“It would be a bad match if they didn’t.”
He was micromanaging her breathingandquestioning her professional fitness? She hardly ever hyperventilated on company time. Stung, she shot back, “I worked very hard to be ready for this cruise. I ate, slept, and, yes,breathedthe IDA handbooks and algorithms to ensure every single being on this ship is a possible good match.”
“Not every being. Not me.”
Well.Thatwas true enough. Who would date a big, hairy, grumpy alien captain who never smiled?
Before that thought could go anywhere else, he continued, “And your hair. Why is it down?” The words translated clearly, but something in his tone was rough, like a cat’s tongue on her skin. “I thought it was your way to keep it tied.”
What was this interrogation? Just because she’d had a clumsy slip? Clenching her hands on the datpad, she told herself not to frown. “Yes, I usually wear it up. But it’s not a rule, is it?”
“You should bind it again. When it is loose, it”—he flicked a clawed finger—“wafts.”
“I’m sorry. Wafts?”
“Your fragrance.”
Despite her effort not to react, her jaw cranked to one side. “I’m not wearing perfume.”
“You. You smell.”
She jolted back. Oh, he woulddefinitelynot find a good match on her watch! “That is not—”
“Let me.” He spun her around, deeper into the alcove.
Maybe she should’ve screamed or punched or whatever a fawn could do against a lion. But… Maybe there might’ve been something on that secret datpad page clutched in her suddenly weak grip that was perhaps not unlike this very moment.
Blocked by his big body, the enclosed space was dark and heated. Her breath came in helpless little sips as his paws…gathered up her hair. Her exposed nape prickled behind the scrape of his fingers, and her scalp tingled from the twist before the scrunchie settled in place.
Then, just as quickly and easily, he spun her back around.
His gold gaze narrowed, the black pupil just a vertical slit as he studied her hair, then tracked slowly down to her lips, which she realized were slightly parted in the shock of being lion-manhandled. The moment hung suspended like the fairy lights strung along the otherwise shadowy corridors: a point of light in the gloom glimmering with…with some promise too tiny to grasp but linked to another and another so she might find a way out of the darkness if she followed them.
Shakily, she inhaled, and though she knew the ship’s air was constantly refreshed, she swore the breathable gases had been replaced with the musky spice of his fur.
If he kissed her…
He rumbled out a sound, deep in his throat. “There.” Then he spun on his heel, as if he would just walk away.
Her shaky hand went to the back of her skull. Had she knocked herself completely senseless in the bar cooler and this was all a woozy fantasy? Under her fingers, the elastic was securely fixed, no strands loose or wafting. “Captain.” Her voice was just an outraged gasp.
He glanced back. “Yea?”
The odd, archaic inflection of his yeas and nays bemused her for a moment. Who was she kidding? It was his touch. “You can’t just— You shouldn’t…” She couldn’t find her words in any language.
He waited a beat. “But as you say, I am the captain. And aren’t you supposed to be ushering the IDA guests aboard?”
She stammered, half anxiety, half anger, all awkwardness. And even as she hustled past him, her face hot with…more confusion, she swore she heard him inhale, long and slow.
Oh god, this cruise had to leavenow, before she did something really mortifying.
Like kiss the alien captain.
Chapter 2
He had not meant to touch the little Earther, at all.
And yet somehow… Striding down the corridor in the opposite direction from Felicity, Ellix let out a hard breath, as if he could blow the lingering essence of her out of his body, like venting lethal fire from a burning ship. But even the cold vacuum of space couldn’t empty his swirling thoughts.
