Free Origin by Dani Worth Page A

read.
    The second week, I stated bringing snacks and sometimes even Fagra wine into my secret place. When my heart wasn’t beating in excitement from the stories, it was for the view through the wall-sized window of space. Or for the myriad of possibilities available to me now. Always before I’d had nothing to look forward to, no reason to dream, and now entire worlds were out there. I could pick anything, go anywhere.
    Freedom tasted sweet on my tongue, made my heart swell and knock about until I thought it would burst through my ribs.
    It took another week for Clay to finally search me out. He’d been busy spending a lot of time trying to break into the codes on Lashin’s files. I’d been spending time with Anders. Not sexy alone time like in his cabin, but sharing meals with him or taking short strolls through the ship. Short because it really was small. We’d walk from one end to the next and sometimes, he’d hold my hand. The man dwarfed me, but there was something in his touch that made me feel safe and kind of cherished. I was starting to want more—more of what he’d shown me in his cabin, but my fear had returned when I realized I would have to take off my clothes, and always in the past, nakedness led to pain. The first few times Anders had come to get me for a walk after that afternoon in his bunkroom, I’d blushed and stammered around him, but he was just too easy to get along with and he went out of his way to make me comfortable. After nights lying awake and reliving how that orgasm felt, how he’d felt under my fingers and my lips, I was getting very close to asking him if I could do the same thing again. Clothes on and everything.
    The last three times Anders and I had taken our short walk, I’d caught the captain watching us, an inscrutable expression on his face until the night before. He’d turned away and I’d caught a brief glimpse of pain.
    He hadn’t been looking at me, but at Anders.
    Today, he searched me out. When the door slid open, I looked up guiltily, clutching my tube of wine and the vidscreen against my chest.
    His instant smile made me relax. I set the screen on my blanket-covered lap and watched him walk to the other end of the cushions. They were wide and long enough to let him stretch out his legs while mine were crossed. “So this is where you’ve been disappearing.”
    “I like it in here.”
    I kept the lights low because my screen had a built-in glow, so when he turned to look out of the window, some of his face fell into shadow. He looked at the huge expanse of black much the way I did, with excitement and anticipation making his eyes glitter—even in the near darkness.
    “Did you always want to spend your life traveling?” I asked, then bit my lip. “Sorry, the wine loosened my tongue.”
    “You can ask me anything you want.” He turned back to me with that same smile and intense gaze that made me fight to keep from squirming again. “And actually, the answer is no. I like it—like the adventure, but I had planned to settle down once. On Kithra, in fact.”
    I blinked at him and he chuckled.
    “The destruction of your world devastated more than just Gwinarians. I loved it there, loved the planet itself with its glowing moon flowers and tall, tall trees. And there isn’t another race of beings like yours. So lovely and accepting of people and other beings. Anders liked it, too. We used to visit my brother when he was working there.”
    “You’ve been with Anders a long time then.”
    “We’ve been friends since we were teenagers.”
    “Friends?” I frowned because I was sure they had been a lot more than that—despite the fact they had different rooms now.
    He didn’t answer, just turned his gaze back to me with that force that had struck me silent the first day, when he’d busted into my owner’s room. Those blue eyes did something crazy to my stomach.
    “What do they do to your stomach?” he asked softly.
    My mouth fell open as heat swamped me.