Page 26 of No Strings Attached (Mated Fates #1)
They were underway the next day, Vi, Bobby, Acken, Trak, Caussus, Steve, Friend, Mister Beastly, and a crew of five Trallians. Friend had managed to get Kompi to accept a Trallian keeper, although Vi had kind of wished they could have brought him along. She wanted him to be seen on Ogobian Broadcasting, so that maybe he would be recognized and sought.
Now on day two, Bahbi was keeping himself busy making clothing in the cargo hold, Acken or Trak was directing the crew, Caussus was seeing to everyone’s comfort and feeding, working alongside the cook he brought, Bralved, and his constant companion, Friend. They had brought Mister Beastly’s translation system on board so that he could be occupied on the way there and back. Steve had found an open space in the cargo hold to lay out his heat mat and pretty much stayed back there. Vi wandered the ship or napped. It felt…irritating.
She was trying to stay away from Bobby, both to allow him to stay focused on his work and to not serve as a temptation. But she was bored already, and they had three more days of travel. She wandered into Qlu’s quarters and discovered it was one of the rare times that it wasn’t occupied by at least a couple of sleeping bodies. So, she started to open the wall compartments and snoop. Losing herself in the perusal of Qlu’s weird stash of things, she hadn’t heard anyone enter the room until a body pressed up against her backside, arms wrapped around her lower abdomen, and a voice whispered, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She turned in Bobby’s arms, looked up at him, and simply said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you have so much work to do, and I don’t want to distract you.”
“Is that all?”
“No…” She looked down.
He bent his head down to catch her eyes with his amber ones and said, “Tell me.”
She felt a little embarrassed, but decided to be honest, “It’s too hard for me to watch you and not touch you.” She looked back down and pressed her face against his coverall, growling, “I want to rip your fucking clothes off.” She looked up, blushing, into his wide grin.
He said, “OK, I’ll accept that answer. As long as I haven’t done something that made you unhappy, made you want to stop being with me.”
Vi laughed, “It’s the opposite. Everything you do makes it harder for me to stay away from you. I can’t wait for this trip to be over and for us to be back in our warm pool below the bedroom.” She thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you really going to be OK with my Queen act, with Caussus?”
Bobby’s face grew serious, and he said, “I’m working very hard to be. I think it will get easier over time, but I don’t know for sure that I’ll ever by 100% successful.”
Vi nodded, both in acknowledgment of his effort and in understanding. She didn’t think she’d fare better than he was if their roles were reversed. But she didn’t like to feel possessiveness or be on the receiving end of it, so she was grateful that Bobby didn’t have a big, stereotypical male streak of it causing them a lot of friction now.
In fact, she thought that might be part of Bobby’s biggest appeal to her, his lack of any stereotypical human male traits like possessiveness, exaggerated masculinity, aggressiveness. His maleness and her femaleness only came into play when they were naked and entwined, otherwise they were just…Vi and Bobby. Vi wondered if some of the human male traits she didn’t care for had something to do with having a free-swinging cock; there sure weren’t any dick measuring contests on Trallia.
He tightened his grip on her and pulled her up into a soft kiss before breaking it and looking into her eyes. “Come to the back with me while I work. Your presence can’t distract me more than my mind has already been distracted by constantly wondering where you are and what you’re doing. And you look pretty damn bored to me.”
She snorted laughter, pulled away, and took his hand, saying, “Yep, I really fucking am.”
Bobby had devised full-length, hooded cloaks for their meeting with the space station manager, which was planned to be just her, Caussus, Acken, and Mister Beastly. He had chosen an iridescent, light blue fabric and then trimmed it in silver, scrolling, metalwork all along the edge of the hoods, down the front, and along the hem. The cloaks were stunningly beautiful—two normal sized ones and two giant ones. Bobby had her put hers on and then showed her the secret feature. A sliver mesh face plate attached to the opening of the hood, sort of like a fencing mask, that they would all be able to see out of but no one would be able to see into. No one would know who they were, or even what species they were. He had even made fabric booties for each of them to wear so that no one would see their feet and guess their species.
He pulled the face plate off her cloak and returned the giant grin she was giving him, then showed her the slits in the sides that they could place their arms through.
“This is fucking perfect, Bobby!” she said, twirling. “And gorgeous, but I’m beginning to not be surprised by the fact that everything you make is stunningly beautiful. It’s just that this is exactly how we need to present ourselves first. We don’t want the whole space station checking us out before we appear at the reception and melt their eyeballs.” She regarded him, totally taken aback by how much consideration he had put into what would be needed. “I hadn’t even thought about that, yet, but you automatically knew and created exactly the right type of clothing for us. You recognized the problem and solved it before any of us even gave it a thought!”
Bobby looked down, seemed to fight off a denial, then looked back up at her. “Keep twirling like that and sing me a song, Vi. A long one. I hate being in space.”
She nodded in agreement and smiled back, “A long one, huh?” She thought about it, mentally rejecting “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” or “21 st Century Schizoid Man,” settling on “American Pie.” As the song picked up, she grabbed up the metal box of daggers and shook it like a tambourine, dancing and twirling her cloak around and around at the choruses. Every time she looked at Bobby, he had a wide grin on his face.
When the song changed to its slower tempo at the end, she put down the box and grabbed him. She pulled him to her, placing one of his hands around her waist and holding the other one out. She put her free hand on his shoulder, whispered, “Follow my lead,” and started swaying along with the lyrics as she finished singing the song. She didn’t try to move their feet, that could be the next lesson, and she tried not to laugh as Bobby exaggeratedly swung his hips from side to side in mimicry of her, tail whipping.
When she stopped, he looked at her amazed, “What was that?”
“That was one type of dancing. We often dance to music on Earth. Do Trallians dance?”
He shook his head, “No. We don’t make music, either. But we enjoy it when other species do. We often hear different music on the Ogo. I’ve seen some dancing, too, but nothing that looked like what we just did.”
“Did you like it?”
He leaned into her and gave her a heated look, “I like anything that allows me to hold your body next to mine.”
She smirked, “Sometimes we dance holding each other and sometimes we dance separately, but close to each other. Didn’t you ever hear music you really enjoyed and feel an uncontrollable urge to move your body, tap your foot even?”
“Not until I heard your music. But I didn’t know if it was allowed. Sometimes I see music on the Ogo and the audience remains perfectly still. I thought it might be disrespectful to move.”
“We have that kind of music on Earth, too, but that’s not the kind I like. I like the kind that makes you want to move around joyfully. I’d give anything to find my phone on the asteroid, I had thousands of songs loaded into it. It could be there since it was in my pocket when the Ulus took me.”
“Phone?”
“Um…a communication device that I had a lot of music stored on. I know it can’t be used as a communication device now, but if we could find a way to get it power, I could play those songs you like and you could hear the music that goes with them—not just the words. They’re even better to dance to with the music and beat.”
“Sing a song for me and dance while you do it. I’ll give you a beat.” He picked up a nearby pipe and made to bang it on the wall.
She ran to stop him and took the pipe out of his hands, laughing, “You can give me a beat just by clapping your hands. Like this.”
She started a beat and he followed, then she launched into Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said,” wanting something upbeat and flirty, shaking her ass and twirling as Bobby clapped and grinned. She leaned in close, smiling back at him, for the choruses.
They spent the rest of the day that way, until Vi went to the front and brought them back some food. After they ate, Bobby took her deeper into the hold and showed her a double hammock he had made for them. They climbed in and went to sleep together, Bobby the big spoon.
They were all crowded around the view screen as Acken oversaw the Trallian pilot pulling them into their berth. Vi had marveled at Blue Rift Station as they approached, its four giant domes making a clover-leaf pattern and the station continuing below the domes for many, many levels.
I’m out of my depth , she thought, really fucking far—drowning far . Bobby gave a single pump to their joined hands and she realized that she had been squeezing his, hard.
“Sorry,” she said, looking at him sheepishly.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You’re going to be just as amazing as you have been since I met you. Then we’re going to go home, where Acken is going to take over for five days while Caussus has the cooks deliver all our meals to the sitting room. We’re not going to leave the bedroom, except to walk back up from our pool below, for five days.”
Vi sighed, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Bobby shook his head, “It will be wonderful. I’ve already arranged it with Acken and Caussus.”
Vi’s eyes widened, “Wha…you have?”
“Yes, Vi, you deserve that. Everyone agrees. We’re free because of you, with the opportunity to be so much more, also because of you. Everyone wants you to have some rest and…um… happiness before things change again for us. Before they pick up speed, which they almost certainly will.”
Vi looked up at him wistfully and they held each other’s gaze.