LunarReunion (5 page)

“
Genosh
deserts,
Melixia
,
Jhela-3
—”
Filid starting listing what he thought were the most dangerous holiday
destinations.

“Already been there.” She smiled and turned to face him.

“You’re a thrill seeker,” he said as if just discovering who
she was. One tentacle touched her cheek.

“Avoiding going home.”

“Aren’t we all?” He pressed his lips to hers in a kiss that
could only be farewell. There was no demand and no heat, just the light brush
of his lips before he drew away.

Her heart jumped into her throat and tried to suffocate her.
She blinked back tears so he wouldn’t see and tried to project happiness.

He looked confused for a moment, then concerned. Her mental
ruse had failed to fool him. He was still cupping her jaw as if reluctant to
let go completely. “I really enjoyed our time together.”

“Me too.” More than he would ever know. And while she’d
finally be able to cross him off her list, she didn’t want to. She swallowed
hard and tried to push away the old feelings that came from working together,
the hunger that had existed between them, the hunger that was still there,
momentarily sated but it would be back and eager for more. She hadn’t gotten
him out of her system, she’d invited him deeper.

It was time to go before this got maudlin or they had
another fight. They would leave on good terms this time. Maybe with space and
time between them the old desire would fade along with the regret of not having
him and taking that chance.

She’d taken it this time.

It had been worth it.

She should be happy.

The clock beeped and the room door hissed open. Their time
was up.

He kissed her again. Hard and desperate, as if he was trying
to imprint it forever in his mind.

Then he was walking away, out of her life again. The one man
in the universe who had the power to tear the center out of hers.

Silva took a couple of breaths, the taste of him still on
her tongue, her body aching from his touch. She didn’t want any of the
pleasures offered on the Moon except Filid.

His cousin had been working on the Moon since leaving the
APM. Older, but not wiser, Hamlik had been given a choice—leave the planet or
get therapy after getting into a brawl. Violence of any kind was frowned about
in
Klokian
society, however it was deemed all right to mess with
people’s minds to make them conform. To Filid that was worse. Hamlik felt the
same as Filid, and as instead of getting therapy he had joined the APM. He’d
done his minimum four-year service and gotten out, determined to live his own
life. It had been he who’d suggested Filid get out, see the galaxy and find his
own path.

Perhaps there was a fault in their genes that predisposed
them to violence and non-compliance to what was expected in
Klokian
society. Filid knew he’d never have been happy there if he’d tried to fit in,
and leaving was something he’d never regretted. He liked being in the APM.

But Filid was already regretting walking out on Silva
without saying what he wanted to say. To admit to longing for her, to trying to
find her and to apologize for the argument. He wasn’t sure acting like
strangers coming together for a fuck was any better. It certainly hadn’t
dissolved what he felt for her or erased the longing.

If anything he wanted more. More time, more something.

“You appear to be distracted. Work getting to you?” Hamlik
picked at his meal, segregating it into protein and plant.

After years in the APM, Filid wasn’t as fussy. To the APM,
food meant nourishment and little else. Appearance and texture were optional,
not essential.

“Kind of.” He ate without tasting even though it was
probably the best meal, and certainly the most expensive, he’d had in a while.
It was difficult, but he tried to shield his thought from his cousin and he
avoided trying to read Hamlik’s thoughts as well.

“Still, glad you could squeeze me into your busy schedule.”
Hamlik grinned and started eating now that his plate was divided into
quadrants.

“I’m glad I’m here.” It had been a long time since he’d seen
any family, and what he’d seen of the Moon was wonderful. What he’d seen of
Silva was better.

Hamlik snorted. “I can tell, from your sour disposition and
the way your thoughts are focused on the woman you’ve just been with.”

Filid glared at his cousin. “You know, I don’t miss hanging
around with
Klokians
at all.” At least his thoughts were his own in the
APM.

“I’m stirring. If you hadn’t gotten laid on the Moon, I’d
have been truly worried. I’m just glad you didn’t blow me off for her.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Filid said immediately, even though
that wasn’t the entire truth. In the APM he’d learned to lie—a skill that would
be very much frowned upon at home.

“Yeah you would…but only for her.” Hamlik’s tentacles lifted
and reached out. He was curious about why and had no qualms about trying to
read Filid’s thoughts. “Who is she?”

Filid considered saying nothing but his cousin was scanning
all of his thoughts, searching for the answer. Filid couldn’t help but resent
the skimming of his thoughts.
Fuck off and get out of my head.

“Can’t help it,” Hamlik said around a bite of food.

Filid ate in silence for a little. He didn’t need words to
talk to Hamlik. Instead he opened his mind to his cousin. He let images of
Silva in uniform fill his thoughts, the argument and their meeting at the
pilots’ bar. He didn’t supply details of what had followed after, but he was
sure Hamlik could guess the rest.

“Ah.” Hamlik tilted his head, confusion filling his
thoughts. “Why didn’t you just greet her affectionately in the bar?”

Because he was an idiot who was scared of being rejected or
unremembered, but he couldn’t say that aloud, even if Hamlik could read it in
his thoughts. “Because of how it ended last time.”

“I think six years is long enough to get over an argument.”

Filid shook his head. “She lashed out and instead of doing
the right thing I joined in. I should have known better but I wanted her so bad
I was considering breaking the rules.” He drew in a breath. Despite the shower,
Silva’s scent was still on his skin. The pheromone she secreted when aroused
lingered like perfume and heated his blood. He’d never be able to get her out
of his thoughts now.

“And would the court martial have been worth it?”

Filid knew the answer without even pausing. It would have.
Then one of them could have resigned and they could have been together. They
would’ve found a way.

“But she’s not APM anymore, so why are you having lunch with
me instead of her?”

Because instead of doing the right thing and being honest
and risking his heart for the one person he’d always wanted he’d let fear rule
and taken the coward’s route. He was actually glad that most of this
conversation didn’t need words. Filid was sure his cousin grasped the sense of
shame, torment and desire.

Hamlik shook his head. “Look, I see a lot here. People who
marry after too many drinks and then get divorced just as fast. I see staff
marry and stay together for years…regardless of species.” Hamlik read the
thoughts full of doubt as fast as Filid could think them. “It doesn’t matter.
The people who make it are the ones who want to be together despite the odds.
So you have tentacles and she has spots. Big deal.”

Filid wanted to kiss every one of her spots. He and Silva
might look different on the surface but they were similar in that they loved to
travel. He loved the way she dreamed big and was always looking for the next
challenge. He wanted to be her next challenge and her reason not to go home,
and he could be hers. Together, traveling the stars forever. A sigh escaped.
Reality and dreams were two very different things.

“What are the chances that we’ll ever get to spend time
together?” The galaxy was a big place. Once Silva left the Moon she’d be lost
to him again. It had taken six years for their paths to cross again. The idea
that it would take another six, or worse, they would never meet again, made him
want to jump out an airlock.

“Don’t be hasty. Death is rather final. You make it happen.”

“It’s all right for you, you live in the same place, not on
a ship that is always moving.”

Hamlik looked at him.
You’re an idiot making excuses
because you’re scared ball-less. Quit running from something and run to
something for a change.

“Do you have the balls to say that out loud?” But Filid knew
Hamlik had a point. “There’s no way I can face her again, not now.”

“So you’d rather lose her again?”

Put that way…a lifetime of knowing she was out there,
eventually married to someone else. Would she be thinking of him? Or would she
lock those memories away?

“I lost her a long time ago.”

Coward.
Hamlik raised his glass.
You might as well
go home and conform.

Fuck you.

No one else had ever messed with his head like Silva. Around
her it was hard to tell right from wrong. That wasn’t the start of a
relationship. That was trouble.

* * * * *

While it was nice to see family after being in space for so
long, and in truth it was the family connection that had gotten him the trip to
the Moon, Hamlik was the person who saw through him and the lies he told
himself. The other military police on the APM ship had all wanted the trip,
they’d tried to barter and bribe their way into a swap. Who didn’t want to go
to Decadent Moon?

Him.

Instead of enjoying all its delights he was back in the
pilots’ bar hoping she’d be there and he could try again. If he’d never come
here, he could’ve held on to the fantasy of what their meeting would be like,
instead he’d butchered it and had made a bigger mess. Yet he’d had the time of
his life and wasn’t ready for it end. However, he was running out of time to
fix it, assuming that was even possible.

Assuming he even saw her again. The Moon was a big place. He
left the bar without getting a drink.

She could be anywhere.

Once again he was trying to find Silva and get another
chance. Only this time it wasn’t the APM standing between them. It was just the
distances their jobs took them. He stopped and pretended to look at an ad for
the raunchy shows. It was never going to work between them. This was a foolish
mission that would end badly.

He had no idea what to say. He couldn’t walk up to her, say
how badly he wanted her—no, needed her, but that it was never going to work
out. That would just cut them both. The ad didn’t even raise his pulse.

Lost and unsure he walked around the Moon, well aware that
when the dock opened he’d have to leave and get the prisoner onto the APM ship
that was waiting. They didn’t have permission to dock, so they’d sent a shuttle
with one pilot and one cop, much to the crew’s disgust. He tried to imagine the
Moon overrun with APM crew looking for a good time. The mess they’d make
wouldn’t be worth the influx of chits.

Plus they might scare the other pleasure seekers.

He stuck his head into a couple of shows, even watched one
for a few moments. Half-dressed dancers doing moves that left little to the
imagination, only to follow up with amazing feats of strength and aerial
acrobatics. Silva was right. The shows were amazing. But she wasn’t here. He’d
sense her if she was close.

His Silva who longed for the stars and was amazed by the
natural beauty of things, not the manmade. She wanted to see the seven most
dangerous planets on the
Adventure Bird
. The most dangerous planet she
could see from the Moon was the ice planet. In that moment he knew where she
would be if she wasn’t in the pilots’ bar.

He made his way quickly to the viewing deck where people
could watch the ships, the ice planet and the stars beyond. Most people who
came here wouldn’t care about any of those things, but she would.

There was one person gazing out the window.

She was dressed in a figure-hugging pantsuit and not in the
red uniform he’d first seen her in, but he knew it was her. The brown hair he’d
braided hung down her back to her ass. Her bag was at her feet and her
attention was fixed on the planet out the window.

He watched her for a moment, willing her to turn around so
he didn’t have to make the first move. But she didn’t give any sign that she
was aware he was there. He paused a moment to watch her and wonder what she was
thinking. Was she thinking of him?

Filid took a couple of heavy steps forward so she’d hear his
approach. “Silva.”

She jerked and turned around. Her eyebrows lifted and shock
rippled off her. He’d hoped she’d run into his arms, but her expression became
a frown and she kept her back to the window.

Did she not want him to find her and talk about it? Too late
now. At least it would be settled once and for all. That had to be better than
leaving the wound open. “I needed to see you again. I can’t leave things the
way they are.”

Silva’s breath caught. She’d wanted to hear him say that for
so long, but she couldn’t admit that. Her pride wouldn’t allow it.

“I thought you didn’t recognize me.” She tilted her chin and
tried to sound as though she didn’t care, even though she knew he’d know it was
a lie.

“Of course I did. I wasn’t sure you recognized me, and then
the moment sort of slipped past.” He glanced down as if there was something on
his boots.

“You mean when we were having drinks or when you were making
me scream?” But she was as much at fault as him. She’d said nothing because she
was too afraid. He’d been afraid too and yet, here he was determined to try to
make amends. There was simply too much too apologize for—on both sides.

“You didn’t scream. It was more panting and moaning.” He
looked up and smiled as though it was funny and he could take away all the hurt
by making her laugh.

It wasn’t that easy though and she refused to fall and hurt
herself on him again. No, matter how much she wanted him, she could never have
him. Not truly. “You know what I mean.”

He placed his hands behind his back, at ease but still aware
he was being formally judged. He’d always looked good in that uniform. The dark
blue brought out the shade of his eyes and made his skin seem whiter. She was
sure he knew it too. His tentacles slid over his shoulders, seeking her thoughts.

The memory of where they’d been heated her blood and made
her cheeks burn.

“You didn’t say anything either. It takes two to mess things
up this badly.”

She couldn’t deny that, so she nodded. “I was scared. I
didn’t want to greet you and receive a blank look in return. You don’t know how
much I’ve thought of you. How much I wanted to take back our last farewell.”

His lips turned down as if even the memory hurt. “Farewell
is a polite word for what happened.”

That was true. It had been a brutal argument that had been
the only way they could express all the tension that had been building between
them. “You could’ve had me charged for striking a cop.”

“You didn’t connect, besides then there would have been
questions we didn’t want to answer. I wanted you, not to bring you down.” He
took a step forward.

“Why didn’t you kiss me that day?” His lips had been so
close. She’d wanted him so much. He must have been able to sense that… Had that
only made it harder for him to resist, knowing the desire was mutual?

“I was trying to do the right thing. It’s why I never
contacted you. Then I heard you’d left the APM but I couldn’t find you.”

That was more than she’d done. She hadn’t tried. The heat
and need in those last few moments had excited her and scared her. But it
hadn’t stopped her from craving him. He was everything she’d ever dreamed, and
yet they couldn’t be together. “So now it’s goodbye again.”

Why had he owned up to remembering her now? She could’ve
moved past him and lived with the knowledge that he didn’t remember her the way
she remembered him. Now she had to live with the knowledge that he still wanted
her and they were destined to never be together.