Krystal
He was a genius! Well, maybe not, but he’d said that one thing that had made her realize how to fix the problem with the cloak.
The Xakul response would be predictable.
It all hinged on the cloak being predictable. The coding she had used cycled through a complex sequence but, given enough effort, it was predictable. It was that exact predictability that had caused the problems. So the way to fix it was to make it unpredictable.
Easier said than done.
She had rushed from the meeting and immediately got to work, holing herself up in her small room. She was currently curled up in the single armchair that, along with the narrow bed, took up most of the space. Well, it was narrow by Taurean standards, but felt like a luxury to Krystal.
Civilian rooms on a Taurean starship were not glamorous, but they were functional. At least she had her own bathroom, which was better than the small apartment she had shared with a colleague back on Earth. Krystal had taken the time to shower as soon as she got back to her room, and had been working ever since.
She sighed and rubbed her temples. A certain Taurean warrior’s face kept appearing every time she closed her eyes. She had been so angry with him, but now? Now she knew he had lied because he’d had no other choice.
Krystal had just finished the final tweaks to the coding when her comm buzzed.
She checked the time, realizing with a shock that it was the middle of the night. Six hours? She had been working for six hours straight? She rolled her shoulders, easing the stiffness and stretching her arms over her head.
A little bit of time had helped her realize a few things. T’arq hadn’t lied. Not really. He had omitted part of the truth, skirting the actual issue, but he had tried to tell her as much as he could. She wasn’t upset with him for that. She was still annoyed that he was trying to decide for her, though.
The comm buzzed again.
“Yes?” Krystal answered.
The voice that spilled through the small speaker had her swallowing nervously. “Are you done?” T’arq asked.
“Yes,” she croaked. She coughed and reached for the glass on the small side table, taking a large swig.
“Good. Open the door.”
She choked on the water, barely swallowing. He was outside her room? Now? She had been so eager to get to work that she hadn’t even dressed properly after her shower, just pulling on panties and a tank top before wrapping herself up in a blanket.
“Uh…” Her brain—her useless brain—would not come up with anything to say. She cursed.
“Now, Krystal.”
Oh, no. Krystal untangled her legs from a blanket she had wrapped around herself, managing to not trip over the trailing end, and headed to the door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked when it opened, trying to wrap the blanket around her more securely and only exposing her shoulder. Her very bare shoulder.
His gaze traveled over her, taking in her disheveled hair, the blanket barely covering her almost naked form, her bare feet.
“Are you alone?” His eyes were an intense purple, flashing lilac with the beat of his heart. Fast. Hypnotic. She’d never seen anything like it.
“What?”
“Are. You. Alone,” he ground out, looking past her into the room.
Krystal turned around to see what he was looking at. The room was a mess. The bed had not been made since before they had left on the stealth ship. There were clothes on the floor, and she had accumulated a small army of drinking glasses. She had every intention of taking them back to the mess, but she just never remembered. As she turned, the blanket slipped down her shoulders to expose her back and she frantically grabbed at the tail end, instead dropping the entire thing.
An animal growl escaped through T’arq’s clenched teeth, his breath coming in hard pants. She dropped to her knees to pick up the blanket and gasped when a huge, heavy hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed ever so gently, but ever so insistently.
If anyone saw them… this was not a good position to be caught in.
“T’arq?” she asked, annoyed that her voice sounded breathy and needy.
She tried to stand, but his hand held her still, on her knees before him. She stared up at him, head tilted back, her hands reaching to steady herself against his legs. His thick, strong, muscular thighs flexed under her fingers as if she had branded him. She focused on the straining length of his cock that was close enough that she could lean forward and… she swayed toward him, her eyelids dropping half-closed. Was that her moaning? Surely not.
