HALLUM
Ideposited the broken pieces of the sled among the hospital construction supplies and took Lualhati home on shulduback. I had her ride up before me on Bart, holding her closer than was perhaps strictly necessary for safety’s sake.
But it felt necessary in other ways. Necessary to me, and me alone.
I felt as if I would never be able to willingly let her go now. My insides churned, like a sea battered by storms. There was that heart-fisting fear, when I thought that she’d be hurt – or worse – on the sled ride. Then lust tangled with elation, remembering the feel of her beneath me, her scent, her sounds. The way she’d rocked and moaned and taken her pleasure simply from the shape of my cock.
And then there was the blanketing fog of guilt. Guilt that I’d lost control so easily, so entirely. That the reins I’d kept on my desire had been severed with nothing but her pretty “Please.”
By the empire. But I could deny her nothing.
Lualhati didn’t chatter away on the ride home as she usually would have. She seemed pensive, gazing at the trail and forestahead. The sunset made the trees into metal and rusted the snow.
Perhaps she was stewing in regret right now, as I was.
Though regret was not precisely the correct term for it. When I’d been with Lualhati that way, things had never felt more right in my life.
But I regretted the impropriety of it. I was her host in this world. Her professional partner. Her guardian and guide. I was not supposed to rut on top of her, outside in the blasted snow, like some kind of forest beast.
I would apologize to her.
You may not have to, a voice inside me said.She was practically begging you.
Her breathy pleases echoed in me even now, sending desire kindling to life again. I pressed my front to her back, keeping her close, breathing in her sweetness.
Whether I apologized or not, we would have to speak about what happened. Determine how to move forward from here. I wished to begin as soon as we reached the station and I’d stabled the shuldu, but the opportunity did not present itself. Because when we arrived home, there was a small Zabrian supply shuttle waiting for us in the clearing.
“I am not expecting a delivery,” I said. “Have you ordered anything from off-world?”
“No!” Lualhati said. “I haven’t even tapped into the comms tower’s signal to access off-world communications at all. I’ve only been messaging the other women here. I’ve kind of been pretending the rest of the universe doesn’t exist.”
The rest of the universe that she would one day return to.
Shoving that reminder viciously aside, I dismounted, then helped her down as well. The supply delivery pilot – a Zabrian male in a silver uniform – exited the shuttle and approached us with a very small package.
“Is that all there is?” I asked him, surprised there would be a shuttle delivery for only one tiny item.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “This delivery is for Lu Ortiz.”
“Lu?” Lualhati’s nose wrinkled. “Huh. Yeah, I guess that’s for me.”
She took the package and thanked the pilot, though she did not smile at him as was her custom. She was staring at the package, her brow furrowed.
“Why don’t you take it inside,” I suggested. “I will deal with the shuldu.”
“Oh. Yeah,” she said absentmindedly. “Sure.”
She went into the house, and I got the shuldu taken care of while the delivery pilot departed with with his shuttle. I expected that Lualhati would have opened her package by the time I got inside the house, but she had not. The package remained intact on the kitchen table while Lualhati drank some of her foul coffee drink from her romantic heart mug. Though she’d brought at least twenty different cups and glasses, this one from her grandmother was the only one I ever saw her use.
“Are you going to open your package?”
“Yes. Maybe.” She held the cup between her hands, as if warming them. She made no move to do it.
“I can give you privacy.”
“No. Please. Would you stay with me, Hallum?”
Stay with me. Just like she’d asked me to that night after the party.
