never known she could hope to find.
“I definitely slept well,” Andie confirmed, unable to hide her grin. With as hard and she and Xandr had gone, she didn’t have another choice.
“So that’s all working out?” Sayevi looked something between hopeful and surprised, and Andie didn’t know whether that was a compliment or an insult.
“So far so good, though it’s not like we’ve been going at it for long.” A few weeks since they’d agreed that it was more than just hooking up, and a few weeks before that of just hooking up. More sex than she’d had in the previous decade, and possibly her longest lasting relationship. What did it say about her that she needed to be abducted from her home, held hostage on a shitty planet, and then taken up with a massive purple alien to find a compatible lover?
Sayvei gave her another one of those unreadable looks but before she could say anything, the rest of the crew: Taryn, Malax, Kiran, Keana, Dr. Hayk, and Xandr filed into the room and took their places like there was a scheduled meeting. Andie wracked her brain trying to remember if she’d been told about anything, but nothing came to mind. She shot a look at Sayevi, who looked equally confused.
Andie met Xandr’s eyes and a zing of recognition arced through her. He’s mine. There was some primal satisfaction in knowing that she’d grabbed the eye of the captain and had held it for longer than anyone else. And things between them were only getting hotter, more intense. His lips quirked up to one side, and Andie’s heart flipped over while her stomach dropped. This was so much more than sex and she was scared if she didn’t pump the brakes it would destroy her when it all went down in flames. But she smiled back and knew that she wasn’t going to be the one to slow things down. She’d tried that already and failed miserably.
“Did we miss the memo?” Andie finally asked.
“What’s a memo?” Sayevi shot back. It was easy to forget that her fellow human wasn’t from Earth. Sayevi had been born on a planet many light years away populated by the descendants of people who’d been abducted from Earth. From the stories she’d told, the place held echoes of similarity to Andie’s home, but it was far from the same.
“Notification about the meeting.” She waved a finger in a circle to encompass everyone. They were quite the crew. Xandr, Keana, and Taryn were all Oscavian, but each of them had their own mysterious reasons for wanting to stay out of reach of the empire. Malax was all tentacles and height at eight feet tall, a typical Zusotid. She hadn’t known what to think of Kiran at first, who had the shape of a human or Oscavian but with gold skin and dark markings on his chest and arms. She’d since learned he was a Detyen and one night he’d told her all about how his home planet had been destroyed long before his birth and he’d lived his life drifting from place to place. Demaris Hayk was still a mystery. He looked as human as her and Sayevi, but something prevented Andie from being willing to call him one. He didn’t speak of his past and no one asked questions. She’d been tempted to see what Xandr would tell her if she asked, but hadn’t gathered the nerve. It seemed like an invasion of privacy and she didn’t want to use her position as Xandr’s bed partner to gain information she shouldn’t have.
The gathered group shot glances at each other. “What meeting?” Malax’s voice rumbled from deep within his chest. One of his tentacles was draped around his lover, Taryn, and she leaned into his side. Andie had walked in on them once and had seen just how he used those tentacles. She’d fled as quickly as her feet could take her.
Xandr grabbed a meal bar from one of the cupboards and crossed the room to place a soft kiss on her cheek. There was a collective indrawn breath from the rest of the room. Andie and Xandr tried to keep their hands off one another around the others, mostly because when they started they had trouble stopping. This was new. And when Xandr pulled away Andie grinned up at him.
New, but good.
“No meeting,” he said, turning to face the rest of the group while standing beside Andie and casually placing a hand on her shoulder. “But eat quickly. We have to drop the haul off before we take our leave. And with that little complication,” there was a round of grumbling at that and someone cursed someone named Nevys, “we’ll have to cut a few days off leave and get another job.”
Another round of grumbling, but no one argued. The team wasn’t exactly destitute, but life was difficult for outlaws with moral qualms. And since the Seventh wouldn’t touch the slave trade and didn’t offer muscle to petty dictators, finding lucrative jobs became harder with each passing day.
Xandr squeezed her shoulder one last time before leaving and everyone stared at her for a moment before the spell seemed to break. They got their breakfasts and took seats, breaking into the little cliques that Andie wouldn’t have expected on a crew so small. Malax, Taryn, Kiran, and Keana took the couch and Dr. Hayk took off after grabbing his own meal.
Andie watched the group on the couch and strained to hear what they were talking about. Taryn and Keana both shot quick glances at her but looked away so quickly that Andie wondered if it had been a mistake. Taryn had never warmed up to her, and Andie didn’t know whether things were improving or getting worse. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Keana was harder to read. She’d offered Andie a position on the ship and hadn’t tried to get rid of her since. But she was also Xandr’s oldest friend and was protective of him in a way that might have made Andie jealous if she didn’t know that there would never be anything romantic between them. Besides, she and Xandr were new and there was no way to know how close they might get. The whole thing could fizzle out at any moment.
“Did someone just murder your puppy?” Sayevi asked, nudging Andie on the shoulder to get her attention.
“What? Why would someone do that?” She didn’t want to imagine it. What kind of evil world was Sayevi from if she could say that so casually?
Sayevi’s face screwed up before her lips crinkled in a smile. “It’s just a saying. I guess you don’t have that one.”
“No, we don’t.” Translators were weird things, but generally worked well. At least until they started threatening cute, innocent creatures. “But I think I get the gist.”
“And?” Sayevi prompted, eyebrows shooting up and inviting comment. Then her gaze fell to the gathered group behind them and understanding dawned. “They’ll come around. It’s been so long since we’ve had a newcomer and they’re all still adjusting.”
“You didn’t need time to adjust.” Sayevi had accepted her from the first, showing Andie the ropes in those first days when she’d been tempted to get off at the nearest space station and make her way back to Earth.
“Not everyone is as great as me.” She stood up and tossed her finished plate in the trash. “Duty calls. Let’s go make some money.”
