Page 35 of Return to Sender
The sight should distress me. Instead, I find it oddly... appealing.
“Agent Stiff returns,” she observes without looking up from her work. “Feeling better?”
The casual inquiry catches me off-guard. “I am... adequately rested.”
“Mm-hmm.” She finally lifts her gaze to meet mine, and I note that her eyes appear brighter than before, her color fully restored from the earlier neural disruptor exposure. “Your stress lines have definitely improved. And those silver patterns at your temples aren’t nearly as agitated as they were an hour ago.”
Heat rises in my chest—a combination of embarrassment and something else I cannot precisely identify. Can she truly read my physiological state so easily? Or is she simply making educated assumptions based on AXIS’s too-perceptive commentary?
“The neural regeneration treatment was successful,” I inform her, moving to stand beside the table where she works. “Your recovery appears complete.”
“Thanks to my skilled physician.” She gestures to the poetry volumes beside her charts. “I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed some reading material. AXIS said you had an interesting collection.”
I examine the open books, noting which passages have drawn her attention. Lyria of Andramach’s most sensual verses. Teela Silver’s meditations on connection across species barriers. Works that explore themes of desire, longing, and the collision between duty and passion.
“The selections are... illuminating,” I observe carefully.
“They’re beautiful,” she says simply. “And revealing. I’m starting to understand why you collect them.”
“Poetry serves multiple purposes,” I state, falling back on formal explanations. “Cultural education, linguistic analysis, historical preservation—”
“Emotional expression,” she interrupts, her voice soft. “Permission to feel things you can’t allow yourself in real life.”
The accuracy of her assessment creates a moment of silence between us. She has identified the truth I have never acknowledged even to myself: these verses represent everything my diplomatic training has taught me to suppress.
“Perhaps,” I concede.
She closes the volume she has been reading and rises from her seat, moving to stand directly before me. The proximity triggers an immediate response in my nervous system, and I realize with growing alarm that the stress-relief session has provided only temporary respite. Already, I can feel familiar tension rebuilding as her scent fills my enhanced senses.
“Wi’kar,” she says, and hearing my name in her voice creates that familiar acceleration of my cardiac rhythm. “We need to talk.”
“About what specifically?”
“About what happened in the medical bay. About what happens next. About the fact that we’re legally bonded whether we like it or not, and we need to decide what that means for us.”
I observe her carefully, noting the determined set of her jaw, the direct way she meets my gaze. This is not the injured, vulnerable woman I treated earlier. This is Dominique in full possession of her faculties, prepared to address the complications between us with characteristic directness.
And she is standing close enough that I can smell her—that warm, intoxicating scent that my Gluxian senses catalog with unfortunate precision. Close enough that I can see the pulsefluttering at her throat, the way her lips part slightly when she looks up at me.
My body’s response is immediate and mortifying. The patterns at my temples begin to pulse with renewed intensity, betraying my arousal despite my recent stress relief.
“The Consular Bonding Clause creates certain legal obligations,” I begin, but she holds up a hand to stop me.
“Not the legal stuff, Wi’kar. The personal stuff. The fact that when you kissed me, it was the first time in my life that felt like a choice rather than an obligation. The fact that you chose me over your precious protocols. The fact that I want you to do it again.”
The declaration is unambiguous and creates an immediate surge of arousal that I struggle to suppress. My scent glands release an involuntary burst of something that probably translates to desperate want mixed with barely controlled panic.
“Dominique—”
“I know you want me,” she continues, stepping even closer. “Your body language, those glowing patterns, the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. And I want you too. So why are we pretending otherwise?”
Because she is under my protection. Because the power dynamic is problematic. Because mixing personal relationships with professional obligations never ends well in diplomatic scenarios.
Yet as she moves close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her body, none of those logical concerns seem to carry much weight.
“The situation is complex,” I manage, my voice rougher than intended.
“No, it’s not.” Her hand comes up to rest against my chest, directly over my heart. “We’re attracted to each other. We’re legally bound together. We’re on the run from people who want to hurt us. Life is short and uncertain, and this—” she gesturesbetween us “—is the first real thing either of us has had in a long time.”
