Starflight (Starflight, #1)(77)

“You think that way now,” she said, pulling away. “But that doesn’t mean it’s real. We’ve been through a lot together. It’s normal to have feelings for someone when you’re alone like this.”

“So you think I fell in love with you by default?”

She nodded.

“You know,” he said with a twinkle of amusement in his gaze, “I’ve never told a girl I loved her before. This is kind of a big deal for me, and you’re ruining the moment.”

That forced an undignified snort of laughter out of her. She used a sleeve to wipe both eyes and repeated what Doran had said weeks ago. “Not surprising. I’m an * like that.”

He moved in close, capturing her face again. “Then we’re a perfect match, aren’t we?”

Before she could even draw a breath to answer him, Doran brushed her lips in a kiss that wiped her mind clean of everything but the electric thrill of his mouth on hers. At the barest contact, her insides did backflips, and when she rose onto tiptoe for more pressure, her blood simmered to a boil. Right then, she decided that their kiss behind the barn on Cargill didn’t count. Because it hadn’t made her feel anything like this—as if her skin were alive with energy and about to burst into fireworks.

This was their first kiss.

And if she thought that was mind-blowing, it was nothing compared to the moment their tongues met. Her nerve endings ignited, and what little control she had snapped in half. She wrapped both arms around his neck as his hand slipped under her shirt, and the next thing she knew, they were stumbling toward the bed and landing on their sides in a tangled heap.

While Doran caught his breath, he watched her beneath heavy lids, his gaze flickering like a blue flame. She saw the raw emotion on his face and felt it in the desperate press of his fingers. It was then that she finally believed him. Doran had given his heart to her. At the realization, something in her own heart shifted and grew, spreading outward until there wasn’t room for anything else inside her chest.

“My answer is yes,” she whispered.

Doran rolled her beneath him and interlaced one of their hands high above her head, gazing down at her with so much gratitude that it tightened her throat. “You’ll come home with me, when all this is over?”

She nodded against the pillow, breathing in the scents of soap and oil vapors that their joined bodies had made. It was unique to them, and sweeter than any perfume implant in creation. “I’ll go anywhere with you.”

As she locked her legs around his waist, a shiver spread out from her navel all the way down to her toes. Soon their hips grew restless, and their breathing turned choppy. He whispered one more time that he loved her and lowered his mouth for a kiss.

After that, there was no more talking.





“Hand me the two-thirds hydraulic wrench, will you?” Solara asked, facedown in the shower’s filtration system while her backside wiggled in the air, turning Doran’s thoughts far from repair work. She must’ve known he wasn’t paying attention, because she clarified, “The one with the blue handle.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, still staring.

“Doran!”

He tore his gaze away and handed her the blue wrench, then leaned forward and glanced over her shoulder to see if she was almost finished. The tangle of tubes beneath the floor looked like disemboweled innards, so the answer was probably no.

His shoulders slumped.

In the days since they’d waited for the geomagnetic storm to pass, Solara had taken it upon herself to give the Banshee a full tune-up—a nice gesture, but Doran was tired of sharing her with the ship. He kept daydreaming about whisking her away to someplace tropical, just the two of them. In his fantasies, life had returned to normal and he had full access to the Spaulding toys.

“Have you ever seen the ocean?” he asked.

“Once,” she called over her shoulder. “The nuns took us on a day trip to Galveston. It rained the whole time, but we had fun. Sister Agnes let me bury her to the neck and sculpt her into a mermaid.”

“I want to take you to the Caribbean,” he said. “We’ll borrow one of my dad’s smaller yachts so we can drop anchor in the island shallows.” That way they’d have total privacy—no hotels, no touristy beaches, not even a crew to disturb them. “We can snorkel and swim right off the boat.”

“A personal yacht? What’s next, a private shuttle?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “How else would we get to the marina to fetch the boat?”

Solara righted herself and leaned on one elbow, smiling at him. “If you’re trying to spoil me, it won’t work. I can earn my own keep.”

He returned her smile while his whole heart melted. His feelings for her were nearly tangible, swelling like billows inside his rib cage, and he found himself constantly consumed by the need to express it. Each night he did his best to show how much he loved her—until they were breathless and weak—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to give Solara closets full of glistening ball gowns, to take her to exotic places and fill her belly with the finest foods. There was no better reward than seeing her happy, so from now on he was going to pamper her like it was his job.

“I’m highly motivated,” he said. “So I suggest you don’t fight it.”