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“What are you doing?”
Mal’ik kissed his forehead. “Putting you to bed.”
“But what about you?” Oliver frowned and tried to reach down to Mal’ik’s hips, but Mal’ik batted his hands away.
“Shh, don’t worry about me.” Mal’ik pulled the covers up to his chin, and Oliver had to concede that he was too tired to argue. Already his eyes were fighting to close. “Go to sleep.”
“Mal’ik.” Oliver’s sleepy mind couldn’t think what to say, so he just sighed and settled into the pillows. “Good night.”
“Good night, Oliver.”
* * *
Oliver slowly woke the next morning, his limbs loose and heavy. He scrubbed his hand over his face and was almost baffled to feel a sleepy smile on his lips. Was this how normal people felt after a night with someone?
He rolled over and looked at his empty bed. Well, part of a night with someone. He should ask Mal’ik to stay next time. How much more amazing would it feel to wake up beside Mal’ik’s warm bulk?
He bet Mal’ik would kiss him in the mornings before they got up, casual and drowsy. He seemed like the sort.
A cold shiver of fear shot down Oliver’s spine, and he shook himself. What was he thinking? There were not going to be sleepy mornings with Mal’ik. For one, he didn’t even know if Mal’ik wanted that, and for another, their arrangement was temporary.
He had absolutely no reason to believe that there was a long-term future with Mal’ik, and it was terrifying that he was allowing himself to so concretely fantasize about one.
Well, no reason except for the way that Mal’ik touched him, kissed him, checked on him, listened to him, and smiled at him. And the way that whenever he looked at him, Oliver’s heart filled up like the hot-air balloon his father had once taken him and Dominic on when they were very little.
Oliver forced himself out of bed and to get ready to face the day because he was sure it would be a long one.
It was.
After the brief moment of hot-air balloon as Mal’ik arrived to fetch him with that aforementioned soft smile—but no kisses, it was business hours after all—the day was an endless exercise in frustration and futility.
Emissary Serihk seemed to have gotten to everyone. Everyone suddenly wanted to rehash every demand and request and required endless justification, reasoning, and evidence. Even the education minister—for whom Oliver was securing the largest education budget a Klah’Eel planet had ever seen—was pushing back.
And the frustration wasn’t that Oliver didn’t have watertight arguments for everything—he did—it was that he had already given those arguments. He had already persuaded these people. And now they were having second thoughts, all because Serihk was sowing doubts in their minds about Oliver’s intentions.
Oliver’s plans were solid, well-reasoned and well-researched, but they were radical and expensive. And it was true that his real mission here was to further enrich the Turner family. So it didn’t take much to sour people to his way of thinking. His general demeanor and personality surely didn’t help.
He had never persuaded people by making friends. He persuaded them by assuring them that he was the smartest and most powerful person in the room. That fell apart when Serihk was in the room as well.
Oliver would need to swallow his pride and talk to the man again in person. Privately. There was no reason they should be at odds, not politically, at least. Emissary Serihk wanted stability so he could solve the refugee crisis. Oliver wanted stability so he could build factories and rise to the top of the Turner family. Their desired results dovetailed perfectly; they should be partners, not enemies.
Oliver was fuming and nursing an anger headache by late that afternoon, sitting in a lounge with a cup of coffee—not that terrible klak other species seemed to prefer. Mal’ik was on the other side of the room, bent over a data tablet with the human on his team. The man was older but handsome, with streaks of gray running through his dark hair and the stubble on his jaw. He was the right age to have been in the war, and Oliver wondered which side he had fought for.
The whole day might have been more tolerable if he’d been able to bitch and moan to Mal’ik between meetings, but the man was clearly busy. He had been muttering into his earpiece all day, and this was the third time the human had come to speak to him in person. A young klah’eel woman with long black braids made frequent appearances as well, and Mal’ik’s brows were always more deeply furrowed when she left.
It had taken Oliver most of the morning to realize that the slight clinking sound he kept hearing when he stood close to Mal’ik was the sound of him tapping his metal thumb and middle finger together. A fidget.
The human put his data tablet away, nodded at Mal’ik, and left, and then Mal’ik finally approached Oliver.
“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, more to make conversation with Mal’ik and give his brain a break from politics than because he was worried. There were always security threats when powerful people gathered in one place. That’s why they had security.
“Nothing to worry about.” Mal’ik shook his head, and Oliver wasn’t surprised. Security personnel never wanted to tell their charges anything. People could get panicky and annoying.
“Who’s the human on your team?”
“Patrick Smith. You can trust him.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t.” Oliver shrugged. “He’s Klah’Eel?”
