
CHAPTER 28
The storm woke her. A brilliant flash of light filled the room and then loud, jarring bang that shook the building. Her breath caught and her hear stuttered for a fraction of a second.
The fog of sleep marred her thoughts, the room unfamiliar and strange. Beside her a form shifted at the edge of the bed.
Tor, sitting upright, facing the windows.
Another flash of lightning highlighted the stark musculature of his body. A thing of beauty. How she could have ever thought him less fit than the other Livarians she couldn’t imagine. Laying beneath his sheets, surrounded by his scent, the fog of sleep subduing the caution she knew would return eventually, lust hit her hard. The desire to run her hands....and tongue over the plains of his exposed skin was nearly overwhelming. The electric energy of the storm creating an almost sexual anticipation into the very air.
“Tor?” her voice emerged, husky and tentative.
He turned a little, a flinch almost, something in his hands crumpling softly. She didn’t have to see what it was, or decipher the pensive expression the next flash of lightning highlighted to know what he held. The painting.
She had already established that it was stupid to be jealous of a dead woman. Not only that, but hadn’t she, just hours ago, balked at the idea of permanency? Of a husband and family? Because here, on Callaphria that was what sex got you. So why did she feel like someone kicked her in the ribs?
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Tor murmured softly, placing the picture carefully back in the book and setting it to the side, on its table near the bed. “I should have warned you I rarely sleep the night through. It’s part of the reason I live here and not the elite house. My night wanderings set the others on edge.”
“You didn’t wake me,” she whispered, “the storm did.” Her words were punctuated by another crash of thunder.
For a long moment there was silence and she realized that despite the time they’d spent together, the two of them were still virtually strangers. Thrown together by circumstance and tragedy, and the determination of these Livarian men to survive. The truth was, they both had baggage.
“Tell me about her,” she offered at last. Despite the darkness of the room she could feel his wary gaze. “I saw her picture when I got the light tool, while you were fixing the leak in the bathroom,” she explained.
There was a soft snort from Tor’s general vicinity and then the bed shifted and she could feel him move closer.
“Her name was Inithia,” his voice came from above her, he was sitting next to her, back braced against the headboard. “She was brilliant and ambitious...a bit of a force to be reckoned with.”
There was a soft affection in his tone that was killing her, but she continued anyway. “Was she a doctor too?”
“A medic? No, she served by developing mechanical technology for space flight.” Great. Her competition, if she even wanted it, was some brilliant engineer. She would never measure up to that. “We met through our parents, as was traditional for our people. I was...not what she expected.”
It was Cassidy’s turn to snort.
“I was nearly peaked in my career, and I knew I was to be assigned to a highly secretive mission shortly, so I did not pursue Inithia, as my parents had hoped, much to their mutual dismay.”
“Yet you have her painting, so I’m assuming matters worked out eventually?”
“Yes, well on top of being brilliant and ambitious, Inithia was tenacious. Once she got an idea in her head she pursued it with determination. When she got tired of waiting for me to initiate courtship she dove into the task. Suddenly she was everywhere, and there was no way to avoid her, the entire reason that others stayed away from me seemed to be what drew her interest farther,” his voice grew slightly louder, as if he turned her direction, “much like someone else of late.”
Cassidy frowned. What was he doing? She wanted to dislike this woman, not be compared to her. Yet despite her initial feelings she found herself a little sad. Inithia, honestly, sounded great. How terrible was it that she was gone and Cassidy was there right now?
“She was one of the first to pass,” Tor told her. She might have expected more emotion, a hitch in the voice or something, but, she remembered, as new as this information was to her, the woman’s death was more than a decade ago.
“I’m sorry,” she told him between another batch of thunder.
“For what?”
“For snooping. For making you talk about it now, for your loss.”
“There is nothing to apologize for, Cass. If I didn’t want to talk about it I wouldn’t have.” He took a deep breath and released it. “I haven’t for over ten years.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was,” he confirmed, but something had changed in his voice, a new note entered it, tender...tentative. “You have no idea what you’ve done to me, do you?”
Cassidy swallowed. The storm, his scent, laying in bed together...it was all intimate, but his words turned the tone of their conversation and she knew, if she allowed it, this night would change everything. So she did what any reasonable girl would do in that situation. She panicked.
“I don’t want kids,” she blurted. The declaration was met by silence, so she pressed on. “My family was poor. Really, really poor, both my parents had to work constantly, and even then there wasn’t really enough money for the family. So I was the one that did everything for my siblings, I fed them and dressed them, sorted out their fights, looked after their injuries, helped them with homework, you name it and I’ve done it. I’m done, Tor. I don’t ever want to raise kids, I already did my time. I don’t even know if I want to get married, I don’t think I can handle being responsible for anyone else again.”
There. It was out in the open now. His baggage and hers. The question was, where did they go from here?
I’m so sad. She panicked and basically slapped him with her words. Waiting to see how he handles her baggage.
Where they come go from here…can’t wait for next week!