She blushed.
He continued, “What is it you want me to do? To you, that is?”
Her lips parted, the soft breath that escaped barely easing the pressure in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, not with him so close. She should run screaming, better yet, she should have a dagger in her hands to stab him in the back, but they were the last things on her mind. Right now, she didn’t want him to die. She wanted him to pull down his mask and…
“I’m waiting for instruction,” he said, his voice lowering, his face a gasp away.
“Captain…”
“Alexa.”
Kiss me. She didn’t even say the words aloud; she only formed them with her mouth.
He jerked back. A look of horror flashed across his eyes.
Her hands came up to fold over her chest in surprise.
Hysterian eyed her and took several steps back, like…like he was mortified.
Alexa pulled away from the glass, feeling her soul drop from her body from embarrassment, feeling the heat from him finally suffocating her.
“Get yourself cleaned up, “Hysterian growled, turning away. “I can’t have someone on my crew fucking up today. You’re dismissed.”
He stormed through the lab and out the door, barking a command at Raul.
Inhaling, she twisted away and sagged to the floor, glad she was shielded from the rest of the room. She pressed her brow to the cool glass of the habitat.
What just happened?
She closed her eyes.
She just invited Hysterian, her enemy, to touch her—kissher. What was she thinking? What was wrong with her? He was her enemy. She was here to find a way to destroy him. Not take him to bed. Not fuck him. Not offer up a challenge.
The thought of doing so should’ve disgusted her. Instead, there were butterflies taking flight within her. A whisper of lust coiled between her legs, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Because it was there now. It was there, and no matter how badly she didn’t want it to be, it remained.
Alexa buried her face into her hands. Hysterian was burned into her head, and she couldn’t get him out.
She was never going to get him out.
And the worst part of it all, he had no idea how much he ruled her life. Every terrible minute of it for the past decade.
Seven
Dirt and rockscrushed under his boots as Hysterian strode through the mines. He didn’t try to hide the sound.
He was already fucked, that’s what he was. Let Titan’s bugs come after him.
Some giant man-eating bugs weren’t going to change his status. So why bother playing it safe? Hysterian scanned the mine’s winding tunnels, creating a mental map as he followed the blueprints that the taskmaster had given him.
All the while, images of a certain female haunted him.
It was idiotic of him to try to avoid Alexa. He’d managed to do it for a while—her scent, her presence was all around him. TheQuestorwasn’t that big of a ship; avoiding someone on it took a lot of work. And the more work it took, the more Alexa stayed in his head.
The more he found himself wherever she was, having to fabricate excuses for it.
Her smell followed him everywhere. No amount of air filters could erase her dye. When he wiped her from his mind, he still smelled it, even if the scent wasn’t actually in the air.
