“Where have you been?” I asked, leaning my head back against his chest.
Capturing my hand, he drew it to his mouth and stole my next piece of zibe fruit. His lips and tongue slipped around my fingertips, cleaning every drop of juice away. Yiri hummed contentedly as he ate, holding me tighter.
“I had to?—”
“If you saywork,” I warned him, trailing off without a threat.
“Then you’ll do what,Aneah?”
I rolled my lip out. “I’ll have to misbehave, won’t I? I have to keep your attention somehow.”
“Would it help if I said I missed you every minute I was gone?” he asked.
“No,” I lied.
“What if I said I have a surprise for you this afternoon?” he hedged. “Would you be a good little wife for me then?”
I perked up, turning in his arms. “A surprise?”
“A few of them,” he said.
I tapped my chin, pretending to think it over. He hadn’t really been gone that long, and I got to sleep in. And he let Mr. Darcy out in his little float. It made me nervous, but Mr. Darcylovedit.
“If it’s a good surprise, I might be able to behave,” I relented.
“Good,” he said. “Now finish eating, and I’ll let you fly us there.”
“Me?”
He kissed the tip of my nose and stepped away. “Yes,Aneah. You.”
Operating a flying saucer was not like driving a car, riding a bike, or—I suspected—like flying a plane. I imagined it was more along the lines of riding a unicycle across a tightrope while juggling balls that might burst into flames at any second. There was an air current to monitor, other crafts to avoid, elevation to maintain, signals to indicate my path to other crafts, and aspeed limitof all things. Although Yiri didn’t seem overly concerned about that last one. He said it didn’t apply to us, but we shouldn’t go too slow, so we didn’t cause traffic to stall.
On my own, I’d have been too scared to move the cruiser at all. What if I crashed it? Yirilovedthe thing. It was hishome. But I wasn’t on my own. Sitting on Yiri’s knee with his hands on my hips as he gave me calm, measured reminders, I felt more confident than I had any right to.
Until it was time to land.
“What do you mean,lower it to the dock?” I froze, forgetting everything he had taught me in an instant.
“You’ll do fine,Aneah,” he said, putting my hand on the elevation control. “Just take it slow.”
“That dock istiny!”
“Aneah.”
His tone made the affectionate name a command that had me letting loose a tightly held breath and tentatively,carefullyeasing the control down. The cruiser inched down so slowly that it probably looked like it was barely moving.
Yiri chuckled, but said, “You’re doing great, Cora.”
His thumb traced reassuringly over my hip, up and down as I eased the cruiser closer and closer to the slim metal gangplank of a dock. I was almost there when something on the platform it connected to caught my eye. Something big and dusky rose pink.
“My couch!”
I bumped the dock.
Yiri’s hand covered mine and steadied the cruiser as it fitted into place.
“Shit, did I hurt the cruiser?”
