Page 17 of Crave
But she didn’t react, her expressive Earther face utterly still. “That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
“We kissed,” he reminded her. “Is that not personal?”
“That’s just bodies. You’re asking about…deeper stuff.”
“It’s like singing stone. Adjusting the harmonics of atoms is one thing, just raw material—like a body—but coaxing it into what it might become…that’s different.”
“You said you’ve never really had the chance to try stone singing.”
“Maybe like you’ve never really had the chance to try trusting.”
The silence that seeped through the shuttle was almost more terrifying than the sound of bombardments.
Kinsley jolted up from her seat. “Sounds like we’re out of the worst of it—”
The floor dropped out from beneath her, and a deafening clang rattled the shuttle.
Only Sil’s long reach kept her from knocking herself into a concussion. He thumped her back into the chair and held her in place as she fumbled her safety harness into place.
Meanwhile, his other three hands were busy on the controls. “We’re almost out of the debris, but we hit something. We’ve sustained some damage, nothing catastrophic.”
“Nothing catastrophic,” she muttered. “Since we’re still breathing. Yay.”
Her composure steadied him. According to his research reading, no romance hero would be screaming if his heroine wasn’t. Not that they were hero and heroine, of course. “Avoided collision with crucial systems, and the AI-assisted patchwork is already underway,” he reported. “But we’ll have to slow to half speed and reduce energy expenditures until repairs are done.”
“How long?”
“We’ll know more after the ship finishes its diagnostic. There’s still time in the rest cycle for you to sleep.”
“After that wake-up, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again.”
A beep from the scans indicated an all-clear, and the lights dimmed as power redirected to repairs.
“Or,” Kinsley drawled, “I’ll just sit here in the dark as if I were sleeping, but my eyes are wide open.”
“The shuttle’s systems are optimized for orcs,” he said apologetically. “I can reroute some power to light and heat.”
“No. Better to get back on track as soon as possible.”
He stood. “Come to your bunk. We can seal it well enough to keep you snug.”
“Snug as a bug in a rug,” she muttered as she followed him.
“I hear the recurrent sounds in your language. That is poetry, yes?”
“Not really. It’s just a saying. Although I never understood it since no one would want to snuggle a bug.”
“You Earthers see orcs as bug-like. Why would the IDA offer orcs to Earthers if you would not snuggle with bugs?”
Despite the low light—not so low for an orc—her sharp inhalation revealed her surprise. “You’re not exactly… Well, anyway, the IDA made it clear how you are different and how we are…compatible.”
At the bunk, he paused. “So youwouldkiss me again?”
Another one of those breaths—slower this time. “I thought you weren’t looking for a wife-mate, Sil.”
“And I know you weren’t truly seeking an alien mate.” He hadn’t actually answered her, had he? And he usually prided himself on his focus and attention to detail when that was the only thing he had to offer his crew.
Judging by her third, softest huff, she noted his avoidance. “At least we both know what we want.”
