Page 37 of Sunastara & the Venusian
What?
“No?” I repeated. “Did you just say no?”
“Yes.”
“Wait.” I stiffened in his arms. “Yes, you said no? Or no, you said yes?”
“I said no.” He shook his head against my stomach. “No sex.”
The sound that burst out of me was one I’d never made before, like a cat with laryngitis coughing up a hairball. “Are you kidding me?” I pushed against his shoulders, trying to break away, but he held me tight. “Let me go!”
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Sunny, please. Let me explain.”
“Explain what? That I’m being denied by two men tonight? Of all the preposterous horseshit.”
His laughter rumbled against my belly.
I squirmed in his grip. “Stop laughing. This isn’t funny.”
“Stop fighting, and I’ll stop laughing.”
With an exasperated grunt, I tried for one last escape, met his resistance, and gave up. “Fine.” I let my arms hang limp at my sides. “Get on with your explanation, then.”
He turned his head, propping his chin on my stomach, and gazed up into my eyes. “Sunny,” he said, while butterflies swarmed in my belly. “I can’t have meaningless sex with you.”
“Why not? We’ve done it before. And I believe we both found the experience”—my core gave a little flicker at the sense memory of his lips on my skin—“adequate.”
“I can’t have meaningless sex with you, because when it comes to you, I want more. I want to be more than a hookup. More than just another night. You can’t sleep with other beings right now because of me. And I can’t sleep with you, if that’s all it is. I may have some self-destructive tendencies, and believe me, your offer is tempting me more than you’ll ever know. But”—his arms loosened around me—“if anything ever happens between us again, I want it to mean something.”
Despite my newfound freedom, I didn’t back away, too busy cracking open, right down the center. I wanted it tomean something too, being with him. In another world, maybe it could. But in this one, it was impossible. “Freddie, I can’t be what you want right now. I’m not?—”
“I know, Sunny.” He leaned back, settling his hands on the bed behind him. “I know there’s something other than our jobs keeping you from wanting to be in a relationship. I won’t ask you what that thing is, but I’ve been thinking about this. A lot, to be honest. And since you’re here, since you haven’t walked out on me yet, I might as well shoot my shot.” His chest heaved through a fortifying breath. “I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
I considered that for a moment, accidentally spending most of that moment staring into his eyes, which pulled on me the way a planet pulled on its moons. Yanking myself free, I straightened to my full, unimpressive height and said, “All right. I will hear your proposal.”
Slowly, his gaze sank, landing somewhere below my breasts. “I know you aren’t looking for anything serious,” he said, his voice soft and measured. “But I don’t think I can stay away from you anymore. So what if there was a way we could be together, more than just sex, but less than a relationship. Not as Sunny and Freddie, but”—he paused for another breath—“asthem.”
“Them?” I asked, not following. “Them who?”
“Them. Phoebe and Joshua.”
“Phoebe and Joshua?” I repeated, still not quite getting it.
His brow furrowed. “I know it sounds mad, but bear with me. Freddie and Sunny work together on this ship. They are professional, friendly, and in no way involved with each other. But maybe, after the workday ends, Freddie andSunny could become Joshua and Phoebe, vacationing singles who’ve made an undeniable connection once and now want to feel each other out. See where things might lead.”
I probably needed to say something, but nothing coherent came to me. This proposal… Either he’d gone completely sideways, or he was the most brilliantly seductive male in the entire KU.
“I thought I could be patient,” he went on, despite my silence. “I thought I’d be able to stand by and wait until I charmed you so thoroughly you’d have no other choice but to give me a chance. But if tonight taught me anything, it’s that there is not enough patience in the entire galaxy for me to withstand the idea of you being with someone else. Unless, perhaps, that someone else is me. Or another version of me, anyway.”
There was a good chance I’d gone completely sideways too, because I started to imagine how it might go. A late-night movie at the Rialto, a walk along the promenade on deck twenty-eight, a dip in the pool on sixteen, a stolen kiss overlooking the atrium. It might be romantic. It might be fun, and I loved fun. A hidden romance, hidden lives, hidden pasts. It might not be real, but the real world was a place I’d been hiding from for years. It might be nice to have someone join me in the make-believe.
“Say something,” he whispered, his breath warm on my belly. “Anything.”
Sliding my fingers under his chin, I angled his face up to mine. “You must know how unhinged this sounds.”
