37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Afterward, Ursa and I were put on cleanup duty with Zenny.
I suspect this was done mostly to give us—me—some space from the rest of the crew while things cooled off.
Still, I threw myself into the task with vigor even though it’d only been assigned to keep us out of the way.
A part of me hoped that if I did an exceptionally good job tidying up the kitchen, everyone might be less irritated with me.
Sorry, Tobago, I won’t give you the location of the poolwater you hope will cure your husband’s chronic illness, but look at how shiny the counters are!
Foolish, I know.
As I scrubbed the pots and pans from breakfast with rigor, my mind raced.
Perhaps I’d drawn too firm a line about sharing the location of the bear algae.
Maybe a compromise could be reached. If we returned to Earth, perhaps we could arrange for only Ursa and me to collect more samples from the poolwater, so no one else would learn of its location.
We’d collect enough for Indy; I could take a few more samples for Ursa and for myself, so I could conduct my replication experiments; and the pool wouldn’t be needlessly depleted.
I would have to discuss all of this with Ursa, of course.
Perhaps after cleanup we could find a moment or two alone.
And it would be good for me to come up with a solid plan beforehand, so that Ursa and Tobago didn’t butt heads yet again.
Our time on the Trojan Horse was already running out.
There was no need to expedite that process.
A crash startled me out of my thoughts. Behind me Ursa had dropped a stack of plates he was carrying into the kitchen.
My first, startled instinct was to be irritated at the mess and all the broken dishes; we really didn’t need yet another reason for the crew to be upset with us.
But then I saw the way Ursa swayed forward, the way he barely caught himself on the edge of the counter. “Ursa?”
He didn’t acknowledge me right away. It seemed a struggle for him to keep his eyes open. His knuckles were white with how firmly he was gripping the countertop.
I released the pan I was working on back into the sink’s soapy water, quickly drying off my hands on a towel so I could move over to him. Zenny, who had been sweeping in the galley, paused. “Y’all okay?” she called out.
Unsure of the answer to that, I gave none. Instead I stepped over to Ursa, taking his face in my hands. He looked pale. “Are you unwell?”
Ursa reached up to grip my wrist tightly. The fact that he didn’t roll his eyes at me or gently push me away told me he really was suffering.
I glanced over at Zenny. “He’s sick, I think. Let me take him back to the room and I’ll come back to finish up?”
She waved me off. “I got it. You go tend to your man . . .”
Was Ursa having one of his SWS spells again?
It had been some time since his last treatment with the sunlamp, but he’d seemed perfectly fine up until this morning.
Maybe he’d overextended himself the day before on the SuperVegas job.
All that talk about him doing the work of five men.
He really needed to learn to slow down . . .
Thankfully, he didn’t pass out on the way back to our quarters, though he was leaning on me rather heavily. When we were alone in the room, I guided him over to the bed. After encouraging him to sit on the edge, I kneeled before him to take off his boots.
Even though he’d been all but swooning just a moment before, Ursa grunted and waved off my attempts to coddle him. He really didn’t like a fuss. “I do it.”
I might have rolled my eyes at him, if I weren’t so relieved that he wasn’t completely comatose, at least not yet. Hopefully we’d caught his withdrawal in time, so he wouldn’t be out of commission for days. Maybe if we treated it early enough, even a few hours of rest could set him right.
So I let him take care of his boots and socks as I readied the sunlamp next to the bed, then measured out a small dose of the bear algae. We really were running low. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to replenish some of the stock, if we could find an ethical way to do so.
Maybe Ursa and I could even stay on Earth afterward.
We’d been forced to leave because Rawley was searching for us, but if he’d kept to the original expedition schedule, he would have left by now.
He’d be looking for us everywhere else in the galaxy, and perhaps by the time he figured out we’d returned, if he figured that out, we’d be so well hidden he could never find us.
I was so fixated on this thought that I was only half paying attention to what Ursa was doing as he started to climb under the covers with his jumpsuit still on.
1 “It’ll be better with your clothes off,” I informed him distractedly, still measuring out his dose of poolwater.
“And out of the covers. You need the sunlamp directly on your skin.”
When I glanced up again, I saw to my surprise that despite his exhaustion, Ursa had stood up out of bed. I suppose it was rather difficult to remove a jumpsuit lying down, but this was not what caught my attention so much as the fact that he was now standing stark naked with his back to me.
It shouldn’t have been a sight that still had the power to take my breath away.
I’d seen it so very many times now, after all.
But Ursa was an exceptionally beautiful man.
His broad, muscular back and shoulders. His strong, sculpted thighs.
His tight, rounded buttocks. There was nothing gratuitous or wasteful on his body.
He was art, living art, a masterpiece of warm flesh and rippling muscles.
Even the scars and hair and smattering of freckles told a story; they added to his marvelous tapestry, gave life and texture to his physical perfection.
My breath caught in my throat, and for a moment, I could only stare. He was a sudden and welcome distraction from my worry, my nerves, my guilt. I was overcome all at once by the urge to carefully stroke my palms from his shoulders down the length of him. Maybe even sink my teeth into his—
A sound dragged my eyes up to the mirror hanging on the wall.
I could see from his reflection that he’d caught me ogling him.
Even looking as though he might collapse at any moment, Ursa couldn’t hide his smugness.
Nor could other parts of his body, I saw as my eyes drifted down the length of the mirror.
“Ursa!” I laughed, shaking my head at his incorrigibility. The man was on the verge of passing out, and he was still ready to hop into action at a moment’s notice. “You need to rest.”
As he turned to face me, he smirked, completely unrepentant. “Bed with me.”
“That most certainly will not lead to rest,” I said primly, side-stepping his attempt to reach for me and shooing him toward the mattress. “And anyway, I need to help Zenny.”
“‘Tend to your man,’” he reminded me, parroting Zenny’s words. Then, faster than he should have been able, considering his condition, he snagged an arm around my waist and pulled me down onto the bed with him.
I protested, but not too much if I’m really being honest, especially when I realized Ursa’s back was to the sunlamp and he was getting plenty of light on his skin. He spooned with the front of him pressed to the back of me, mostly just holding me, though his hands did wander a bit.
“Need my woman,” he murmured into my hairline, inhaling deeply.
“You are a very naughty man,” I huffed, though in truth, I was quite pleased to be needed, and to be his woman. Despite all of my worries, all of my fears, I think that might have been one of the happiest moments of my life, lying there with him and knowing I was so very adored.
“Naughty?” Ursa wanted to know.
Even though I’d been the one to use the word, I struggled to find the right description for it.
My first instinct was to say bad, but that wasn’t right.
Ursa wasn’t doing anything wrong, and after the way I’d been raised, I didn’t want even the hint of shame to come between us. “Cheeky,” I supplied finally.
His grunt let me know he didn’t quite understand that word, either. He’d come so far with his language skills that sometimes I forgot there was still a gulf between us. I searched for something more accessible to him. “Wild,” I settled on. Completely, irritatingly, wonderfully wild.”
It was the perfect way to describe him, and I hoped he could hear the utter adoration in my voice. But he was already asleep, his soft breath stirring against the back of my neck.
By the time I managed to extricate myself and return to the kitchen, there was no sign of Zenny and everything had been cleared away. Alexei and LeFleur were sitting at the dining table, conversing in low tones, though they stopped at the sight of me.
I hesitated awkwardly in the doorway. Neither had been the most vocal about disliking me after what happened to Croydon, but I also knew that neither had ever been especially fond of me.
“Did Zenny already leave?” I asked senselessly, since it was clear she was no longer in the room.
“A few minutes ago,” Alexei returned gruffly. Almost . . . angrily? Irritated that I’d left her to do it alone, perhaps?
I ought to find something to clean, something to do to make up for being a burden, yet again. If only I could get hold of some real butter, I could make scones for everyone . . . But we were nowhere near Haven 4 . . .
“We were just about to play darts,” LeFleur called to me. “You should join us.”
I looked at him in surprise. Alexei, too, seemed bemused by the offer, though he said nothing. After a silent exchange passed between the two men, they both turned expectantly toward me.