Page 27 of Space for More

“You’re just trying to look out for me. It’s very sweet. You’re sweet.” Eden’s cheeks grow pink as she speaks, her melodic voice going soft. I’ve been so distracted by her pretty appearance that I didn’t notice how alluring her voice is. It tingles down my spine, then spreads, pooling warm arousal in my core.

I resist the urge to flirt with her again, though I desperately want to. I’d thought my horniness was a byproduct of being around her at the same time as Phelix, but I haven’t seen him in hours. This is just…Eden. Sweet, adorable, sexy Eden.

I clear my throat in an attempt to push that revelation aside. “Anyway! Now that it’s settled that you’re staying, what plans do you have for the rest of your time on Spire? Other than helping me seduce Phelix and stopping the exchange of dangerous schematics—all that boring spy stuff.”

“Oh, mostly sightseeing…”

“Okay, comm me when you want to go out and I’ll join you,” I say, already thinking of all the places I could show her.

Her brows raise in alarm. “You don’t have to do that!”

I frown at her, crossing my arms. “Yes, I do. There’s no way I’m letting you wander around Spire alone. I’m not tattling about what happened to you to the agents, but in exchange, you’re stuck with me as your shadow.” I don’t tell her that letting her out of my sight terrifies me after what happened earlier.

“But, uh…”

“But what? I know all the best places to go. Oooo, have you done a pleasure sim before? Those are open most of the night cycle so we could do that tonight!”

Eden blanches and I realize belatedly that I’m not giving her room to say what she wants to do. A bad habit of mine, according to Fina and Paul.

“Or we don’t have to do that! What would you like to do?”

There. Look at me being considerate. Though when she takes more than a few seconds to consider, I feel like I’m going to burst from all the ideas I want to spew forth. I call on my social conditioning I’ve ignored since running away to Spire, forcing my expression to be placid. I’m out of practice so I can’t keep my lower right hand from tapping against my thigh. Another bad habit that drove my mothers crazy.

Eden finally speaks, and I sigh with relief that I made it through waiting without exploding. “You have to promise me you won’t laugh.”

My agitation from keeping my ideas inside evaporates as curiosity sets in. I keep my face calm, the picture of refinement and understanding. “No laughter. You can tell me anything, sweet Eden.”

She looks away and a flush spreads across her neck and chest. Goddess, she has a very pretty neck… Wait, what were we talking about?

“Say something!”

I realize I’m staring at her neck and totally missed what she said. I panic and say the most generic, reassuring thing I can think of. “That’s no big deal.”

She scowls at me.

Whoops, wrong answer.

“I’m thirty years old and I’ve never had sex! Of course that’s abig deal! It’s huge and embarrassing and I was going to go out and find a brothel and finally get rid of my v-card with whatever sexy alien will take my credits.”

Yikes. My eyebrows shoot up before I can rein my reaction in, but luckily she’s not looking directly at me as she explains her predicament. “Okay. Before I address the overall, uh, problem…what’s a v-card? Is that some kind of special credit tab for sex?”

“It’s a way of saying I haven’t lost my virginity,” she says, shame creeping into her voice.

I frown, feeling like I’m missing something—my translation chip must be malfunctioning. “You haven’t lost your innocence? You’re not pure? What does purity have to do with fucking?”

Eden presses a palm to her forehead with a sigh. “God, that would take far too long to explain. But in humanity’s history, some cultures and religions thought that once you had sex, you became impure. Well, premarital sex. And that mostly applied only to women. Now it just means someone who hasn’t had sex.”

I can’t keep the horror off of my face. “Goddess, humans are bizarre.”

“Yeah, it’s fucked up. But that’s not the point! I need to get laid and I can’t have you following me around when I go to do it.” Eden throws her hands up in exasperation.

“‘Get laid’, now that one I know,” I say, snorting at the human expression. “And yes, I absolutely can go with you to a brothel.” Not that I particularly like the idea of her fucking some random alien, but I like the thought of her going out alone even less.

“But you’re going about this the wrong way. Why should you pay someone to sleep with you when you’re a rarity here? Any number of horny aliens would be happy to fuck you.” I should stop there, but my damn mouth keeps going. “Myself, for one. Phelixwould volunteer too. I saw the way he was looking at you at lunch, even before someone tried to poison you.”

She sputters, and I scramble to reassure her. “I know, I know. We need to keep things professional. Those were just examples to illustrate my point.”

“Y-yeah, we should be professional. Right.”

---