Chapter Thirty-Eight Corrina
“I had an ulterior motive for asking to see you alone,” Slade murmurs to me, taking my hand in his and pressing a kiss to the back of my hand.
“And I assumed it was just because you and the haleens get along like oil and water,” I say with a chuckle.
“They do seem awfully protective of you for friends,” Slade says, easing himself down onto the grass and pulling me down beside him.
“They’re just protective,” I reply casually. “It’s not necessarily all that different from how they are protective of each other.” I don’t mention to Slade that their protectiveness of me is more than a little justified.
“Well, I’m glad I was able to get you to myself alone for a little bit,” Slade replies, turning my hand over and tracing the lines of my palm with a finger.
“And why is that?” I ask.
“I want you to come with me when I leave,” Slade says softly.
I let out an incredulous laugh. “Slade, I can’t just give up my post.”
“Why not?” he asks. I am baffled by his sudden request. He’s never asked me to come with him before, and I’ve never asked if I could. That’s not how things have ever been between us. “You could resign and come away with me. We always have a good time together.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “We do, but we’ve never been together for all that long. It’s fun for a while, but it never lasts.” I don’t mention the part about him always leaving.
“Maybe things could be different,” he offers.
“Slade, what’s really going on?” This offer isn’t like him.
“Can’t I just want you to be with me?” he asks.
“Not when it’s never mattered before. Look, we’ve had a lot of fun together in the past. But it always ends with you leaving. And when you do, I end up alone and you end up fucking your way through space.”
“It’s different this time,” he insists.
“Slade,” I say exasperatedly. I pull my hand from his grasp and sit facing him with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap. “Tell me the full name and occupation of the last person you fucked.”
I watch as his face pales slightly. “Uh, Keela,” he pauses, clearly wracking his brain for her last name.
“I know she owns a little shop on Daniban station.” I just stare at him.
“Okay, fine, so I don’t remember her last name.
What’s the full name and occupation of the last person you fucked, Corrina? ”
“Slade McIntysh, Captain of the Red Comet. Privateer,” I reply matter-of-factly.
“Oh, baby. It’s been, what, three years? That’s got to mean something,” he says, reaching his hands towards my face.
I lean back and grasp his hands with mine, holding him at arms’ length. “It does. It means it’s not just fucking to me, Slade.”
“Just because I’ve fucked other people doesn’t mean anything, Corrina.”
“And that’s the whole point,” I interrupt.
“If I’m going to be with someone physically, it has to mean something.
It has to be more than physical.” I exhale slowly.
“I don’t want to be with someone who can fuck a stranger and then walk away without feeling anything.
” I add the ‘anymore’ silently, but I think Slade hears it all the same because I feel his hands drop.
I let go of his wrists and he pulls them back.
“How long have you felt like this?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know exactly,” I reply softly. “It just sort of happened gradually.” As I say it, though, I realize that my feelings have only recently crystalized into certainty.
Because it is only recently that I’ve realized if I had to choose between a sexual relationship with someone who means nothing to me or an emotional bond with no hope of a sexual relationship, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.
No matter how much my body sometimes protests.
“You won’t even consider coming away with me?” he asks hopefully, and this time I let him pull me into a kiss but pull back before he can deepen it.
“You’re an amazing man, Slade. And I’ll always care about you,” I tell him. “But you and me, we just don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“I’d still like to see you when I’m on station,” he says after several moments of silence. “If your new bodyguards will let me,” he adds with a chuckle.
“I’d like that,” I reply. “And I’ll make sure they do, assuming they are still hanging around.”
“I should get back,” Slade says after another moment of silence.
“Say goodbye before you ship out, okay?” I say, as we both stand.
“I will,” he replies. “And Corrina? Take care of yourself, okay?” He pulls me into a tight hug, and then he’s walking away with his hands tucked firmly in his pockets.
I lower myself back to the ground and tug at the grassy strands absently.
As soon as I saw Slade in the docking bay, I knew this conversation was coming so it is no surprise to me that it’s come to this.
What does surprise me is that I don’t feel the way I would have expected.
Slade and I have been off and on again for the better part of a decade, and yet I don’t feel sadness at officially ending things between us.
Before I can wonder why, I sense someone watching me.
I jerk my head up and meet the watchful yellow eyes of Davix.
He emerges from the trees, and I am momentarily stunned.
In a flash, however, my surprise morphs to anger.
“Are you spying on me?” I ask angrily, getting to my feet and stalking towards him.
“Not spying,” he signs. “Watching. Don’t trust him,” he adds, jerking a thumb in the direction that Slade went.
“I don’t care if you don’t trust him,” I retort. “You should trust me.” I fold my arms and glare up at him. “And why would you be watching me anyway?”
“To keep you safe,” he signs, but I notice that his eyes don’t quite meet mine.
“Don’t give me that,” I argue. “I travel all over the base and station by myself without you watching me.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Unless you’re spying on me elsewhere too?”
“Not spying,” Davix insists. His hands form the words emphatically.
“Then why?” I demand. “Why are you here, when I specifically said that I wanted to talk to Slade alone? We both know that keeping me safe isn’t the truth.”
“Is truth,” he signs, frowning at me. “Want you to be safe.”
“I’m not buying it. Maybe it’s part of the truth, but it’s not the whole truth.
Tell me why you’re here, Davix. Now.” His hands move so quickly that it takes me a moment to figure out what he’s saying.
“What?” I ask. He repeats the motion. “Yeah, I get it,” I say with a wave of my hands.
“What do you want me to do?” He slashes his hand across his chest in a sign I have come to learn is his emphatic no.
“Now you don’t want me to do something? I don’t understand what you are saying.
You want me? To what?” I stare at him expectantly as he signs the words slower this time, but it still doesn’t make sense.
I’m about to tell him so, when I am suddenly swept up in his arms with his face pressed against the hollow at the base of my throat and his arms wrapped tightly around me.
Any words I might say die in my throat as his warm, wet tongue extends to lick a line from the base of my neck to my chin.