Page 33 of Tempting Cargo

I hated that I’d replayed every spiteful and cruel thing my parents ever said to remind myself why getting involved with Garrison was a terrible idea.

I hated that I’d left him with such pain in his eyes.

I loved that I could still taste his lips on mine.

Once I was dressed—in clean clothes, untouched by human skin—I stomped onto the bridge and dropped into my chair, my console reverberating with the force. “Don’t say anything.”

Paiata raised a brow, mouthed “chrya,” and disappeared, but not before wrinkling his nose. Kridammit.

The pulsing swirls of voidspace didn’t carry their usual comfort. Their expansive vastness, normally rich with possibility, only served to highlight how tiny we were in the invisible sea of stars.

Casual liaisons were not meant to feel out of control. You get each other off, you say goodbye. They were not meant to kindle an urge to have penetrative sex so strong I was willing to compromise the boundaries I’d laid for myself. If not for that, the usual, satisfying, everything-else sex would have been delicious. Intense. Incredible.

I’d always known I might meet someone I desired enough to face this dilemma, always known the pull would be hard to resist. Though I’d been right, nothing had prepared me for the sheer strength of searing need that had coursed through me.

I wanted to act on it.

By all the gods under Blessed Kri, I wanted to act on it, consequences be damned.

Nausea surged into my gut like a winter flash flood, leaving me just as unstable.

Foolishness.

Or was it? It couldn’t carry the same risk as mating another kri’ith would. No. He was so alien, it couldn’t possibly spark off a mate bond.Why am I thinking about bonds with a casual liaison?This was why I never let anyone inside me, not a male, not a female, not anyone. Gods, I wantedhiminside me, wanted that thick cock deep in my cunt, wanted his dark, intense gaze on me as I—

“Breathe, Captain.” Paiata put a steaming chrya in my mug holder and didn’t move away.

Breathe. I could do that.

It was a good few breaths before I could say thank you.

I didn’t care that the hot drink almost burned my throat as it slid down. Rather, I welcomed it, the acute physical sensation overriding my arousal and taking me out of my head. “Where are we with information comms?” We were close enough to major connection points that there shouldn’t be too much delay.

Paiata moved to his console. “One came in from Orith an hour ago.”

“On screen,” I told him, and groaned at the Orithian phrasing and pretentious font that insisted on overriding the common rendering used universally across the allied galaxy.

“Gods.” I swiped the screen away. “Summarise it, Paiata. I can’t be dealing with all those words.”

His expression didn’t change, apart from a sardonic curve of his brow. “Neither can I.” Nevertheless, he scanned his screen. “Your steward told hers the araldia bulbs spoiled your mother’s garden.” He paused. “Flowers looked nice, though. A Society officer visited the dai Yakris, as the Society has now proscribed araldia as a forbidden invasive plant. Kheh… Madame dai Yakri is furious becausehla,hla, her garden’s skykked up now, too.”

Mother would be delighted.

“He doesn’t know how the Society knew she had them, ‘though one naturally harbours reasonable suspicions.’ He apologises for the mundane nature of this news, ‘however, you were insistent I convey anything out of the ordinary, no matter how trivial.’ Yours,hla,hla, and he wants me to bring him some keppli ale.”

He lifted his eyes from the screen to mine. “I remember when you still spoke like this.”

“Skyk off, ulthbrain,” I said in my best northern Orkri accent, and he showed a hint of a smile.

“Better. You gonna tell me what this means and why we care?”

“It means I’m not in trouble for skykking up Mother’s precious garden with those bulbs because she used them to get one up on Madame dai Yakri. Which, in turn, means I do not have to be as careful as I might, were she unable to turn the situation to her advantage.” It meant I hadn’t further endangered Airida.

“Careful, Cap, your Orithian is showing.”

I growled. “Skyk, so it is.”

“Want to tell me what’s chewing you now?”