Page 82 of The Last Hope

He’s looking right at me.

And he untwists the leather binding along his biceps and forearms. Confidence and curiosity teeming off his being. Muscle ripples down his bare chest, and his thighs, strong like the rest of him, peek from leather strips of his skirt.

I retrace my path back to his sharpened jaw and mouth—and his lip hikes up at me. “Need anything, dove?”

“Sleep.” I shoot him a scowl, but nerves flap in my belly.

He waves mockingly to the bed.

I kick off a sandal, hoping it’ll come close to his face. It thuds miserably at his feet.

Zimmer laughs.

Agitation,I name my emotion. Feisty irritations and frustrations that havenothingto do with wanting Stork’s hands on me.

I can imagine what his lips would feel like against mine. I can think he’s handsome. But I cannotfeelthose things. Court and Mykal will sense hands and legs like they’re in bed with us too. Mykal said,Don’t be thinkin’ about us.But his unsettled emotion unsettled me.

Sickness churns at the thought of putting them through that, just for a little bit of pleasure.

Adding distance between me and Stork, I scuttle back to the wooden headboard and wrestle with the bra contraption under my tunic. Why humansalsowear pointless bras is beyond me, and these ones crisscross and bind like their purpose is to suffocate and torture.

Zimmer steps out of his slacks. “It fykking feels like three hells in here.”

Stork unties a pouch attached to his skirt’s waistband. “You’re a Fast-Tracker,” he says to Zimmer, less of a question, more of a casual observation. One that I’m sure he made earlier tonight.

I slow my lousy attempts to remove my bra, more engrossed in Stork. He cradles the leather pouch with such care, and he nestles the little bag between two books on his shelf.

Since he has all the answers, what’s important to him is important to me.

The mattress suddenly undulates beneath me, Zimmer jumping onto the bed and lying flat on the other side. “I’d like to think my charm gave me away”—he places his hands behind his head—“but it was the fykking wordfyke,wasn’t it?”

I smash a pillow and barely hear Stork’s easygoing response. My attention veers to his movements. How he snatches a taupe linen cloth off a silver hook. Coolly, he turns his back to us, and with the snap of a bronze clip, he removes his military skirt. Buck-naked before tying the linen around his waist.

Stork spins around, facing us again, and my face sears, too distracted from why I volunteered to sleep here in the first place.Interrogation.Maybe he won’t divulge anything about Earth just yet, but if I press about his life, he could accidentally spill some secrets.

He’s about to keep talking, but I interject, “Are you coupling with anyone?”

What.

Did.

I.

Just.

Ask?

Of all the questions in the universe that I could blurt out, I choose one that glimmers his eyes with smugness and brings amusement to his lips.

I blister. “So are you or aren’t you?” I’m not retreating.

Zimmer listens in, propping himself on his elbows.

“Why don’t you tell me what Saltarian coupling involves, and I’ll see if I’m doing it,” Stork says with a rising smirk. He kicks back on the wall, nonchalant and haughty all at once.

I’ve never coupled, but I’ve driven too many around the snowy city. And I’ve seen and felt what Court and Mykal share. “Coupling is about loyalty and love,” I start.

Stork nods,mockinglyso.