Quicksilver Dreams(183)

                “I bet you were surprised to be drawn into my sex dreams.”

                “That’s putting it mildly. I didn’t want to cross any irreversible lines with you, but you were too tempting. I wanted your passion. You were all soft and pink and ready and waiting. I just had to touch you.”

                “It was amazing.” I nuzzled his chest and neck, reveling in his spicy scent. He was so gorgeous; it was hard to understand why he’d been single so long.

                “Dating anyone on Earth is frowned upon,” he answered my thought. “You can imagine why. Someone would wonder about where I come from, and then things would get weird because I would either have to lie or tell the truth.”

                True. That would get weird. “Was there never anyone on your own planet?”

                Ryder’s look became solemn. He met my gaze for a few moments. “There was a girl, someone I met during my training years ago. We were close for a couple of years, and I thought she was what I wanted. Then she demonstrated that it wasn’t really me she was interested in, so I ended the relationship.”

                A couple of years. Wow. That was a long time. “Why did you break up?”

                “She had personal issues. She was found trying to locate files in my mother’s office one day, claiming I’d sent her to do it. As you can imagine, my father had a field day with that. He wanted to banish her to another province and strip her of her credentials. I made a case for her to work in security on Earth, so she could move on with her life and use the training she’d learned.”

                “That was thoughtful.” I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking about how I would feel if someone I’d gone out with for two years had betrayed me, even if it was years ago. “So she does what you do down here? Security stuff?”

                “Some of that. She monitors visitors of a nearby region, and she’s helped out on teams. She’s a good soldier.”

                Okay, now it was my turn to feel some jealousy. Wasn’t that interesting? I still couldn’t stop the questions, even recognizing I was being overly nosy. I was just proud of myself for not asking about a picture of her to see if she was prettier than me. Dopey, right? “Do you still see her around?”

                “Sometimes.”

                “What’s her name?”

                “Jory.”

                “Did you love her?”

                “No.”

                I could now breathe a sigh of relief. I was satisfied.





Chapter Nineteen

                When we resurfaced, it was dark, it was late and we were looking for a quick snack before settling in for the rest of the night. We had toaster pastries on the balcony followed by gentle conversation and the very mundane chore of toothbrushing, which was more interesting for once because we actually did this together.

                How weird. Like a real couple.

                And with work coming up, I had some very everyday kinds of things to do. I got my clothes ready, checked appointments on my phone, double-checked that the alarm was set and crawled into bed beside Ryder, curling up next to him while he looked at some report on his mechanical thingamajiggy.

                I wanted to remember to ask him about it later, because it was really cool and maybe girlfriends could be issued these kinds of cool things, but for the first time in a long time, my body was able to so completely relax that I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.