You mean ass kicking?
The replicator beeps, and I draw the spicy scent of my favorite dish deep, humming with pleasure as I reach inside for the steaming entrees. I barely make it over to the table before my fingertips are burning, nearly dropping my meal, so I can pop them into my mouth, one by one, to cool them.
Every muscle in my back and legs complains when I fall onto the bench. I really overdid it with the training simulator. If Brox hadn’t come when he did—no. I will not finish that thought. There are fail safes for programs like that.
Unless someone is stupid enough to set it on the highest setting.
Picking up my utensil, I stab the short prongs into one of the squirming tentacles swimming in the creamy broth before biting into it with a rubbery crunch. The sweet and spicy flavor fills my mouth, lighting up my sinuses and making my nose start to run.
As I enjoy my meal, I try, and fail, to keep my mind off Brox. The way he attacked the simulator was… kind of appealing. Remembering the mask that came over his face, turning his expression from cocky to focused, does things to my insides that I really don’t want to think about. And yet, I have a hard time ignoring them.
With a heavy sigh, I lean back in my seat and tilt my chin to the ceiling. How did I end up in this predicament? Being stuck on theShadewith Brox was the absolute last place I ever intended to be. And yet here I am.
You could have refused.
But I did. Didn’t I?
Rovos has never forced me to do anything that I absolutely put my foot down against. Which means…
I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a long, frustrated growl. We’re not even a full rotation into our mission, I need to pull myself together and stop acting like such a bitch.
Just ignore him, and he’ll lose interest and go away. Just like they always do.
Only he doesn’t. He hasn’t. I’ve been trying that for cycles.
I’ve tried ignoring him, throwing stinging barbs, attacking his masculinity, and anything else that might get him to back off. But he only grins or laughs and keeps coming.
His stubbornness, it seems, might just rival my own.
Now I know how Rovos must have felt with Anna.
As if summoned by my thoughts, I catch the sounds of heavy steps moments before Brox strides into the galley. That cocksure grin of his spreads across his full lips when he sees me at the table. I narrow my eyes at him, and my tail whips behind me, thumping against the bench—a warning he doesn’t heed.
With a smirk, he walks past me to the replicator, where he enters his selection and then brings it back to the table, sitting down across from me, that gods-damned grin never leaving his handsome face. My fist tightens around my utensil with the urge to punch him in his smug mouth.
Ignore him,I remind myself.Ignore him, and he’ll lose interest and go away.
So I drop my eyes to my bowl and focus on my meal instead of the infuriatingly handsome male sitting across from me.
The worst part is that I can feel his eyes on me. I can hear every scrape his utensil makes across the bottom of his bowl, the slick slide of his lips each time he drags the utensil from his mouth. As if hearing this isn’t enough, even though I’m not watching him, I’m envisioning it.
“Must you constantly follow me everywhere I go?” I snap at him, finally lifting my eyes to meet his.
“I’m just here to eat, same as you,” Brox says as he digs his utensil into the stew that humans seem to like. “Besides, it’s a small ship. Would you rather I eat on the bridge?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I growl softly. I have a strictno food on the bridgerule that I enacted shortly after Rovos joined my crew. Apparently, he has been diligent about passing that rule along to everyone else.
“I enjoy your company while I eat,” he adds quietly.
It’s that quiet seriousness that threatens to disarm me, and I quickly throw walls up, going for surly. “Well, I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”
I push myself up from the table, and Brox reaches out, clamping his hand around my wrist. His palm is large and warm on my skin. The feeling of his touch sends waves of tingles and flesh bumps up my arm and across my chest, freezing the breath in my lungs because—I like it. But I don’t want to like it. I need to keep him at a distance, and I can’t do that when he’s touching me.
An eternity seems to pass between us before I’m able to get control of my body. My teeth gnash, and I grit out, “Let. Go.”
“Igid, please sit back down.”
“Now.” I twirl the utensil through the fingers in my opposite hand so I’m clutching it like a weapon.
