She took his face firmly between both hands to refocus his attention before the conversation derailed any further. “Listen to me. None of that matters. We can figure out the details later. All that matters is we finally want the same thing. Can’t we just appreciate that and be happy for five minutes? Don’t we deserve five minutes of happiness?”
With his face an inch from hers, she could feel his breath on her lips. Soon came the familiar stirring of awareness that always spread like honey through her veins when they were close like this. She knew the nearness had affected him, too, because she watched his resolve begin to falter. All of his unspoken arguments seemed to evaporate until he finally glanced at her mouth and murmured, “Let’s make it ten. We’re long overdue.”
“How about twenty?”
With a hasty nod, he tilted back her head and kissed her, soft and slow. The contact drew a whimper from her throat. He smelled so good, like sea and sand, and when she licked his upper lip, something within him seemed to break. He crushed her close and deepened the kiss. Before long, they were both panting for breath.
“On second thought,” he gasped, “thirty.”
“Thirty? Is that the best you can do?”
He chuckled and gave her a look that sent a southbound jolt of heat all the way from her navel to her toes. “How about you clear your schedule and we find out?”
She considered it done. All her days belonged to him now. Gazing into the eyes of her best friend, she saw so much joy that it strained the boundaries of her heart. She would never lose this feeling, never let him go again. As she reclined against her pillow, she trailed an index finger down the length of his chest and told him, “Go bolt the door.”
Sometime later, they lay entwined beneath the covers, their heartbeats slow and their breathing steady, and closed their eyes to let the drone of the ship’s engine lull them to sleep. The cot wasn’t designed for two. Cassia’s shoulder was pressed to the wall while Kane’s elbow hung off the opposite side of the mattress, but neither cared. She liked the closeness and she knew he did, too. If this were a double bed, half of it would go to waste.
As she drifted into dreams, she felt a niggling at the back of her mind, a reminder of something she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t make sense of it until a loud beep sounded from her wrist and made her jump. Beside her, Kane flinched so hard he rolled off the cot and landed on the floor.
“Jordan!” she said, clutching the sheet over her bare chest. “I forgot to call him!”
Kane started grabbing her clothes from the floor and handing them to her as the com-bracelet continued to beep. She turned them right side out and frantically pulled on her shirt and pants, then finger-combed her hair while Kane gathered his own clothes.
“Hurry,” she urged.
He stood up, holding a ball of fabric between his hips as he thumbed at the door. “I can’t exactly wait in the hall like this.”
“Over there,” she said with a wave toward the corner. “He won’t see you.” As soon as Kane had moved out of sight, she accepted the transmission.
In true form, Jordan leaned forward in his desk chair and inspected her image. “Are you all right? You look…frazzled.”
“It’s been a long day,” she said, which wasn’t a lie. “I meant to call you, but I nodded off as soon as I sat down.” To change the subject, she launched into a story of the day’s events, downplaying her near-death experience so he wouldn’t panic and ask her to come home. She wanted to be the one who brought back the cure…and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t ready to go home. “My captain’s using his contacts to look for another outbreak. Now that we know Fleece is making people sick and using the cure as blackmail, maybe we can get ahead of him somehow.”
Jordan nodded. “I’ll tell the hackers to focus on Adel Vice.”
“Any news on the bill that failed?” she asked. “If we can figure out what Zhang tried to legalize on Earth, it might tell us what he’s up to on Adel Vice.”
“The team is still looking, but nothing so far.”
“How are things on your end?”
“As well as can be expected,” he said. “None of our sick have disappeared, and the refugees in the tent camp are holding steady. I found out that a few of the refugees never contracted the illness, so I sent them to the lab to see if we can find a reason for their immunity.”
“Great thinking.”
“I also talked to Councilor Markham. He’s stalling the noble houses like you asked. So far they don’t seem to know about the breakout.” Jordan checked over both shoulders and lowered his voice. “And the rebel sting happens tonight.”