She says nothing.
“You deserve someone who will make you smile and giggle. You need someone who will worship you, and I’ve been. I’ve been worshipping you from afar. You’re my god, Callie, and I’m not worthy. Here. Come. I’ll do anything for you, and that includes introducing you to the other soldiers. Maybe one of them—”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“But—”
“I don’t want that.”
I gape at her and then nod. “Okay,” I say slowly. “What do you want?”
“Maybe we can start over.”
My heart skips a beat. I have to curl my hands into fists, so I don't reach out and touch her. "Are you sure?"
“Do you want me to change my mind?” she asks dryly.
“No. No! I just… Do you have any questions for me?”
“Did you really call me your god?”
I flinch. “Yes. I even thought that you might not like that, but it’s the truth. I can’t help it. You’re the center of my world, and it kills me to know that I hurt you—”
“I hurt us too. I could have listened to you, could’ve let you explain things. I’ve made some friends, and it seems to me that there are more differences between Novans and Earthlings than one would think. I mean, we do look fairly similar, but inside, in our minds and hearts, that’s where there are more differences. You all view sex differently than we do, and it seems that other guards struggled to hold back. You weren’t able to, but maybe… I don’t know. I think that we can be strong, that we can all exhibit self-control, but there’s something in you that makes you more of a sexual being than Earthlings are. That’s how you get to know each other once you’re an adult. It’s what you do naturally. The overlord has… had been basically torturing the guards.”
I gape at her. “The other guards…”
“As far as I know, none of them gave in and had sex with any of the females, or if they did, they aren’t talking about it. They did have issues that they had to fight every day, though.”
I turn my head to the side, unable to look at her. “I was the weak one to cave.”
“Yes, you had sex and not just with me.” She touches my face and turns it so I can see her.
“It was just fucking with the others. With you… it was more. Not… I don’t know. I don’t think it was making love, but maybe one day… if you give me a chance…”
“I already told you I wanted to start over, didn’t I?” She grins up at me and gives that sweet little giggle of hers.
I close my eyes. “I wanted to hear that so much.”
“That I want to start over?”
“Your giggle. It’s one of my favorite sounds.”
“That’s really sweet.”
"You make me sweet. You changed me. I'm a better person for having met you. A harder worker, too, in case you can't tell." I flex to show off.
She giggles and touches my bicep. “Impressive.”
“You like? I didn’t know if you would.”
“You worried about that?”
"I worried about what you would think if you saw me again. I worried you would never see me again. I worried that I would see you again, and you would be pregnant. I worried about so many things, but mostly, I worried that you were unhappy, and that plagued me the worst."
“Adir.” I shake my head. “I like to think that God gave us emotions for a reason. We can experience things, but it’s how we feel that matters the most. Some emotions are hard to experience, like grief and hurt, but all of them are necessary. If we aren’t angry at times, can we appreciate peace? If we aren’t ever disgusted, can we truly experience joy? I’m not saying that you have to hate in order to love, but love and hope are two of the strongest emotions one can experience, and once you have, you can’t just ignore it. You can’t just forget about it. You can’t let it go easily.”
“I couldn’t ignore you. I couldn’t forget you, and I couldn’t let you go, not even when I was asleep.”
“Adir, are you trying to say you love me?”
“I… Yes. I love you. And I know you want to start over, and we can, but it’s a little hard to roll back my feelings.”
She bursts out laughing, a full laugh, the likes of which I never heard from her before.
“You have always liked to get a massive head start on things, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” I admit.
“I just want to be able to be sure that we’re on the same page this time,” she says slowly. “We never talked about us or our feelings before, and yes, we both slept with other people, but…” A frown crosses over her face but doesn’t mar her beauty at all, not in the slightest. “I had thought that you were the last one that I… Were you? I’m going insane. The last time that we did was the last time that I had sex.”
“You haven’t? At all? In all of this time?” I gape at her.
She crosses her arms. “Is that so unbelievable?”
“But the breeders…”
“I didn’t want to have sex with anyone just to have sex. I wanted it to be with someone I loved so that we could actually try to have a baby. I do want to have a baby. I know why I came, and that hasn’t changed. If anything, I want to make sure it happens instead of wasting everyone’s time.”
“You… You aren’t wasting anyone’s time,” I murmur. “I just would’ve thought the breeders…”
“Did some want to? Yes. Did they ask? Yes. When I told them no, they listened.”
“You amaze me.”
“Why?” She scoffs a laugh. “I didn’t do anything special.”
“You waited for love, and
