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I thought he’d maybe already gone to sleep when he suddenly spoke.

“What would it take,” he asked quietly, “to get you comfortable enough with me to simply call me by my name?”

“I… I don’t know. Time, I guess?”

He chuckled softly.

“Perfect,” he said, throaty and warm. “I’ve got nothing but time out here, Tasha. And if you want it, I can give you it all.”

16

TENN

At the beginning of the night, I ceded Tasha the entirety of the bedroll. I was well warm enough without it, and I knew that sharing a bedroll would be even more difficult for her standards of professionalism than sharing the tent would be.

The only problem was that sleeping Tasha seemed to feel differently than awake Tasha.

She fell asleep quickly. Much more quickly than me. No, I was busy trying to ignore the pounding of my heart in my engorged shaft as she breathed softly beside me, her sweet scent filling the tent. To busy myself, I spent my time reading the book she wrote on my data tab.

That worked as a distraction. At first. Until, in sleep, she began to shift and slide and sleep-sidle closer.

It started subtly, with a stretch and a roll that left her bedroll open. Then, like an animal burrowing in search of heat, her body moved of its own volition towards mine. I lay, stiff as the metal frame of my slicer outside, when she touched me. First, with the surprisingly cold tip of her little nose against my arm. Then, asleepy sigh, and the delirious press of a human thigh hitched up over my abdomen.

Her leg was not very heavy. Tell me, then, why it suddenly became so difficult to breathe?

Perhaps this was punishment for the information that was withheld from her before. And she now meant to torture me with snuggles.

Masturbation and suffering, Tenn. That truly is your new lot in life.

The suffering was all well and good. I was chest-deep in it now. There was, however, no way to relieve the stiffness of my cock. Not like this, not with her so innocently, torturously asleep beside me.

I would have thought, in the midst of that sort of agony, that sleep would have been impossible. But clearly, it wasn’t, because when I woke next, dawn had already heaved itself over the horizon. A greyish light seeped into the tent as I blinked dust and sleep from my eyes. I inhaled slowly, my nose and mouth pressed tightly to soft, fragrant hair.

Humanhair.

Blast it all to Zabria and back. My body had evidently participated in the same sleep shifting that Tasha’s had. We were on our sides, facing each other. My arms were around her back, one of my open hands serving as her pillow, the other…

The other was inside her shirt.

Blast. How…?

Yes. There was no avoiding it, no denying it. In sleep, my mutinous, perverted hand had wandered inside the jamjigolo top I’d sewn for her. My left palm was sealed to her spine, my fingers splayed across her lower back.

By the empire, but she wassoft.

And I… I wasn’t.

My cock gave a hot throb.

I could not let her find me like this. Wrapped around her, my hand not only on her, butinsideher jamjimmies. She’d probably end the bridal program and leave the planet on the strength of this scandal alone.

I drew back, just a little, and was about to pry my hand from the sensuous warmth of her skin. But as soon as I tensed to do it, a pucker formed between her slim, pale brows, and she made a sleepy sound of complaint.

Well. What the blazes am I supposed to do with that?

If I moved even one portion of a muscle, she’d awaken, and it would all be for naught, anyway.

I’d just have to stay here for now.