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“She will.”

“How will you make that miracle happen?” Georgia said.

“Because I’m done waiting. I’ve tried being patient and getting her to see how good we’d be together, but she won’t accept it.”

“Typical arrogant Apexian,” Georgia grumbled.

“You love my arrogance,” Ash said.

She scowled at him, but there was a smile hiding in it.

“So what are you going to do about Cleo?” Striker said.

“Keep being truthful with her. She knows I want her, so I’ll keep telling her that until she realizes how right we are together.”

Striker shook his head. “You sure that’ll work?”

“It has to.” Because he was all out of other options. Patience hadn’t worked, being around when she needed him hadn’t worked, and Hunter was done holding out for something that felt so right.

“You’ll figure it out,” Daisy said. “And when you do, you’ll have an amazing time together.”

“I think the question you’ve got to ask yourself, buddy, is does Cleo really want you, or is she content without you?” Striker said.

Hunter gritted his teeth. Striker had a point, but Cleo loved him. He just had to get her to realize that the feeling in her chest whenever they were together wasn’t lust or like, it was balls out, end of the world kind of love. A love both of them deserved.

***

Cleo lay on the couchin her quarters with her arm shielding her eyes. She’d avoided Hunter for almost two days, but she missed the hell out of him.

But she had to stay work focused. Yearning about some delicious alien warrior she could never have was a waste of time, energy, and focus.

She stood and paced around her room, her fingers drifting over the few personal things she’d brought with her when she left Earth. There were a few of her favorite classic novels, and a couple of pictures of old friends and family.

“No more thinking about Hunter,” Cleo said out loud. “He’s not for you.”

She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Hiding was the coward’s way out of this situation, but she couldn’t think of any other way to handle this.

If only a big part of her didn’t wish she could simply drag Hunter to bed and have lots of sweaty, frantic, lust-filled sex with him. Screw the consequences.

Cleo’s filthy dreams always involved Hunter. She’d tried imagining being with someone else, but it never worked. If Hunter wasn’t in her fantasies, she was left hollow and unfulfilled, and that ache inside her continued to grow.

But she was the boss and had to set an example. Screwing her partner was a terrible example of how to work in cooperation with the Apexians.

And she’d been at the receiving end of what happened when things went wrong between colleagues. Careers were ruined, reputations sullied, and hearts shattered.

Cleo groaned and dropped her head down. Maybe she should suggest he get reassigned somewhere else. It could end the torture for both of them. Or she could resign. Start again somewhere else. Somewhere no hot aliens were allowed.

Even if she wasn’t on this ship, she’d still think about him. And her insides burned with jealousy at the thought of Hunter settling with anyone else. She wanted him, but couldn’t have him. And even though he’d declared he wanted her, she couldn’t see a way around the problem of her being in charge.

Cleo lifted her head and looked back at her reflection. “You’re lying to yourself.” What if Hunter was just another smooth talking liar, on the prowl for a challenge? Once he’d won her, he’d toss her away and forget she ever existed.

“ELVIS! Distract me. Bring up a map of all the Siblet experiment sites.”

“Sending the information to the main screen now.”

Cleo raked a hand through her hair, then turned to look at the screen. They hadn’t found any new information from the site they’d visited, but it had the same layout as other locations they’d uncovered. There were three main sites on the planet. The main testing site where the Siblet ran the experiments, a site most likely for the workers, and a facility that appeared to destroy evidence. The Siblet left behind little trace of their work when they moved on from a site. And unless they got caught in the act, they left behind no useful data.

“What’s the pattern here?”