“That was your own fault for sneaking like a creep.” My cigarette fell in the fiasco. I crushed it under my boot and kept my glare on that boot otherwise my resolve may crumble. “What are you doing? How did you know I was here?”
“Madlyn told me.”
“Fucking bitch.” We hadn’t made up. She threw me to the wolves. I waved a hand in defeat. “Fine, go on. Let’s get this over with.”
“When you put it like that, it makes apologizing more difficult.”
“Good. Hurry up, I’m hungry, and this is a complete waste ofour time.”
“Are you going to consider my apology?”
“No.”
“Ethin.”
I made an X shape with my arms. “N.O. No.”
He kissed me. Short and sweet and not what it should have been because my heart had traitorous intentions. He especially shouldn’t have done that when anyone could see us, where the engineer hadn’t finished her inspection of the shuttle. One look our way and she would see the way Roys watched me like I was the center of his universe, and I wanted nothing more than to be drawn in.
“I’m sorry, Ethin,” he said, speaking my name with a beauty unlike any other. “For letting you and everyone down. If you hadn’t reacted the way you did, we wouldn’t be here. I’m sorry for raising my voice and getting upset at you when I should have proved that I meant every word I said. I was being a jackass. I’m sorry.”
The apology shouldn’t have made me want to pull him in and beg him to repeat it a thousand times. I needed to turn it back in his face, leave, go anywhere, do anything but linger there and mutter against his mouth, “And?”
“And?” he echoed, taking a moment to scratch his arm.
My fingers caught on the tip of his armbands where his muscles flexed when I rubbed his skin. “Aren’t you sorry for not trusting me?”
“What?”
“That’s why you hesitated, because you didn’t trust my plan.”
He reached for my hands gently, nothing like the way we were meant to be. “Of course not.”
And I held on to himfoolishly. “But you froze.”
“I did… It was a fluke, and I was mad at myself for that fluke. I took it out on you.”
“You don’t make mistakes.”
“I am flattered, but I make plenty. Trust me.”
“That’s really it?”
“Yes. You had a brilliant plan. We’re alive because of you. You did great, and I never meant for a second to imply that I didn’t trust you.” He smirked when I finally met those dangerously tempting eyes. All the tension from these last three days disappeared in an instant.
“This kind of sucks. I wanted hot, angry sex, and you ruined the mood.”
Except he hadn’t. He made everything more difficult by laughing and coming in for a kiss that had me wondering why I ignored him when I could have had his tongue in my mouth. I wanted to kiss him, to drag him to the ground right there and then and make up for all the lost time. The bastard dared to deprive me of him, so I caught my fingers in his hair and kept him there. Just a little more where I relearned his mouth as if it could have changed in our short time apart.
“Was that really what upset you?” he asked, knocking his forehead against mine.
“It made the most sense.”
“How many times have I brought up how smart you are?”
He wrapped an arm around my waist to prevent my escape, although I had a sneaking suspicion that he’d find me wherever I went.
And I’d want him to.
