Her surprise is evident. “You? Those pretty hands dirty with engine grease?”
“I am not unfamiliar with ship mechanics,” I inform her, perhaps more stiffly than intended. “My... position... requires diverse knowledge.”
What I don’t mention is that my people’s enhanced strength and dexterity make mechanical work easier than it would be for a human. Or that being useful will give me a reason to stay close to her while my protective instincts are running high.
For the next few hours, I work alongside her, taking direction and trying not to think about how the confined space amplifies every aspect of her presence. Her scent, the sound of herbreathing, the occasional brush of contact as we maneuver around the machinery.
And with each passing minute, my control becomes a little more precarious.
“Zip,” Polly calls out as we take a break, her breath now visible in the cooling air. “What’s the environmental status?”
“SECONDARY POWER CONSERVATION PROTOCOLS INITIATED. ALL NON-ESSENTIAL AREAS NOW IN MINIMAL LIFE SUPPORT MODE. RECOMMEND CENTRALIZING ACTIVITY TO CONSERVED AREAS.”
She sighs, her exhale forming a small cloud that I track with unwanted fascination. “Looks like we’re officially getting cozy, Rynn. The ship’s conserving power by shutting down environmental controls everywhere except the galley and a small section of the cockpit.”
She stretches, working out a kink in her back from the repair work, and the movement draws my attention to the elegant line of her throat. The prospect of enforced intimacy sends another wave of heat through my system—heat that has nothing to do with my elevated baseline temperature and everything to do with the way this human is affecting my control.
“I require minimal rest,” I say carefully, though my voice sounds rougher than usual. “I can remain in the cockpit while you continue repairs.”
She rolls her eyes, then steps closer, close enough that I can feel her body heat mingling with mine in the cooling air. “Sleep deprivation is exactly what we need right now. Look, we’re adults.” Her voice drops to a more intimate register. “We can share a confined space for one night without it being weird.”
Weird doesn’t begin to cover what it will be like. Not when my enhanced senses are already cataloging every detail about her, when my skin responds to her proximity with that telltaleshimmer, when every instinct I possess is insisting that she’s someone I need to protect.
Someone I need to claim.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it sends another surge of anticipation through my system that I’m rapidly losing the ability to suppress.
“Very well,” I concede, my voice betraying more of my internal struggle than I intended. “We will adapt as required.”
“Such enthusiasm,” she teases, but there’s something knowing in her eyes now—an awareness of the tension crackling between us. She’s noticed the way I’ve been watching her, the protective gestures, the elevated temperature. She doesn’t know what to make of it yet, but she’s definitely aware.
As the ship’s environmental systems continue their shutdown sequence and the temperature drops further, I realize that the next ten hours will either expose everything I’ve spent my life hiding, or teach me exactly how far my control can be pushed before it snaps entirely.
Based on the way Polly looks in the dim light of the emergency systems—beautiful and competent and completely unaware of the effect she’s having on my biology—I suspect it will be both.
The crystal in my jacket contains coordinates to something that could reshape the balance of power across three sectors. But right now, all I can think about is the woman who saved our lives, the way my carefully constructed facade is crumbling around her, and how I’m going to survive ten hours of forced proximity without doing something that compromises everything.
Hours of her scent, her warmth, her casual touches, and her knowing smiles.
Hours of fighting the growing certainty that protecting her and claiming her are becoming the same imperative in my enhanced biology.
Stars help me.
I’m not sure I want to be saved.
3
Fixing Things
Polly
Threehoursintoourforced proximity, and I’m about ready to lose my mind.
Not because we’re stranded—I’ve been in worse situations than this. Pink Slip’s taken more damage before and I’ve always found a way to make her purr again. The problem is my mysterious passenger, who’s currently taking up way too much space in my tiny engine compartment, radiating heat like a personal furnace while I try to concentrate on rewiring the FTL initiator.
This is exactly why Mother institutes on the “no romance” policy after several couriers either feel in love with passengers, and in one case the cargo! I’d rolled my eyes at the time, thinking my colleague was an idiot who couldn’t keep his personal and professional lives separate.
Turns out I’m just as much of an idiot as the rest of them.
