He should have been grateful.
Instead the silence felt wrong. Heavy.
His hands tightened on the controls.
The memory hit without warning—her body colliding with his, all soft curves and warmth. The shock of her palm against his bare stomach, fingers splaying across muscle. Her other hand fisting in his hair, grabbing onto him instead of pushing away.
Trusting him to hold her.
His pulse jumped and he forced his attention back to the road.
Draanth. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. How she’d felt pressed against his chest. That floral sweetness surrounding him. Three seconds, maybe four, of holding a female for the first time in years.
And his body had known exactly what it wanted to do with her.
Wrong. All of it wrong. She was human. Soft and breakable. One careless movement and he’d hurt her without meaning to.
The transport climbed a steep incline and the engine whined in protest. She shifted in her seat, pulling the jacket tighter. Her breath misted in the cold air despite the heating system running at full capacity.
“There’s an extra blanket.” He gestured to the storage compartment behind her seat.
She turned to look at him. Her hazel-green eyes caught the morning light streaming through the window. “I’m okay.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’ll warm up.”
Stubborn. Just like this morning when she’d insisted on decorating his house despite his objections.
That pathetic garland was probably still hanging in his main room. She’d braided scraps of fabric with her small hands.
False cheer, he’d called it.
Her face when he’d said that… Draanth, he hadn’t been prepared for the way her expression had crumpled, just for a second before she’d gotten it under control. Then she’d fired back about joy being a choice.
He clenched his jaw. Hard.
The road leveled out and the valley opened before them. Purple crops stretched in geometric patterns, interrupted by darker patches of grazing land. In the distance, the cluster of buildings that marked the colony center sat low against the hillside.
Almost there.
“Is that the town?” Her voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Colony center. Not town.”
“It’s bigger than I expected.”
He glanced at her. She’d leaned forward, pressing her face close to the view port. Her expression had shifted… eyes bright, lips curved into a smile. The first genuine expression he’d seen from her since their argument.
“About two hundred permanent residents,” he heard himself say. “More during harvest when workers come in from the outer territories.”
She was listening, turned his way to give him her full attention, like the information actually mattered to her.
“Do you come into town often?”
“When necessary.”
“Which is?”
