Torum was in bed with her, lying beside her, sleeping beside her.
Twin pearly orbs glowed in the darkness only a few inches from her pillow. Vestigi eyes glowed in the dark? She hadn’t known that.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered, and those orbs disappeared.
“But we can’t sleep in the same bed. It’s...”
The orbs appeared. What could he see in the darkness? “Would you rather sleep on the floor?” Blackness ruled again. “I can tie you to the bottom of the bed. You can take that pillow, but I’m keeping the blanket.” She rolled onto her back, but that made her heels touch the sheets. So she tried her side. Then her stomach.
“Quit rolling around.”
“I can’t get comfortable.” Her stomach actually was a bit better.
“Why?”
If she told him she’d gotten blisters running away from him, he’d probably mock her. Make some crack about fair.
He didn’t press though, and his eyes stayed shut. She closed her eyes, she listened to his quiet, even breathing and let sleep reclaim her.
When she woke again, he was gone, the lights in the passageway outside the chamber were on, indicating it was day, and she needed to pee.
9
Space is boring
TOR LEANED HIS HIP against the darkened steel counter in the galley and took a long sip of eeffoc.
From the way Klymeni’s breathing had changed in her sleep when he’d last checked on her, he had another minute, maybe two, before she woke.
After that, probably another five before she overcame her fear and shouted for him to come untie her.
“Torum? Torum!” Her shouts reverberated down the passageway less than three minutes later.
He’d underestimated her.
He pushed away from the counter.
“Torum!”
He rounded the corner into his chamber.
“Untie me.” When she looked at him in the doorway, she startled. “You can’t keep me tied up indefinitely.”
He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb.
“Why not?” he asked, genuinely curious because he’d been seriously considering the idea. She looked good in ropes.
Her eyes widened, and she straightened awkwardly to a seated position on the side of the bed, her roped hands forcing her to bend sideways. Her long legs were folded beneath her, making him want to grab her by the toes, peel off his ridiculously big socks, and pull until those legs unwound, every long, honey-gold, toned inch of them.
“It’s cruel, for starters.”
He raised his brows mildly.
“It’s immoral.”
He snorted.
“It makes more work for you if you have to keep bringing me food and taking me to the bathing chamber.”
“Space is boring. I won’t really have much to do once we take off.”
She sniffed through pinched nostrils. “The ropes are rubbing my wrists raw.”
He took a look at her skin around the edges of the ropes. Slightly pink, but nothing unusual. “Quit tugging on them. You’ll live.”
She shook her wrists in their ropes at him, sending her tits bouncing and her hair rippling. “You can’t punish me forever.”
“Not forever, no. But certainly until we return Jasto to his family.”
He squatted down, so their faces were only a few inches apart, making sure she was staring straight into his eyes. “You have managed to piss me off more often,” he said very slowly, so she was certain to understand him. “And more completely than anyone I have ever met.”
She swallowed audibly.
“We’re about to go into space. By all rights, I should shove you in my brig and let you rot there. If you have another hissy fit, I will. Space is not the place to fuck around.”
She nodded tightly. “I am aware of the complexities inherent to space travel. I won’t jeopardize our safety.”
“Tough promise since you don’t even know what you’re doing half the time.”
She clasped her hands together on her lap. “I won’t do anything at all, except eat and sleep and bathe, without your permission.”
“And you won’t fuck up my ship.”
“I will not fuck up your ship,” she repeated slowly, looking a bit faint. It was probably the first time she’d cursed in her life.
He wrinkled his brows like he was deliberating.
“Oh, for goodness sake, just untie me.”
He made a tsk sound tongue and rose to his full height. He set his mug down on the table beside his bed with a dull ceramic thud.
Her eyes were about level with his groin.
He trailed a finger along her hairline, brushing it back behind her ears. She shivered at his touch. He hissed. Those lips. He played out a little fantasy, imagined unzipping his pants, fisting his cock, telling her to open wide, sliding his way into the back of her throat. He could see it perfectly, her wide eyes looking up at him, and feel it too, the wet heat of her tongue.
He slow-smiled and stroked her cheek, traced his thumb along the full pout of her lower lip.
Her breath fanned over the back of his hand when she exhaled an irritable huff. “Just let me go. Please, Torum.”
He pretended to think about it for a long moment, just staring into the wide, angry gray of her eyes.
“I need to use the bathing chamber.” She whispered as if it were something shameful and sordid.
With a long sigh, he untied her ropes.
She bolted down the passageway.
“Get dressed,” he called after her. “Take off in ten. You’ll need to strap up.”
The door slammed.
SHE FOUND HIM a few moments later in the bridge, calmly submitting as he retied her wrists. “Where are we going?”
“Taking Jasto home to his family.”
“And then?”
“Then we will get you to a neutral zone, so you’ll be your father’s problem.”
She sucked in her lips for a moment, then spoke in a rush. “Can we call Agammo again?”
He thought about what her father had said, that Agammo’s father wanted peace. “Fine.”
She swept regally into a seat before the comm and punched the button that activated the system. She’d been paying attention. She rotated the dial to enter the numerics. The comm tittered as it established a connection.
She twisted the bindings in her lap, worrying her lip.
A click sounded on the line.
The little holographic comm sparked to life, a
