“Can we talk?” He rubbed his hands on his flight suit.
He had never been this nervous before. Not when facing down hordes of Xakul. Not when he had started at the Taurean military academy as a boy where he knew nobody.
“About what?” She looked up at him, brown curls loose around her shoulders, and his breath caught. He had known beautiful women before, some would say countless beautiful women and, though T’arq knew that was untrue, he did nothing to dispel the rumors. But with Krystal? He wanted her to see him for who he was and not what people thought he was.
He shifted from foot to foot and looked around at the curious faces that had stopped to watch. This was not a conversation he wanted to have in public. “Can we talk… in private?”
She raised an eyebrow. “T’arq, the last time you came to talk to me in private, we didn’t get any talking done.”
He ignored CJ’s giggle.
“Krystal—”
“Come on, T’arq. Out with it!” Zac smirked, lifting an eyebrow at T’arq’s glare.
After the way T’arq had needled Zac over Laila, he should have expected it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t scowl at his friend. A friend who laughed outright at his put-out expression.
T’arq turned to face Krystal, ignoring everyone and everything around them. His world narrowed to just the two of them as he took a step closer to her. She was delicate, but strong. Fierce. He needed to tell her how he felt. But he would not do so in front of everyone. She wouldn’t like that.
“Trust me?” he asked, her answer more important to him than air.
His chest loosened as she nodded and placed her hand in his.
