Chapter One
Earth, Year 2217
“Is the room okay?” The greasy-haired punk moonlighting as a porter at the harbor docking motel threw open a door. “It’s our last one.”
I made a turn around the shoebox-sized room, checking for possible death traps but really just trying to be blasé about the only piece of furniture inside the place—a narrow, single bed.
“We’ll take it,” Garrett said, quickly completing the check-in process.
My throat grew tight. Twelve weeks of keeping my feelings close to my chest and I was still hoping that my crush on Garrett would eventually evaporate into nothingness. Would evaporate into thin air like the toxic fumes my space glider emitted at each start and landing. And now this .
Bar noise wafted up to our room—music and slurred voices from travelers and other pilots stuck in this hole for tonight. The punk left, but not before taking a final look at Garrett, his face twisting to a ratlike grin as if he had just spotted a juicy corpse.
“You sure it’s safe to stay overnight?” I asked, switching on the bathroom light.
“Got a better idea, Kyra?”
“We could stay on board,” I said, knowing that this would violate the harbormaster’s law, and the penalty could include grounding my ship for days . All ships needed to be vacated at night—security reasons.
“It’s only for a few hours.” Garrett adjusted the screen that blocked the window view. Outside, the docking station was brightly illuminated, and somewhere out of view was my girl, my space glider, held captive for the night. “I’ve secured us the first starting permit next morning.”
I nodded, watching a ship taking off as another touched down. The floor beneath my feet vibrated lightly. I cursed anyone who held a special permit that allowed them to ignore the nightly curfew.
Garrett pulled a rolled-up mat from his bag, spread it out on the floor in front of the window.
I met his gaze. “You can have the bed. I actually don’t mind—”
“Drop it.” He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me to wonder why the room with the single bed made me so jumpy. When he came back, his dark hair was slick with water, his face glistening with it. He’d taken off his shirt and vest, taken off his communicator and earpiece. “All yours,” he said, stretching out on his mat below the window.
All yours, I thought, looking at his lean, muscled torso. If only.
I escaped with my bag into the bath, washed, changed into fresh clothes for the night. The bedroom was dark after I switched off the bathroom light. Dark except for a patch of light underneath the window where the glare of the security lights filtered through the screen. Beams of light hit him, illuminating his bare chest, the stretched-out legs, the muscled arms folded behind his head.
And standing hidden in the dark, I let my guard slip like a coat too heavy with rain.
I soaked in the sight of him, allowed my longing to be naked and unrestrained. I’d feel better come morning, when we returned to business as usual. But for tonight, our routine broken, I longed for something more with this man. More than sharing flight plans, job contracts, gains, losses and the next lunch. I felt a hot flush warming my face just thinking about how it would feel if he would touch me, not casually, but with intent.
My hands balled to fists. Work and love didn’t mix—it was a rule I didn’t dare break. I wondered if I should get up and get a couple of drinks downstairs. Get laid. Something to take off the edge.
Instead, I slipped between the sheets, closed my eyes and tortured myself by imagining how he’d look above me, naked, thrusting.
“Kyra, I think we have to talk.”
I tensed, feeling caught, then relaxed. He had many skills, but even he couldn’t read minds.
“Can’t it wait ’til morning?”
“Did you know that as a child, I was nearsighted?”
“So what?”
“So before I turned sixteen, I went and had that