Page 25
When she was decent again, she emerged and froze. The guardians were standing and chatting with Emgoth. “How long was I gone?”
Hazor smiled. “You fell into icy water.”
“Oh, the thing.” She looked at the sleeve cuff where she had repositioned it. “Right.”
He walked up to her. “Why did you go in?”
“The businesses gave us authorization to fasten down, so I did.”
“How?”
“Croydekki bolts went through the decking, and I went underneath and tightened the nuts.”
He smiled slowly. “Self-sufficient thing, aren’t you?”
“Not a thing, but most of those who survived two years on a dead world learn to improvise.” She took the small pod. “Did you want this back? I don’t want you to rack up mileage on my account.”
He shook his head. “Keep it.”
There were wide-eyed stars aimed at her from the regulars who had forgotten to line up.
He cupped her jaw and brushed a soft kiss over her mouth. She went up on her toes a little and then cursed herself as he smiled against her lips. She dropped to her heels, and he followed her, wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her. She yelped and braced her hands against his chest. The kiss continued.
He continued the kiss, and then he moved his head to whisper in her ear, “Would you go for compatibility screening?”
“I wasn’t.”
“No, but I hear it can develop over time.”
“That is some niche gossip.”
“I am aware.” He straightened. “You must have guessed my interest.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to miss, even under the body armour.”
He smirked. “If you test as I think you will, my mother will want to speak to you, possibly my grandfather as well.”
“Oh, delightful. The whole family.”
“Well, my uncle is on Vecchin with his family, and my sister is there as well.”
“Oh. Well, that is one less person off the list. I really don’t think so, though.”
He kissed her again and held her against him. She felt heat crackling through her and clutched at his neck as the conflictingly wild and still relatively chaste kiss went on.
Her body was shaking, and his eyes were glowing when he stopped. He smiled. “I do think so.”
His thumb trailed over her lips, and he smiled. “I will let you know when testing is available.”
“Great. Maybe I can go deep-sea fishing before that.”
He smiled. “You out in the open ocean? That sounds like an emergency to me.”
She grimaced. “So this has a very effective locator as well as a temperature sensor and a beacon?”
He tapped her nose. “Correct.”
She whispered, “Why, me? You have an entire planet to choose from.”
