Page 31 of Crave
“But youdoknow,” he countered. “Or you would go running back to Earth.”
She stilled against him, even her breath stopping. “Maybe that’s exactly what I was—am—going to do.”
“If that were so, you had only to wait for the IDA transport,” he reminded her. “Instead, you are here, with me.”
“Just to find the fortune you were looking for,” she protested. “Except we were wrong. Roxy tricked us.” She snorted. “Scammed by a rock.”
“Roxy didn’t know, just like we didn’t. But we didn’t let that stop us.”
She peered at him. “Why are you so desperate to convince me?”
Why was he? Just because she made his ichor flow along new pathways? Because being with her, even when he didn’t find what he was looking for, didn’t feel like a failure—it felt like another chance?
Just because the i’lva had kindled within him?
Not that he could tell her that. It wouldn’t mean anything to her. And why should it? But if this doubtful Earther female was to be his light in the darkness, he would do his best to help her find her way too.
Even if that path took her away again.
Chapter 11
Something had changed between them. Kinsley wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Besides the amazing sex.
And other than the near catastrophe of the shuttle damage and the failure of their quest and revealing her mistakes and…
Yeah, something else.
Usually her restless brain and even more restless nighttime tossing around would’ve made sleeping alone a better choice. Not that she usually gave her bed partnersanychoice. But Sil’s various limbs were the perfect weighted blanket, heavy enough to feel like a cocoon but shifting at her every twitch to give her a little more room, a little more air, a little more cuddling.
She slept like the night would never end.
When a quiet ping from the shuttle comm roused her, her fingers clenched once on Sil’s hide, as if that still drowsy part of her wanted to stay where they were. But there wasn’t really anything to hold onto, no chest hair, not even an overworked cock.
“Good morning,” he murmured.
“Is it?” She heard the edge in her voice, soured from the yezo, and quickly backtracked. “Morning, I mean.” Whether it could be good…
Like everything else, that was too hard to hold.
“The final repairs are complete,” he said, maybe responding to her unvoiced question. Although she hadn’t been talking about emergency overhauls. “We can return to theDeepWanderwhen we are ready.”
Oh god. Was that a question inhistone? Why wouldn’t they be ready to flee this disappointing fiasco?
She snuggled into his side. “It’s cold out there.”
“Increase ambient temp,” he told the ship.
She lifted her head to smirk down at him. “Wecould do that.”
He squeezed her but then said, “We should get back. I don’t want to get anyone else into more trouble than I already have.”
She wasnotgoing to be disappointed or annoyed or…or anything else. This had just been a little side jaunt in her extraterrestrial adventures. And it was over.
She rolled toward the edge of the bunk so fast, Sil had to grab at her head before she brained herself.
Well, maybe sheneededto knock some sense into herself.
