No. No, that wasn’t true. She was quite certain Gidds Selkie would behave impeccably. It was more that he was such an overwhelming man. Formal and polite and restrained. Mild, even, and yet…an Event Horizon. So intense that whenever Laura looked directly at him she could almost see the world warping around him, and could feel herself being inescapably swallowed up.
"What was it you called the first dish of our meal?" he asked—a completely innocuous question no doubt in response to her glass-clear fit of nerves.
"Quiche," she said. "The Muinan spelling for that…ah, it’s a little difficult. It’s a French word and dish." She spelled it phonetically, and then explained French.
"You are perhaps missing the foods of your own planet," he said, rising from his chair and turning to gauge the sheets of water outside.
"Oh, a few," she said, standing and following him to the north patio doors. "Cinnamon particularly. But mostly it’s been a fun game trying new foods, and reinventing Earth dishes with Muinan ingredients. Some items aren’t available at all, but there are very many similar ingredients. The flour I used is from a Kolaren grain and has a different taste, but I think it works well. And it’s shocking how many vegetables are tremendously similar to Earth plants. The botanists who have been playing with the seeds I brought from home tell me more than a few are almost identical to Muinan plants—just different cultivars."
She paused to consider the storm, which hadn’t eased significantly. "I’m afraid this looks like it’s going to continue for quite a while. I hope it hasn’t thrown your plans off too much."
"If I had an urgent appointment, there are craft that can travel in these conditions. But I have enjoyed the opportunity to talk to you while not on duty."
Inordinately pleased by this, Laura couldn’t help but smile, but then told herself not to overreact. She needed to be sensible.
"I would enjoy kissing you as well."
Quiet words. They stole any notion of sensible. Once again she turned her head. His gaze was unwavering, his eyes inky-dark.
"I’d enjoy that too."
They weren’t standing far apart. She leaned a little forward as he moved, and their mouths found each other without awkwardness. Just a touch, and then an exploratory kiss.
Laura plummeted. Could such a simple thing really make the world spin? She held on to him for balance, and his arms curled around her waist. Just kissing. It was nothing much, really. Kissing, and hands sliding over a blue uniform. Not nearly reason enough for the stars to slip from their courses, for time to slow down.
She was leaning into him now. The muscles of his arms tensed, relaxed, tensed again. Did this uniform have any seams, any opening to allow a hand to slip beneath, to find bare flesh? Her own shirt was far more obliging. His gloves stole a large amount of her fractured attention: one fingerless, the other complete, they made a maddening contrast as his hands moved over her back.
This had become far more than a kiss. Her heart was racing but there was no panic, no sense of being trapped. A kiss, a touch, a coming together. A thing she had no interest in escaping.
"I think…" Laura hesitated a moment more, but knew she wanted this. "I think we need a different room."
Chapter Six
Gidds drew back, but it was only so he could look into her eyes. His expression was utterly serious.
"I would like that. Very much."
Men with voices like Gidds Selkie should not use them to say things with such a depth of sincerity. Laura supposed her tiny gasp in response had been audible, and didn’t really care if Sight Sight gave away the faint shiver that ran through her as she slid her arms down and found both his hands, extremely aware of the gloves he used to protect himself from touch. She kept hold of the left hand, the one covered only by a fingerless glove.
A short walk to her bedroom. It was easiest to make it without looking back at him, though she kept imagining what he must be able to sense from her, through the hand she had taken, with the Sights that he had trained to their highest pitch.
Rain dominated the room, pounding in gusts against the curving window. Laura paused, since she liked watching storms, but she didn’t want the distraction and so triggered the polarisation function and shut away the world. In a house where even the roof was made from stone, the storm reached them only as a muffled hiss.
Though perhaps shutting away all distraction was a tactical error. Looking into the calm face of the man she’d brought to her room made Laura feel very young, rather nervous…and more than a little impatient. She dropped her gaze to the hand she still held, and deliberately peeled off his glove.
Even over the murmur of rain, Laura heard his intake of breath. She liked that, liked that he sounded a little shaken, that the serious soldier was working on his composure behind an appearance of calm. It took concerted effort to not look up, to resist checking his expression, but rather to simply reach for his other hand.
He presented it to her, prompting her to glance up after all, in time to catch that fleeting smile. As she drew the second glove off she stayed watching his face, but that wasn’t a good idea, just as she had suspected, because the man was simply mesmerising, and Laura really did feel like she was being dragged forward, that the stars were slowing down around her, and quite possibly she would have stood there for an immeasurable amount of time, holding a pair of gloves.
He took them from her, moved, and this time there was no reason to stop kissing.
Muinan-Taren-Kolaren literature was full of stories about Sights and sex. Sight Sight talents would discover things you never knew you wanted. Place Sight talents… Place Sight was far more than empathy, but that was the facet that came to the fore with a naked Gidds Selkie and a bed. An immensely controlled and measured man who was intuitive and responsive to a degree that kept Laura gasping. He could feel her reaction to his every movement, and whatever she disliked he stopped immediately, and whatever she enjoyed, he improved.
He stunned her, left her trembling—and would be perfectly aware of the fact. Laura would have felt at a disadvantage, but his shaking breath matched her own, and for several minutes all they did was lie tangled together.
"I’m finding I’m glad of the weather," she said at last.
He shifted a fraction, fingers brushing her flank. "Yes. I was not enjoying the prospect of returning to Tare without a reason for another meeting. Although…what is it that changed? Between this week and last week?"
Sight Sight need to know, Laura guessed. "Sue told me you were attracted to me. I didn’t believe her. But I thought about the possibility. A lot."
"I will have to thank your sister," he said. "And remember that she is observant."
"Could—could you really see a difference in me, right away?" So disconcerting.
Instead of answering her directly, he sent her a visual link over the interface. An image of herself, standing by Sue, surrounded by a delicate tracery of light: a shifting forest of semitransparent, curling fern fronds. She would have had no idea what the sudden alterations in the ghostly patterns meant if not for her own memory of nerves, anticipation, and then a sudden flush of awareness.
The image changed. Her face now, closer, brown hair falling across her forehead, surrounded by transparent curlicues.