Whether he wanted to believe it or not.
The taste of her was just as intense as it had been the first time he kissed her.
Yet more.
He caressed her cheek, a tendril of curls slipping into his grip as they kissed and she sighed against his lips.
“We should stop,” she whispered.
“We should,” he answered. When she started to pull away, he grimaced, not liking that they had to behave.
As she turned away from him, his horns tangled in her curls.
She started to laugh as they pulled the hair apart.
“That’s going to take some getting used to,” she said with a grin. “I probably should have put it back up.”
“Don’t restrain it,” he said, stroking a curl.
She pulled her hair around her shoulder, away from him. “Seriously, though,” she said, combing her hair out of his fingers, and evidently some had curled around the tip of one of his horns. “This is going to be everywhere. We’re always going to get tangled together. I could get it cut off.”
“Do not even consider it,” he snapped. More forcefully than he should have, from the look on her face.
She raised an eyebrow, her voice low and calm, which made it sound like a threat. “You don’t get to tell me how to look.”
He sighed. “I will not complain about your hair getting tangled around my horns. I don’t care if it gets wrapped around my horns every day.” He met her gaze. “As long as they’re my horns. That is all that matters.”
“So, uh, I couldn’t get my hair all wrapped around, say, the, uh, guard up there?”
Stron’s gaze cut to the guard, and back. “No.”
“You’re bossy.”
“And you are obstinate.”
“What a pair we make,” she said, smiling at him.
“What a piece of junk,” Adryel whispered as they arrived at the platform.
Stron nodded. “Not what I would have expected.” In the distance, he saw Dhomhes speaking to a crewmember of the transport–a miner from the looks of him.
Across the platform, another transport arrive, and girls started coming out.
Adryel was already looking, he guessed for her friend.
“Is Janae with them?” Stron asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t see her yet.”
“They’re probably coming on their own transport.”
“That makes sense.”
Still, she was searching. Looking for her friend. Her nose turned up, and she grimaced. “What is that smell?”
“The refineries,” Khalzin said as he walked up with Janae.
Janae and Adryel embraced, and both started talking to each other, rapid fire.
