“Nothing, if you’re being safe and everyone understands what the score is.” She shrugged. Not that she was against sexual promiscuity, it was just that in order to feel like wanting to have sex with someone, she had to feel an emotional connection to them.
“Then I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“Look,” she said, dropping to her haunches in front of him. “There’s no problem. If you enjoy having sex with lots of people, then that’s fine. It’s just not me. I can count the number of men I’ve had sex with on one hand. And Laila knows that, so she warned me from getting involved with you.”
His brows drew together. “Because she thinks I would hurt you?”
“Something like that.” He looked so downcast that she patted his hand. “Obviously not intentionally, but—”
Her comm unit buzzed. The sound making her pull back from T’arq and, losing her balance, landing on the floor on her backside in front of him. Krystal lifted her wrist to look at the display. It was the chief engineer, not a call she could ignore. She hit the button to answer the call. “Yes?”
“Come to my office. I want to see you.”
Krystal gaped. “You want to see me?” Oh god, not now. Not soaked in cleaning fluid and with T’arq here to witness her humiliation.
“Both of you.”
Wait. What?
* * *
Being in the chief engineer’s presence always made Krystal feel slightly uncomfortable, like she’d done something wrong at school and the teacher was about to yell at her. Today it was no different.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door, then swiped her wrist on the panel to open it. As it opened, she moved to stand just inside the doorway, trying, and failing, to ignore the bulk of T’arq at her back. “You wanted to see me... uh, us?”
“Yes, Krystal. You realize you don’t need to knock? If I don’t want to be disturbed, the door won’t open.”
“Yes, I know. It just feels rude to me.” Krystal shrugged.
The chief engineer was Taurean, a woman who had to be the shortest Taurean Krystal had met. That meant nothing compared to Krystal, of course, as Larelle Fe’Law was almost six feet tall. But in a world where the average height was almost seven feet, the woman was short. Unless she was compared with the diminutive Krystal, of course.
Her hair was a dirty blonde, cropped in a no-nonsense style that on Earth would have been called a short back and sides. Her eyes were the same bronze color as her skin, and fine lines radiated from the corners, suggesting she liked to smile.
The chief moved across the small office space to lean against the desk, arms crossed over her chest. The neat uniform would have looked almost perfect, except for the grease stain which spread across one leg. She might be tough and have high expectations, but the chief did not leave all the dirty work to her staff.
Her boss cleared her throat and waved a hand in Krystal’s direction.
“Cleaner bot.”
“Ahh.” She nodded in understanding. “Well, this won’t take long. I like your idea for the cloak. It’s good.”
Krystal beamed. She had listened to the pilots complaining about the existing cloak being temperamental. That they couldn’t trust it. It put them on edge. On a whim she had looked up the technical specifications of the cloak and had felt there was something missing. So she had made a proposal that she thought could improve the technology, making it more reliable and improving the pilot’s confidence and their performance.
And, if she was truly honest with herself, she listened to the pilots talking in the mess whenever she could because she was always hoping for a small piece of information about T’arq.
Oh, god. She had it bad.
“Yes, it’s actually quite an exceptional idea.” Larelle looked up from the tablet she was considering. “I want to test it. Could you have the changes ready by this afternoon?”
Krystal was stunned. Her mouth opened and closed. “That soon?” She had only submitted the proposal yesterday after her conversation with Laila.
“Yes, there is a squadron of ships that are out for maintenance right now, so it would be perfect timing. That’s why I asked one of the pilots down here to talk it over with you, actually.” The chief turned to address T’arq. “Sub-Commander Qu’Ress.”
“Youinvited him down here?” Krystal choked. She thought he had been here to check on her. Had she made a complete fool of herself? Again?
Oh, no. No.
Was her ego so big that she thought he, the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on, would seek her out? While she was covered in muck and wearing what? The universe’s most unflattering uniform? Krystal wanted to disappear into the floor.
