Louise went rigid, her heavy breaths warming his throat. She said nothing for a long time and her answer when it came sounded off somehow. Her voice wrong in a way that had the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention. “He, um…he taught programming.”
Adam stopped. He just stopped. Everything. Holy shit. She’d lied to him. No doubt about it. He knew a lie when he heard one. His training had ensured it.
“Adam?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
Why? What the fuck is going on?
“Umm, let’s just stop,” she said, and her hand tugged on his arm where it was buried beneath her clothes. Her entire demeanor had changed, all arousal gone. He knew how she felt. From one moment to the next, things between them had shifted, horribly. She turned away from him and every line in her body seemed stiff and cold. “We should stop.”
“Louise.”
“This has gone far enough.”
“Hey. Wait. Let’s talk.” Because he needed to get to the bottom of this, whatever the hell it was. His mouth had dried in something like fear but his brain was working overtime. Old habits died hard.
“No,” she said. One hand lay on his chest and she fluttered the other above the control panel, obviously looking for a safe place to set it down so she could lever herself off him. “This is stupid.”
“I had the security turned off. No one is watching, Louise,” he assured her. “You’re safe with me.”
But was he safe with her? That was the question.
She turned her dark eyes to him and shook her head, still caught in his lap. Anxiety filled her face, thinning her mouth and lining her eyes. Suddenly she looked tired—bone-deep weary. None of her behavior fitted. It made no sense.
“Let’s go back,” she said.
“Okay.”
The pressure of the fingers against his chest softened and the tension in her eased. “I’m sorry. I…I got worried.”
“It’s all right.”
She gave him another fine smile, but her eyes didn’t meet his.
Adam cocked his head, bumped his nose against hers, nudging her. She understood what he wanted. Louise raised her mouth to his, gave him a soft, tentative kiss. First one, then another. He didn’t deepen it, let her set the pace. Her kissing him back appeased him a little and calmed him down. It provided no answers, but whatever normally lay between them hadn’t disappeared.
He would find out what was going on.
Everything had been fine. She had really seemed to enjoy it, sitting there in the dark with him. The thrill of perhaps being watched and the teasing had all worked a treat. Her skin had been hot and her body excited. Up until he had questioned her answer regarding her father. Then she’d definitely lied to him. Shut down on him completely when he’d questioned her further.
His wife wasn’t a very good liar. But then, he’d been trained by the best. She hadn’t stood much of a chance. Something inside him ached, in his heart or in his gut. The pain seemed variable and indistinct. It kept moving around.
Why lie to him?
When she drew back from the kiss, eyes closed and lips moist, her lovely face beginning to relax, things almost felt better. Almost but not quite.
“We’ll go,” he said.
“Thank you.”
*
Adam sat in the corner of the bar, drinking.
Or not really drinking, because the two fingers of scotch had been sitting untouched in front of him for well over an hour. Drinking wouldn’t help anything. It was time to stop that. He needed his wits about him to sort things out.
He’d left Louise in their domicile asleep because some things you needed to do alone. Such as figuring out who your wife might be and why she’s lied to you. Pieces of information filled his mind but none of it fit together quite right. It didn’t make sense. There were no answers, just more and more questions. He’d always been good at puzzles but this time…
Shit. There’d been tells, but he hadn’t noticed them. No. He’d chosen not to notice them.
Like the moment it took before she reacted to her name. The beat before she responded. Hadn’t Taka said her name repeatedly at dinner the other night, and she’d been oblivious? Yes. And that hadn’t been the only occasion. He’d just been distracted. Then there was her fear, her permanent jumpiness. When he’d woken her this morning she’d looked at him as if he might be the Grim Reaper or something. For a moment she’d been terrified. His wife spent a lot of time looking over her shoulder.
Adam ignored the chief at first. Ignored the man as he bought a drink and ignored him as he sat down, intruding on his privacy.
“What’s going on?” the chief asked.
“Nothing.”
They’d been through a lot together. It had been the chief’s idea to drag the remains of their unit out to Esther, him and Taka and Bon. The chief looked after people like a mother hen. After the war, no one had seemed to know what to do, how to settle down to something normal. Esther had seemed the perfect solution. Plus the corp paid quite well. Conditions could suck but the pay had been plentiful. Not that it meant much out in the ass-end of space.
“You fretting about your family?”
“No.” Adam sighed. “That was done with a long time ago.”
The chief nodded.