Page 128 of Not That Impossible

“Do you…?” I couldn’t believe I was going to ask this, but… “Do you want to read one?” It wasn’t a bad idea. He’d at least see that I didn’t, in fact, idealise him.

No, it was a terrible idea.

I’d die of embarrassment.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Really?” My voice went up.

“Yeah.” He rocked into me, letting me feel his erection.

Oh. He really did. “Okay,” I said. “There are a lot. What are you into?”

“You.”

“Yes, you are,” I said, pecking a quick kiss on his lips. “Repeatedly, and in every single story.”

He thrust against me lazily again.

“Apart from the dark timeline,” I said.

He stopped. “What happens in the dark timeline?”

“You…are not interested in having sex with me?”

“So what happens if we’re not having sex?”

Regretting this very much. “Don’t worry, you have plenty of sex, it’s fine.”

“Who am I having sex with if not you?” he said indignantly.

This was not heading in the direction I wanted. “Random guys. And. Maybe Ray.”

“You wrote stories about me having sex with Ray?”

“It’s not like I was trying! Things got complicated back there for a while after we hooked up, and—”

“It wasn’t a hook-up,” he said fiercely, and kissed me. “I am such a dick for saying that and I’m sorry.”

I kissed him back until I was breathless. “I know,” I said. “I wasn’t writing that stuff on purpose. Or the ones when you kept murdering me.”

His eyes bugged out. “You wrote stories about me murdering you?”

“No! No, no.” I clasped his face. “I mean, yes? But it’s the same as with Ray and all your other concubines, I didn’t plan to write—”

“Concubines?”

“And it wasn’t murder for the sake of murder. Not all the time, anyway. Once, you shot me out the airlock to save humanity.”

“Ishotyou out of anairlock?”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t write it on purpose, I was trying to write a story where I got a happy ending with you at least in my imagination. It just kept going wrong.”

“Jasper.” He kissed me. “I would never shoot you out of an airlock. If it was necessary for the survival of humanity…somehow…that you were ejected into space, I’d gowithyou. Wow. I never thought that would be part of any big romantic declaration, but here we are.” He pushed my hair back from my face. “I’m not going to hurt you again,” he said.

I smiled up at him. “Of course you are. You’re real, and real you is only human.” I bit my lip.

Liam’s eyes narrowed on mine. “Am I sometimes not human?”

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