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She had no idea what to think anymore.
“You feel it too. I can sense it.”
He sounded just as certain about her as he did about himself.
She hated how badly she wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that maybe there was a way to let this brute in. To let him make good on his promises. To let him convince her the future was good. That they had a future. If only she could be certain that it would all come true. If only she could be certain that happiness lay at the end of this.
“I… I want to believe you,” she said. A sensation not unlike the one she had felt, exposed and vulnerable with her legs splayed before him, ripened inside her. It washed over her like a tainted humiliation, and tears threatened to fill her eyes. It was the truest thing she’d ever said, and she wished she could take it back.
“Believe me you must,” he said. “But first you must trust me.” He paused and his brow furrowed with resolve. “It will not be easy. I will not relent. I will have you to myself, Quaia Sangsen. I swear it.”
She pondered what he’d said and wanted desperately to believe it. Couldn’t bring herself to ignore the doubts he’d just voiced. She wished all the rest of it would just go away. The Ripening, the Federation, the cursed station she was so close to leaving. If it was going to be so hard, how was he going make it work?
Her stubborn, pragmatic nature hardened into resolve. Her muscles tensed with it. “Will they… are they even going to allow this? This… whatever this is?”
He scowled. “Most likely not,” he replied.
Another spike of red-hot anger. “Then what… why are you telling me all this? Saying these… sharing these feelings and… just why? If you’re so torn then… why?” she snapped.
He looked even more puzzled. “Quaia, I am not torn about whether you will be mine or not. I am torn about how it will be so.”
But her mind had flooded already. Her balled fists flew to his chest and pounded on it furiously, but she might as well have been hitting a stone block. She spun on her heel and marched to the hatch. She imitated his wave to open the door, and when it didn’t, she started banging on it. “Let me out!” she screamed, blind with rage. “Just let me the fuck out!”
She turned and glared at him, furious, partly at herself for letting her fury get the better of her.
“Quaia, I…”
“Let me the fuck out!” she screamed. She wanted out of this—all of it. At least so she had some time to herself, to think. Away from Torian and his magnetism, his touch, his words that made her run hot in so many different directions she quite literally couldn’t see straight. Her vision blurred. “Now!” she yelled, no thought whatsoever to the consequences.
The hatch slipped open to her surprise. She stormed into the corridor and broke into a run, tears stinging her eyes, too proud to give in and let them roll down her cheeks.
CHAPTER 12
An immediate and stinging shame and embarrassment fell over her as soon as she reached her quarters. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she took three deep breaths to compose herself. Her face was red. Her eyes were still a little watery. Her hair was a mess. Worst of all was the feeling of having been had by Torian, but in the worst possible way.
How had she fallen under his spell so easily? How had she allowed herself to believe he was interested in anything but her body? How could she have trusted an alien to understand anything about… human emotion?
Just thinking about it made her shudder. She’d prided herself for so long on controlling her emotions. How had a few whispered promises disassembled the person she prided herself on being? She leaned on the edge of the sink and stared into her eyes in the mirror.
“You are Quaia Sangsen. Solo pilot of the Silent Falcon. Your mission is to get off this shit hole of a station and carve the life you’ve always wanted out of the damn stars. Now get your shit together and get the job done.”
The pep talk had a positive effect. It pushed her self-inflicted humiliation further out of her mind. No one but Torian had seen it anyway. There would be nothing to live down. All she had to do was endure however long the rest of this ridiculous circus was going to take.
These thoughts didn’t really take away the boiling sea of emotion in her heart, but they allowed her to build a wall around all the sweet-talking he’d done. “Voklha, my ass,” she sniped to the thin air.
Pulling off the robe, she threw it into the living quarters, tore off her tattered clothes, then turned on the tap and stepped into the bathtub, waiting for it to fill so she could rid herself of the musky scent that lingered on her skin and worked its way into the wall she was trying to build, like vines in brick on planets with land and trees.
The water soothed her as she washed the mess of her coupling with Torian off her body. But as the bathroom filled with steam, her mind began to drift. Down the corridor and back to Torian’s quarters. When she closed her eyes, the memory of being wrapped in his strong arms gripped her. It proved stubbornly difficult to excise. She opened her eyes, shook her head, and studiously began running through her supply list for the Falcon to distract herself.
It worked. For a few clicks anyway. The moment she relaxed, her mind immediately began to bend back toward him. His size. His commanding presence. The feeling of safety his dominance inspired. And, ironically, the freedom she felt in submitting to him.
The whole room was filled with steam, and her skin was red from the heat of the water. She felt suddenly queasy, and stood up to cool down. A fan above activated, and cleared the room of steam. She stood in place as the bathroom dried, hoping the cooler air would cool her head as well. It had little effect. As she stepped into the drying hatch, a blast of hot air sucked the remaining moisture from her skin.
She wished it would do the same with the thoughts of Torian bouncing around in her brain.
A chime sounded and the light above the door lit. A visitor? A jolt of adrenaline shot through her. Was it him? She grabbed the robe and wrapped it tightly around herself before padding to the entrance and tilting her ear toward the hatch. “Who is it?” she asked, her tone gruff.
“It is Avalar,” the voice on the other side said.
