Page 88 of Shadows of Stardust

Ros looks me directly in the eye, something deep in her emerald gaze shifting. “That’s a no.”

“Alright.” I can’t account for the relief that washes over me, won’t let myself examine it.

“So… good,” she says. “Maybe we can just… have some fun while we’re here, then. Maybe it can be just that simple.”

A perfect solution.

An out for all of this complicated mess. Tidily explaining it away and absolving us both of responsibility for it, responsibility to each other.

“Just that simple,” I murmur, something about the idea not sitting entirely right with me, despite its convenience.

I’ve never been precious about sex.

It’s a natural part of life. A biologic function and a pleasurable way to pass the time. And even though it’s been—fates, how long has it been?—a while since I indulged in a night of passion with someone I picked up in a port tavern or a fellow member of the Aux, I needn’t be so uptight about it.

But there’s still something about all of this that doesn’t sit right.

Perhaps because we’re working together, because I’m trying to do the honorable thing and do right by her, make amends to her after how abominably I behaved during her first few days on the beach.

Yes, it’s likely that.

It’s all tangled up in our partnership and our goals here, a new element that has the undeniable potential to complicate things even further.

But if it didn’t have to? If we could dismiss it as nothing more than a slip, a natural inclination indulged for a single night.

Perhaps that would be better.

Still, as Roslyn slides off my lap and stands, I can’t make myself believe it entirely.

She slips the fastener out of her hair, dark tresses falling around her shoulders, and my fingertips ache to run through it again. Her dress is still undone, exposing the lush breasts I had my mouth all over just a few short minutes ago.

Fates, but she’s beautiful.

In her strange, soft-edged, alien way, she might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Silky pale skin just as touchable as it was in my imaginings. Pert, dusky-tipped nipples so sensitive to touch. Her cunt,fates, her cunt. All of her, so responsive, blooming into warm, vibrant life beneath my hands.

When she catches me staring, she tugs the edges of her dress together and crosses her arms over her chest, a bit of pink climbing her cheeks.

It takes everything I have to swallow back my protest.

Instead of reaching for her like I want to, tugging her back into my arms, finding out how many more soft, sensitive places she has and how many more gasps and moans and cries of pleasure I could wring from her when I discover them, I follow her lead.

I quickly tug my own discarded shorts on and sink back into the couch cushions, fully prepared to give her the time and all the distance she needs to pretend this never happened, to retreat into her room for another night of business as usual, me in my spot on the couch.

But, as she crosses the room, it seems Roslyn has other plans.

She pauses in the bedroom doorway. “You coming?”

“Coming where?”

“To bed,” she says, like it’s obvious.

“Your bed?”

“Unless you prefer the couch?”

“No. I just…”

“I mean, we’re not going to cuddle or anything. But after… all of that, I’d be a grade-A asshole to keep making you rough it out here.”

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