Page 21 of Tempting Cargo

Was it me, or was her chest rising and falling faster than before? She sat.

“Your arms took the brunt of the fall,” I said. “Can I touch you?”

She paused for a second. “You took the brunt of my fall. Yes.”

I took one of her hands in mine. Four fingers and one thumb, same as us, though her fingers were longer, as were her nails—thicker and more pointed, somewhere between sharp nails and claws. Her arms and hands were that dusky violet shade, but her nails picked up the apricot colour of her chest, as if she was wearing permanent nail varnish. Her knuckles were more pronounced, rising into the beginnings of what could have been the same protrusions as the spines on her elbows, and the backs of her hands bore hard, ridged lines.

Our hands were about the same size, and I couldn’t stop an image of her hand round my dick appearing in my mind’s eye.

Fuck.

Concentrate, Garrison. You’re a medic. She might be injured.I ignored the voice telling me we both knew she wasn’t. “Move your fingers for me.”

She eyed me with keen amusement as she did what I asked.

I flexed her wrist, moving her hand gently up and down. “Any pain?”

Her eyebrow ridges seemed to function similar to eyebrows, and she raised them, her tone dry. “No.”

“Any pain or weakness in your muscles?”

“No.”

“Let’s test.” I placed my forearm against the inside of her bicep. “Arm out to the side.”

She complied with an indulgent quirk of her lips.

“Now, try and push your arm back in.” I braced myself, trying to hold her in place, and the mood shifted.

Determination gleamed in her eyes, and I may have underestimated her, straining my entire bodyweight behind me as she used all she had to move my arm. It was a deadlock but only because I had positional advantage.

My blood thrummed with the challenge. I’d have hated for her to lose face though, so I eased my arm off and away. “Nothing seems wrong with your muscles, Captain. Good.”

Shohari stared at my arm as if she wanted to eat it or grab it, then trailed her gaze up to my eyes. As she rose to standing, our faces came level with each other.

For a second, I thought I could kiss her.

After another second, I thought she might let me.

I only realised I’d started leaning in when the sharp trill of her comm broke us apart.

“Captain, you have a live comm from Orith.”

Her whole body tensed. Her face locked into an unreadable mask, and the usually animated spines on her head collapsed, lying flat and lifeless.

The finer details of kri’ith body language still eluded me, but if I had to guess, I’d have said she looked broken. Something twisted in my gut, and my arms twitched, wanting nothing morethan to comfort her or attack whatever or whoever had caused this.

Which was ridiculous.

Regardless, she’d already responded to the pilot, so I just stared at her back as she marched away.

CHAPTER TEN

My rage is a quiet ember that bides its time

Shohari

I STOMPED ontothe bridge, already hating the conversation I was about to have. “Why the skyk have I got a live long-distance comm?”