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“I never thought this day would come. It’s nice you wore clothes for such a momentous occasion.” Captain Bernadette Miller interrupted Kom’s thoughts. She grinned at him in his tank top and shorts, but her eyes were bright with tears.
Matt snickered, his expression lighting for a moment before worry clouded it once more. Bernadette tipped him a wink, her own stern features easing. She returned her attention to Kom. She understood how uncomfortable Matt grew when someone gazed at him for a few seconds. Particularly when the person looking at him was a fellow human.
Kom smirked, pretending he felt no grief at leaving his longtime friend and employer. “You’ll miss seeing a real man around the ship.” He glanced at her clanmates, particularly Nobek Halmiko.
As Dramok Tumsa chuckled and Imdiko Doljen’s eyes rolled, Halmiko motioned toward his pants crotch, pretending he’d open it. “Want to see who measures up? I’ll give you a real chance. We’ll compare my secondary to your primary.”
Bernadette scowled. “Thanks for reminding me of what I won’t miss.” Then her eyes misted over, and she gave Kom an awkward hug. “Take care of yourself. Larsen, don’t take any nonsense off this idiot, okay?”
“I’ll try, but nonsense is what he does best.”
They probably laughed too hard at Matt’s rare attempt at humor, but the sense of loss was overwhelming.
I’m doing this. I’m leaving theRoguebehind. When Kom glanced at Matt, however, his resolve firmed. The Earther was the reason he’d absented himself from his clan and roamed space in what should have been a hopeless search. He’d found Matt, and the hour had come to give him a happy home and the stability he’d been denied. When the hatch opened, he said goodbye to his friends and left his home of more than two years without a backward glance.
Matt was on his heels as he descended the ramp. His fingertips ghosted against Kom’s elbow, left bare by his sleeveless tank, but he didn’t grab on as the Nobek knew he wished to. When they were around others, particularly strangers, he wouldn’t go further than that almost-contact.
Kom heard his sharp intake of breath as they entered the din of Kalquor’s capital city’s spaceport. Not only did tall, dark-skinned, black-haired Kalquorians swarm the docks, but also a fairly large number of Matt’s fellow Earthers, a similar race of various colors and sizes.
Matt whimpered. His fingers brushed Kom’s elbow and disappeared, seeking and rejecting shelter at once.
At the foot of the ramp Kom turned to him. Matt’s gaze darted in every direction, instinctively searching for a threat while pretending casualness. No one standing farther than Kom would notice his minute trembling.
Kom restrained the urge to snarl at those who passed them and openly stared at Matt. Well-fed and healthy under Kom’s care, a far cry from how the Nobek had found him, he was that damned cute. Many couldn’t resist gawking when they saw him. His wide-eyed alarm while he attempted to appear nonchalant was easily misconstrued as an innocent’s avidly curious gaze. Only Kom knew he was on the brink of bolting to find a place to hide.
I should have brought him home sooner, where we could find help beyond sedatives.Kom had hoped remaining in theRogue’sfamiliar environs would better ease Matt into normal, everyday life and loosen past ties that kept him knotted in fear and dread. After several months, he’d seen no sign of recovery.
“Kom! Matt!” Masok’s delighted shout rose above the port’s thunderous voice. The Imdiko appeared ahead of Avir, both hurrying to greet them.
Kom’s heart swelled, and he prodded Matt forward, eager to greet his clanmates. They’d been more than kind to allow him to search for Matt for so many years when he should have been home with them. He vowed to show his overwhelming gratitude as soon as possible.
Masok’s glee was evident in the wide grin spreading over his earnest, pleasant features. Muscled but trimmer than his clanmates, he was a stirring sight to Kom in his casual but fashionable shirt and shorts. His waist-length hair was plaited in a braid, which swung as he rushed to them.
He planted a hearty, cock-stirring kiss on Kom’s lips. “How’s the arm? Is it still working well?”
“Couldn’t be better. Wait until I show you the new moves I can do with it.” Kom waggled his brows suggestively and flexed the prosthetic arm. His former limb had been mangled in an attack on theRoguesome months ago, shortly after he’d found Matt.
The prosthetic was a top-of-the-line model. It would have appeared to be the arm he’d lost, but for the missing scars and where it divided at the wrist from his new hand, a separate unit. Microprocessors fed information to his brain and almost made it feel like the appendage he’d been born with.
“And here’s this gorgeous sweetheart! Welcome home at last, Matt!” Masok grabbed the blonde and picked him up for a hug.
Before Kom could react to the alarm bursting over Matt’s face, he was also grabbed. “My Nobek!” Avir’s kiss was just as passionate as Masok’s had been. His workout was almost identical to his Nobek’s, though he wasn’t quite as defined. Avir felt damned good despite Kom’s concern for Matt. “It’s so good to say hello without a goodbye in the near future!”
“Yeah, it’s wonderful,” he answered breathlessly, trying to return the affection and check on Matt too.
“Are you excited? Glad to finally put down roots?” Masok had set Matt down, but he was petting his hair and fussing over the small Earther, somehow missing how wildly Matt examined their surroundings and the people passing them.
“Hold on there! Where do you think you’re going with our little guy?”
The two Nobeks who’d filled out Kom’s security team on theRoguecharged from the ship’s hatch. Berkan and Dakmo playfully nudged a laughing Masok aside and focused on Matt.
“Come on, Matt, you aren’t really leaving us forthosethree?”
“Cause two of us Nobeks are definitely worth a Dramok, Imdiko, and…wait, what’s Kom again?”
“Some sort of mutant offshoot impossible to categorize. He definitely doesn’t deserve you, Matt.”
Perhaps Matt had noted the approving attitudes of Kalquorian and Earther passersby as they carried on. Maybe it was because he was comfortable with Berkan’s and Dakmo’s outrageous flirting. Maybe it was because he realized the trio of Nobeks present wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him. In any event, his rising panic abruptly departed.
