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“It’s true. No one’s going to be an asshole to someone like you.” Even outside of my Chimera reputation, I was known to be one of the grumpiest sods on this whole station. And yet, I hadn’t been able to direct even a fraction of that nastiness at Sophie. She was just... too pure.
“You’d be surprised,” she muttered, and the seriousness in her tone had me looking at her intensely.
“What?” I said, a protective urge raising up inside me, shocking me with its sudden darkness. Who bothered her? Someone on the station? Or maybe back home...
“Oh, it’s nothing too bad,” she said with a sigh. “My ex-boyfriend wasn’t all that nice to me, in the end. He was fine when we were together. But it turned out he was running around behind my back the whole time.”
As I stared at Sophie, taking in her rosy skin, her bright eyes, her shining hair so silky that I practically wanted to eat it, her beautifully generous chest and hips, I almost couldn’t believe what she’d just said. And it wasn’t just that she was beautiful. I could already tell that she had character. That she was a hard worker, and kind, too. When a little Etruvian boy had ordered a hot chocolate without actually having enough money, she’d immediately pulled out her own personal tablet, offering to pay the difference without a second thought. I’d waved her off and given the little guy the drink for free, resolving to pay for it myself later, but it had said a hell of a lot about her.
Some Terratribe idiot had given that all up? Somebody had let her go?
“Fucking pathetic.”
I didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but they came out anyway. I couldn’t keep the vehemence out of my tone either, and Sophie looked stricken.
“Yeah, I’m aware how pathetic it is to be cheated on, thanks. I was laid off, too, if you want to add that to the list.”
She slim brows were drawn inward, her expression turning harder than I would have thought possible.
In an instant, before I could fucking stop myself, I’d grabbed her tiny hands in mine and pulled her to her feet. I bent so that my face was level with hers.
“Not you. Him,” I growled.
“Oh,” she said softly, her cheeks flooding with crimson. A beat passed. Then another. I still hadn’t let go of her hands.
And she hadn’t pulled away.
But the moment had to end. Because we were coworkers and we’d only just met. And there was no reason to feel what I was feeling, now. Feeling like I didn’t want to relinquish the heat of her hands in mine.
In the end, it was me who dropped Sophie’s hands. I’d been too presumptive in taking them in the first place. Too greedy with their warm shape against my hide. Too absorbed in the flush of her skin, the dilation of her pupils, indicating something, I was sure. I just didn’t know what.
“Come on,” I said gruffly, turning away. “I’ll show you how to close.”
