Page 8 of Collision!
Where his spikes had pricked her.
Where he’d rubbed the healing balm into her.
As her brain caught up, she tried to tease apart the scrambled moments, putting them in order.Finally she huffed out a laugh.What a remarkable close encounter.And she hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about her dream of him.
Well, she couldn’t do thatnow.
She’d never again be able to look into those mesmerizingly luminous eyes, pale as clear quartz, without bursting into mortified flames—and uncontrolled open fires were rightly prohibited on a spaceship.
Except it had felt sooo good.
Unbelievable that she’d had to come all the way to the dangerous Zarnax Zone to come.
Pleased with her own brazen delight—even if she would never tell anyone else what just happened—she straightened.She was a wanton woman.This Earth girlwaseasy.
Take that, every boy back home who’d said she was too weird to fuck twice.
Phew.With a full body shake, she stepped back into the corridor.
She’d wanted to talk to the chief engineer about why he might’ve manifested in her dreams.Now… Well, she didn’t need to talk it out.She’d felt it.
The universe wanted her to find the love she’d always imagined.
Of course, that definitely wouldn’t be the peeved, toxic, green grump hiding down in his engine cave, so shadowy she’d gotten barely more of a look at him than in her dream.
But, she nodded magnanimously to herself, she’d always have a soft spot in her heart for the elusive gargoyle man who’d literally handed over her first orgasm.
+ + +
Later she had dinner in the stateroom of one of the friends she’d made among the passengers.There were six of them gathered, and as they ate, they talked about how they’d vote for continuing their journey—or not.
“This morning I was leaning go home,” said Anoushka, their hostess, over a dessert of gulab jamun.“Collision course with a null cloud isnotwhat I signed up for.But…I think I was just scared.”She’d already told them she’d been with the Big Sky IDA for almost a year before winning the cruise ticket but still hadn’t found the right match.“And I’ve been scared too long.”She cast a shy glance at the Graveri male seated next to her.“I’m voting to continue.To see where this is going, even if there are risks.”
Fahrol gazed back, his feathery yellow frond-like hair turning the faintest baby blue at the tips; a Graveri blush.“I too wish to continue.”
Mariah loved the way they looked at each other: the svelte, doe-eyed Anoushka and the rather wood-elvish ET physician.It was one thing to be stuck together, but tochooseeach other?
That was love.
The rich, rosewater sweetness of the dessert—Anoushka had gathered petals from the atmo-hall to make the syrup—wreathed their gathering like an ethereal glimpse of their shared future.
Later that night, back in her room alone, Mariah grabbed her datpad and cast her vote.To journey onward, of course.The instant reply informed her the captain would share the results the next day.
She got ready for bed, but when she lay down on the large, luxe mattress, she knew sleep would not be coming.
Because she kept remembering coming…
With a groan, she rolled to her side, staring out the viewport at the blackness of the Zarnax Zone.
The ship had been adrift in that uncharted space, like her own erogenous zones had gone all but unknown, she the lone explorer lingering on the fringes, wary of the darkest jungle.But even as her hand drifted down between her legs—not entirely a jungle since the stateroom amenities included personal grooming devices, also luxe—she paused.
She wanted more than her own touch or any of the sensual toys available through the in-room fabricator.
Flopping to her back, she lifted her hand, angling it toward the night light.The med-seal had dissolved in the tub, and no sign remained of the minor wound.
But if she rubbed the center of her palm, as Suvan had done, a distant echo of release teased her.
He should bottle that venom of his.
