Magnetism by Kim Knox

Author:Kim Knox [Knox, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc
Published: 2011-02-22T15:59:19.387000+00:00

Chapter Three

“You wanted it. Wanted me to be unattainable. So I lied.” She wiped her hand over her mouth, the knot in her gut twisting, reminding her just how stupid she’d been. “I wanted you.” A wry smile lifted her mouth. “No rekkies involved and I’m straight-up sober.”

“That’s really what you thought?” Dareh scrubbed at his forehead. “What you think of me.”

Orlena wanted to curl into her bed, pretend that everything was a dream that had ended when he whispered her name and she came. But it wasn’t. She was stuck in her real life. “We can forget this happened, Dareh.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue, soured her stomach. She didn’t want to forget anything about him, but there was no future, no them. And they still had to work together every day. “That would be the practical solution.” She knew the smile she gave him was weak. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t looking at her anyway. “You like practical.”

“Practical.” He said the word like a curse. “Yes, that’s me, isn’t it?”

“Anyway, we should get this memory-loss thing sorted out.” Orlena kept her voice light, even as pain stabbed into her gut. “You need to shower and change and we’ll meet at the med facility in what? Thirty minutes?”

“I wanted to say yes to your offer.”

Orlena stared at him, confused, her hands paused on scrubbing her hair dry with her towel. “What offer?”

“The offer you made to fuck me. In the bar, last year.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair. “I was waiting for you to sober up.”

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. Her memory of that time was hazy, but she remembered the proposition and his shocked expression. She’d found herself leaning in the lift, followed by the hazy memory of her room with her face mushed into her pillow. There was a lingering scent of him in her recollection. She had pressed herself hard up against his chest and grabbed his ass, which had probably increased his look of shock. “You were?” She shook her head. “I’ve not touched a drop for a year, by the way. Mortifying embarrassment can be great that way.”

“I know.” He straightened his shoulders. “You turned up on the Theseus the next morning. You looked horrified.”

She blinked. “And you thought my offer didn’t stand?”

“I knew it didn’t.” He leaned against the wall. “I’d read your employment history. Second mate on the Theseus was a good move. You couldn’t screw that up. I wasn’t going to let you.”

Orlena winced. “You do know how patronizing that sounds, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “Was I right?”

She pressed her hand to her mouth and knew she didn’t want to admit he was right. Getting the job aboard the Theseus had been as great a break as a stranger handing her the card to her room. It pulled her out of the cesspool that was working on the ship construction arms, gave her a grade, a certain reputation and best of all, let her eat on a regular basis.

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