So why am I freaking out now, the moment he touches me, staking his claim on me? The moment he stares at me with hot, possessive eyes?
Because you want it to be real.
Oh fuck. The touching, the affection, the desire, the love—I want it, but I can’t have it. Not from this man, who sees me as an intrusion into his life. As a liability.
“Why?” he asks, his forehead furrowing. “Why wouldn’t anyone—” He cuts off his sentence mid-word as his comm emits a long squawk. He glances at the display, and his lips compress in a tight line.
“What’s the matter?”
“It’s an urgent alert from Cindifin,” he replies. “A solar storm is going to disrupt travel out of the Wekat Exchange for the next week. Almost all the miners are here, and so we’re leaving for Noturn ahead of schedule. The shuttle will be taking off in three hours. We have just enough time to get your floofs, head to the Aheat, alert Dariux and the others, pack our stuff, and get to the Cindifin spaceport.” He gives me a frustrated look. “You’re upset, and I want to know why, but we need to hurry. We’ll discuss this later.”
No, we won’t. I shouldn’t have let Danek see my moment of insecurity. He can read my feelings far too clearly, and I don’t like it. I can’t be vulnerable around him. I need to keep my shields up. Danek already thinks I’m weak and emotional—I refuse to give him more ammunition.
Three months. I’m going to have to keep my heart in check for three whole months.
I might have bitten off more than I can chew.
10
Danek
I was supposed to be pretending to be crazy about Naomi. I hadn’t needed to pretend. I hadn’t been playing a role.
The first time I’d seen the human woman, she’d been shattered. Her bones were broken. Her skin was covered with open, festering sores. Her hair was caked with blood, and her eyes had been dead, all hope extinguished by the horrors of what she was being forced to endure.
And when I touched her, the rathr, the bone-deep, mind-obliterating pain that has defined my existence, disappeared.
Over and over again, I told myself it didn’t matter. There were far more important things at stake. Naomi’s body and mind had been left in fragments. She needed to heal. To recover. If my presence comforted her, as the healers insisted, then I would stay by her side. If she flinched from me, I would endure.
Then she did something that shocked me. She volunteered for this mission.
Today was a revelation. She laughed, her eyes shining with merriment, as the floofs swarmed me. She tried on clothes with glorious abandon. She twirled, smiling in delight as the stars in her skirt shimmered and glowed.
I never thought she’d get to this place.
For two months, I haven’t let myself hope, because to hope is to open myself up to heartbreak.
Today, her happiness was contagious. And it made me reckless, because I let her see how much I desire her.
Now I’ve upset her.
Is she angry because she feels pressured by my interest in her? Because she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings?
But no, that’s not what she said. She doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m lying. Acting.
Her reaction is completely perplexing. I really don’t understand human women.
Does she not see the need in my eyes? I’d made no effort to conceal it. Does she not see the way my body reacts to her? My cock was so hard that it had hurt. If it weren’t for my loose-fitting pants, my reaction would have been obvious to Lashi’vi, to Xeni, to every customer in that boutique.
I give her a sideways glance. Her shoulders are stiff, and she’s wrapped her arms around herself. I want to probe cautiously, but I’m mindful of the fact that I’ve already offended her by calling her a liability. Besides, we don’t have time. The Cindifin shuttle leaves in a few hours, and if this mission is to even get off the ground, we need to be on it.
The woman at the pet store has corralled the floofs in a large cage. She’s also helpfully packed their food and other supplies into a large bag. “Make sure they get a steady supply of sugar,” she instructs us. “Sugar keeps their fur from falling out.”
Naomi giggles. “Does it also make them hyperactive?” she asks.
I translate, and the saleswoman nods ruefully. “They’re floofs,” she says with a helpless shrug. “Either they bounce all over the place, or they slink around morosely, shedding their fur everywhere. Those are your choices.”
“Of course they are,” I comment dryly. I lift up the astonishingly heavy bag. “What else is in here? Rocks?”
She beams at me. “Ah, you know something about floof care already,” she exclaims. “Yes, there’s a three-month supply of failut rocks.” She turns to Naomi. “As your bondmate can tell you, the oil secreted from failut rocks keeps their fur shiny and sleek.”
She’s not joking. For the love of Caeron, I’m hauling rocks because these three chittering animals need to look beautiful. Naomi takes a look at my face and her eyes dance with merriment. “We better go before Danek changes his mind about my pets,” she says, her lips twitching. “I think he’s about ready to return all three of them.” She links her arm in mine. “Come on, honey. We don’t want to be late.”
It’s so good to see her laugh.
“We should return them,” I grumble. I swing the pack with supplies on my shoulder and pick up the cage. Two of the floofs—the pink ones—have clearly had a double dose of sugar, because they rush to the front of the cage and peek out through the bars with big purple eyes. The orange one—the most sensible one of the trio—ignores the activity and naps peacefully in a nest of rags. Him, I think I could like. “Let’s go.”
Back on the Aheat, against my better judgment, I let the
