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“I never forget a promise, Dawn.”
This time, my toes curled upon hearing Keran’s serious tone. Fuck me! He really meant it. Right? It was the first time in three days that he was in any way flirting with me or hinting at his lingering interest in me.
“Good to know,” I replied, my stomach fluttering.
We ate in a relaxed atmosphere. Usually mostly quiet, Nowik and Tagar joined in the friendly conversation describing the beauties and dangers of Braxia, their favorite places and hobbies, all of which seem to involve either some type of extreme sport or a form of combat, whether hunting or fighting.
Throughout those exchanges, the depth of the genuine friendship and respect between the three men struck me hard. It contrasted sharply with my experience meeting visiting dignitaries from other planets. Their security details were clearly employees performing their duties. Their charge barely acknowledged their presence, other than to demand something. They showed no particular concern for their guards’ welfare, except to the extent it might impact their ability to protect them.
Not Keran.
At the end of his sparring sessions with his men, Keran had picked up the water bottles left nearby, handing one to each of his guards first before opening his own. He inquired if they were okay after he’d spanked them, and forced them to go get some rest or food when they wanted to keep working over an unhealthy number of hours straight.
The way guards addressed their bosses and looked at them spoke volumes.
Where good ones would actually take a bullet for their employer out of duty, Nowik and Tagar would do so for Keran out of loyalty and friendship. They didn’t look at him with the resignation of the unhappy employee, or the submissive expression of a lower-ranked staffer. Pride and affection shone in their eyes. And although they always addressed him with the deference owed to his rank, it was never servile or contrived, and he never interacted with them in a haughty fashion. In all the ways that mattered, they were equals but with different roles.
Too soon, we parted ways. While they pursued our rather stalled investigation, I went back to my administrative tasks of running the shelter, my assistant Melinda dropping by for a few hours. I left her to deal with accounting and the work schedule of the men tending our fields and harvesting our crops. Meanwhile, I completed the last efforts to convince as many of the hybrids to attend the meeting to be held tomorrow.
As hours ticked by, the tension still knotting my back continued to fade as the terrible news I dreaded failed to come for yet another day. By the time night fell, I was all but walking on clouds. Finding out that Tagar and Nowik were heading out for a couple of hours, destination unknown, gave me wings and emboldened me.
Refusing to let myself get cheated again by hesitancy, low self-esteem, and my wretched need to overthink and overanalyze everything, I ran to my quarters and jumped into the shower as soon as Keran and I said goodnight. I quickly dried myself, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, debating the whole time if I should put on a tiny dab of perfume in strategic places. In the end, I decided against it. Scent held great importance to Braxians. To them, perfume often came across as deceptive, like you were trying to hide something about yourself or to mislead others.
Then again, Braxian women had developed a fantastic line of organic perfumes. To many species, they would come across as odorless—as they in fact technically were. But once applied, they would enhance the user’s natural fragrance and also acted as an aphrodisiac. I would have shamelessly used that tonight, if I had any. But since her marriage to Ravik, Dagna Mercy had helped the galaxy discover the artisanal products developed by the Braxian women. And the demand from the obscenely wealthy had created shortages, which made these goods unaffordable for commoners like me.
Who needs perfume anyway?
I wanted Keran to be attracted to me, not some chemical enhancements. And if I hadn’t misread his comments earlier this morning, he was interested in me, just the way I was. Despite promising myself to make haste before he went to bed, I ended up wasting more time debating what to wear. After so many years being celibate, sexy lingerie didn’t exactly abound in my drawers—meaning there wasn’t even the shadow of one piece to be found.
A brief glance at the clock had my heart lurching while my stomach knotted with stress. I was taking too damn long.
“Ah, fuck it!” I hissed with exasperation.
Refusing to dwell on it further, I slipped on my prettiest robe and resolutely stormed out of my room. Since my goal was to land naked in his bed, might as well get the naked part pre-handled, and pray the landing in bed part would come true.
For once, I welcomed the thundering sound of my heart frantically trying to beat its way out of my chest. It drowned the increasingly panicked little voice at the back of my head shouting for me to get my ‘sturdy’ ass right back to my room before I embarrassed myself.
Feeling faint, I stopped in front of Keran’s door and immediately raised my hand to knock. If I gave myself a second to think, I would wuss out and run. Once again, before I could complete the movement, Keran’s muffled voice resonated through the door.
“Give me a minute, Dawn.”
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Of course, my timing once more sucked! Had he just gotten in bed? Was he in the middle of a vidcall with his captain or chief medical officer? Was…?
“You can come in,” Keran called out.
Feeling even weaker, my previous determination having been shot to pieces, I stared at the door handle like I expected it to turn into a krillik’s head, ready to strike with a venomous bite if I dared reach for it.
I closed my eyes, took in a deep, fortifying breath, and opened the door. My jaw dropped when I found Keran standing outside of his hygiene room with a towel quickly wrapped around his waist.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, ready to run back out. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll let you get back to your shower.”
“You’re not interrupting, Dawn,” he said in a calm voice. “I finished showering more than twenty minutes ago.”
“I see,” I replied, in fact not seeing anything.
A mischievous smile settled on his lips. “You’re wondering why I’m still only wearing a towel.”
