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“No, I like it.”
He shrugged and went back to looking at his oh-so-exciting maps.
“I don’t get what’s happening right now,” she admitted. “Have I entered an alternate reality?”
“I don’t believe so, but honestly, who knows these days?”
“Aren’t you going to ask about that guy again?”
“Nope. I don’t care anymore.”
The statement seemed to affect her more than he’d intended. A volley of perfectly unguarded expressions paraded across her face: first shock, then fear, then, strangely, grief…and a tiny quiver in her lower lip. The quiver was swiftly chanced away by stony anger. “Well, fine, then. Good. About time.” As if that was that, she stood to leave. Of course, she snatched up her drink and sandwich.
Exasperated, he said, “I didn’t mean it like that, Onnika. Sit down.”
She paused, turning to glance back at him. “Is that an order, Captain?”
“It can be if that’s the way you want it.” He hadn’t meant for it to sound teasing or alluring, but it did. And maybe that was what brought her back to her seat. Once more she abandoned her anger in favor of sheer confusion.
“How many of those have you had?” she asked, pointing to his glass.
“Just that little sip.” With that, he pretended to focus on his handheld—Ah, these maps are so thrilling—but all his attention was on the woman across from him. He was curious about what she would do when her defenses were down. He was letting her stay on the ship…for now. He wasn’t demanding answers from her. She had nothing to fight against.
“O-kay.” As though at a complete loss for what to do, she sat there for another long moment. Then she took a tentative bite of her sandwich. Her eyes flitted around the room like she was expecting an ambush.
Without looking at her, he said, “I was thinking I might go practice on the AVFS later. Care to join me?”
She shot out of her seat and leaned forward with her fists on the table. “Okay, what is going on? Are you screwing with me?”
He calmly took another sip of the bubbly concoction.
“Yell at me already,” she continued. “I did something that really freaked you out, and you were going to straight up murder that dude if I hadn’t done it first.”
“What makes you think I was going to murder him?” He would have, of course. Even if they’d both made it back intact, the second that fiend decided to go after her, his ass was dead.
She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. He tried not to notice how the action pushed the mounds of her breasts higher. “Well, because you’re basically in love with me.”
He nearly choked on his drink. “Are you mad?” Then he saw that glint return to her eyes, the one that said she thought she’d regained some kind of upper hand. He huffed. “You’ll say just about anything to get a rise out of people, won’t you?”
“Am I getting ariseout of you,baby?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You think you’re so cute.”
“I do in this dress. Don’t you think?” She moved out from behind the table so he could see her fully and did a twirl. The fabric flared out, showing a hint of her upper thighs.
He might have said she looked mouthwatering in just about anything, but he got the sense that her teasing had turned malicious, like she was trying to break him down or win a game when he didn’t even know the rules. He turned back to his handheld. The screen had gone into power saver mode. He covertly turned it back on. “It looks fine, I suppose, as far as knockoffs go.” He didn’t even know whatknockoffmeant, but he’d once heard a female refer to a dress as one with disgust in her tone, so he was pretty sure the reference worked here.
“Just fine?”
“Mm.”
She was on the move again, but he refused to look up simply because it was what she wanted, and he would remain in charge of this interaction.
Then suddenly she inserted herself on his lap, one arm draped around his neck. “What about from this angle?”
His body stiffened slightly, but he otherwise managed to hide his surprise by keeping his eyes on his handheld and shifting it to his other hand. He only realized afterward that his damn traitorous free hand had snaked around her waist.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
