“Bragg was going to end up in prison. Maybe I should have married him.” He winked.
She chuckled. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Me, too. You’re much prettier than him.”
Is he flirting with me?They were sitting close together like an ordinary couple out for a Sunday drive across the tundra on a faraway alien planet. “You’re not so bad yourself. Handsome, I mean.”
“For a clone. A replica.”
“For you.” She turned slightly, the better to see his face. He kept his profile to her, his eyes focused on the landscape through the windscreen. “I didn’t think it bothered you that you’re a clone,” she said.
He dropped his gaze to the nav screen. A moving dot approached a blinking dot. “It hasn’t before. I’ve never known anything different. I hope it doesn’t bother you.”
“It doesn’t. I’ve already said that.”
“I’m not a normal human. I was produced in a lab. I didn’t live a conventional life. My experiences are different from most humans’.”
“All of which has made you the man you are today. And I like that man.”
He looked at her then. “I’m glad I married you. That we’re on this adventure together.”
He said it out loud!Her stomach fluttered, and her mouth dried.He likes me!She felt like a teenager with her first crush. “I’m glad I married you, too.”
His gaze turned smoldering, and the comfortable, toasty conveyance seemed way too warm, but the heat fired up her courage. “Maybe…maybe then we ought to seal our wedding vows with a kiss. We didn’t do that at the ceremony.”
The conveyance stopped so suddenly, she was almost thrown into the dash.
He turned then, and his hand slid under her hair to cup her nape. His head descended, and his mouth covered hers. Soft lips coaxed a response, but she didn’t need coaxing. She parted her lips eagerly, and his tongue slipped inside. He kissed her with a thoroughness that had her sighing with satisfaction.
He growled in his throat and pulled her closer.
She stroked his nape, her fingers toying with crisp hair. His clean, masculine scent infused her senses, and she tingled from the touch of his lips, the stroke of his tongue, and the caress of his hands over her spine. She pressed herself against him as desire quaked through her body.
This was no perfunctory, ceremonial kiss.
He made the ground move.
No, theyweremoving. The vehicle was rolling. She tore her mouth away, in time to see a tree rapidly approaching the vehicle.
“Tree!” she shouted.
“Shit!” He slammed on the brakes, stopping the vehicle just before impact. Grayish-green leaves and spindly branches splayed over the glass windscreen.
Her heart thudding, she let out a nervous giggle. “Barring any breakdowns, we’ll be home by dinner…” she recalled his boss’s words.
“Sorry.” He winced. “I didn’t set the brake.” He reversed the conveyance.
The tree, its stout trunk midway splitting into two heavy branches, came into view. “Could this be the forked tree we were supposed to watch for?” There were no other trees around. So enrapt, they almost managed to crash into the sole tree for dozens of square kilometers.
She followed his gaze to the nav screen where a blinking arrow showed they were supposed to turn right. “Right on the mark,” he said. “Are you okay?”
Because of the kiss or because of the near-collision? She rode an adrenalin rush caused by both. The kiss had rattled her, but in a topsy-turvy, I-love-roller-coasters way. “Yes.” She wet her tingling lips with her tongue.
Heat flashed in his eyes. Hot desire rolled through her, and she felt like she would melt into a puddle of libidinous goo.
His nostrils flared. “If you keep looking at me like that, we’ll never get to Fair Shake.”
Would that be so bad?
