Page 75 of Elanie & the Empath
How did she not know? How could she not see it when it felt written over every inch of my skin? Maybe I needed to show her. Maybe then she’d believe me.
I reached back for our sheet and held it open for her. “Come here.”
She rolled to her side to slide in against me, and I wrapped the sheet over our shoulders. Holding her close, I nestled my nose into her hair, just like I’d done in the cave when it was only us fighting to survive. So different from this place, where everything was easy and nothing seemed to matter.
“Did you want to kiss me?” she asked, interlacing our fingers and tucking my hand beneath her chin. “In the cave, did you ever think about kissing me?”
“Does every waking nanosecond count?”
“Then why didn’t you? I wanted to kiss you. We could have been doing this already. It would have made the cave much more enjoyable.”
I laughed, but then I said, “It felt inappropriate. I’d been your physician, and it seemed wrong.”
Rolling over, she met my stare. “Why would that be wrong?”
“It’s a thing. Doctors shouldn’t fraternize with their patients.”
She only blinked.
“It’s unethical.”
Another blink.
“Because patients are vulnerable. There can be a power imbalance.”
“Sem,” she said with calm amusement, “I am a bionic. If I wanted to, I could break your nose with a finger flick. Whatpossible imbalance of power between us would ever have you on the dominant side?”
“That is”—I frowned—“a good point. But it’s not necessarily a physical thing. I know you could take me out more efficiently than even Rax could on his best day. It’s more like an emotional power. An influence. A patient needs to be able to trust their doctor.”
“I trust you,” she said simply. “I think I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
When I kissed her knuckles, my heart giving a little pang, she asked, “So what changed? You were still my physician. I was still your patient. What made you decide it was okay to kiss me here?”
Sweeping my hand behind her knee to hook her leg over my thigh, I said, “I didn’t. I was just weak, and you are too beautiful.”
Her lips pulled tight at one corner. “Do you regret it?”
“Never,” I stated, firm as stone. “For the rest of my life, for as long as my lungs take in oxygen, I will never regret any moment I’ve been lucky enough to spend with you. And that includes kissing. Itespeciallyincludes kissing.”
She smiled, but it was hesitant. So to prove my point, I kissed those hesitant lips. Long and slow and deep.
After a length of time I couldn’t measure, she rolled onto her side again, and I curled around her. Her breathing settled as she surrendered to sleep, peaceful and warm and safe in my arms.
Before sleep took me down again too, I breathed in her cinnamon and vanilla scent, pressed a kiss to her neck, and finally answered her question.
“You have me, Elanie. All of me. I’m yours, forever.”
27.ELANIE
Dawn creptin through the windows, a dim red light stirring me from sleep. Sem snored softly beside me, his arm slung low over my hips while Grover sprawled out on his back. When I reached out to pet Grover’s belly, he rattled a purr, clacked his beak, then curled up into a ball with his tail tucked tightly around his strange, fuzzy body.
Sem looked so peaceful, stretched out long and lean and naked. As I trailed my fingers over the fine silver hair that dusted his arm, something heavy and tight gripped my stomach, twisting it into a knot.
I wasn’t sure when it had happened, maybe dancing with him last night, maybe huddling with him in the cave, maybe even watching him sing that Macey Valentine song to me at karaoke on the ship. But at some point, I’d stopped feeling like a half-artificial being. I’d stopped feeling like I was someone else’s property, like my entire existence was as inconsequential as a single mote of spacedust. I was circuits and wires, programming and subroutines, but I was flesh and blood too, skin and bone, heart and soul. And eventhough I didn’t know when this had happened, I did know why.
It was him. This man snoring in our bed. This man who made me feel important and seen and understood. Who made me feel like I mattered.
But as the light in the hut shifted from red to amber, I couldn’t help but wonder if I mattered enough.
