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Kaia shrugged. “I guess so we can have informed opinions?”
“You don’t need an opinion,” Orion said. “You won’t have a say.”
Her expression clouded. “I didn’t say I plan to suggest… Fuck it, never mind. Dunno why I asked you.”
That tablet was pressed firmly against her chest now, and she was spinning on her heel to make an escape.
“Wait.” He caught up with her in one easy stride, grabbing her arm to twist her back around. She flinched and hissed through her teeth, but he didn’t let go, even though he knew what was under that sleeve. “I said wait. Look…”
It took him a few moments to chew on the words he was trying to force out. “I’m sorry.”There we go.“I’m not having the best luck getting Mother to listen to my own fucking opinion lately.”
Kaia’s face was blank, eyes dark and refusing to meet his. Goddamn it, she was so volatile. At any sign of tension, she shut down.
“Look. You want to know more about the plans, yeah? I can’t tell you everything. But as a future commander’s spouse, I can tell you a lot.”
She glanced at him. “Yeah, okay.”
“And only for informational purposes. Off the record. You can't put this shit in your report.”
“I wasn’t gonna,” she stammered, mistrust fading in favor of some small hope. It made something in his chest do a little swoop. “I just wanted to know more about the whole process, you know. Everyone else already knows a bunch of this stuff, and I—”
“I get it.” Orion did not “get” the purpose of the exercise, that’s for sure, but understood her motivation. She wanted to be on equal footing with everyone else. “Let’s meet this evening. My suite.”
It was stupid. He shouldn’t be near her so soon after… After what happened the day before. But he’d be a fool not to use her unprecedented request for a favor to his advantage.
“Oh. I thought we could do it at the canteen,” she backpedaled.
“I can’t talk about this in the open. It’s sensitive.” He leaned in a little closer with a small smile. “I won’t bite, Kaia.”
I hope.
The little knot between her brows was adorable, and it didn’t disappear even as she hesitantly nodded her acquiescence. “Okay. Twenty hundred hours?”
“Make it twenty-two. Need to hit the gym beforehand.”
She didn’t look happy about the time, but she wasn’t about to push her luck either. “Okay. See you then.”
See you then, princess.
CHAPTER30
KAIA
As she walked to Orion’s cabins at 2150, Kaia was already long past regretting bringing this up in the first place. But it was too late to turn back, and no point in it anyway. She did have a job to do.
Which is why she found herself at Orion’s door at 2203, having already showered and pulled her hair into a haphazard bun atop her head. It was getting too long for her liking, but she hadn’t had the occasion to find some shears. Alina had mentioned someone she called a “hairdresser,” which seemed like a weird label, considering Kaia didn’t intend to put a dress anywhere near her hair. All she wanted was to chop some of it off.
When the door opened, the hair dressing confusion was forgotten, because the wall of half-naked man in front of her was impossible to ignore. She had expected this to be awkward, but she hadn’t expected him to not bother putting on a damn shirt.
Orion wore loose gray sweats and nothing else. Her cursed eyes gravitated to the line of black curls leading up from the waist of his pants, framed by two straight ridges of muscle tapering toward his hips on either side. Higher, the ladder of his abs glinted with drying droplets of shower water. The broad pecs rippled with striations as his arm scrunched a towel over dripping hair, head tilted to the side.
Kaia dragged her eyes away and took a small step back.
Orion stood aside. “Come in.”
Kaia didn’t know why he met her at the door. All he had to do was instruct it to open for her—he wouldn’t even need to speak with that thing in his brain.
She entered, skirting close as she could to the frame to avoid brushing against him.
