Page 30 of Tempting Cargo

Even as he flipped himself the right way up, I just stood there. He put his shirt back on without any self-consciousness or pride. Garrison didn’t try to be anything he wasn’t. He just was.

“What was that?” I pretended my voice wasn’t croaky, and he played along. I wished he wouldn’t. Wished he’d close the distance between us. Wished he’d cut through this tension between us because I wasn’t sure I knew how.

“Handstand pushups,” he said, and I broke the words down, as they had no direct translation.

Kheh, logical.

“Bodyweight exercises. I’m getting a bit restless. I normally try to work out at least once a day.”

This I understood.

“Do you want to spar?” I said before I could think about it. “There is a small training room.”

He stepped closer, the darkening of his eyes making his smile less easy, more hungry. “With you?”

I gave a slow tilt of my head. “If you’re willing to be slammed to the floor.”

“Willing and eager, Shohari.”

Was this another human-ism, or was he being suggestive? I wasn’t sure, but I liked to think it was the latter.

As I walked away, I looked back at him over my shoulder. “This way, human.”

The training room was smaller than I liked but plenty big enough, large mats padding the floor and an adequate amount of equipment in racks along one side, including a pair of kri’ith staves.

“The staves are traditional,” I said. “But I prefer wrestling. Kri’ith culture places much pride on physical strength and ability. Even intellectuals are expected to be able to fight.”

A slow, lazy smile lit up his handsome face. “I used to wrestle. Some martial arts. What sort of wrestling do you do?”

I liked that he’d asked me even though he wouldn’t understand my answers. “I am trained in a number of styles, but traditional kimaj style and northern atamka are my favourites.”

He nodded. “The moves I favour are from something called Judo, though it’s hard to find pure disciplines any more, what with humans being so spread out now. Most of us just train with what we have, so each colony ends up with its own multidisciplinary style.”

“That makes sense.” Emboldened by opening up to my crew yesterday, it couldn’t hurt to tell him a little of my homeworld, could it? “On my planet, things have changed also. People travel less, and old traditions are strong. I was fortunate to have someone teach me the northern form of atamka, as my family live in the south.” I rubbed my chest, expecting a familiar tightness, but it was strangely calm.

“Let me guess. Your family think the southern traditions are better.”

“Yes.” Amongst many other things. Before my thoughts could take a sour turn, I dropped into a ready stance. “Try to drop me.”

He gave a grin, his body language transforming him from conversation partner to combatant.

I tensed, not knowing what move he might try to make—if indeed the translator had matched both of our words for wrestling correctly. That might have been an amusing or painful mistake if not.

Before I could react, he slumped, running a hand over the spikes of his short mane.

I wanted to touch them, and we had an opportunity, so why did he delay? Perhaps he was not as good a fighter as he said. But no, Garrison was no braggart. “What is it?”

I could not read human facial expressions so well, but I wanted to guess wry or bashful. “I— None of us have a cleanchange of clothes left, and I don’t want to get these sweaty. And I can’t move well in these trousers. I don’t suppose you have any training clothes I can borrow?”

I stared at him just long enough to make him uncomfortable, then flicked my gaze down his body. I wasn’t sure why being in the training room made me bold, but as the temperatures between us were so often shifting, I did nothing but embrace it.

“I like your tight trousers,” I told him, letting my eyes rove over his shapely thighs and the bulge of his cock, but I didn’t linger. “But fine. There are spare training shorts on that shelf. The blue ones are mine and should fit you well enough.”

I faced the wall to give him privacy, tying my headspines up into a tail while I waited.

I wished I could watch, but I was not a lecher. If he was mine, I could look all I wanted, but—

“You sure you don’t mind me in just shorts?” Garrison said. “They’re quite… short.”