“Ten seconds to ship separation,” the Cazadora calmly
intoned.
His eyes searching hers for one more, too-short moment,
Pedro turned and walked toward the warp crystal.
His kisses tasted sweet, and pink, like the Plutonian
whiskey. He wanted her. It was so nice to know that
someone wanted you like that. Her hands explored his
nearly naked body as he pulled her onto the bed,
whimpering against her lips. She let him tug her tank top
over her head, why the hell not? She didn’t owe Up
anything. If he’d wanted more than friendship from her he
would have come by now, tonight, when it was their last
chance-
Pedro drew back.
“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?”
Taz went very still, her lips parted, her face hovering
above his.
He pushed her off of him, and got up, picking up his
clothes from the floor.
“I can’t do it, Taz, I can’t – dead goddammit I want to,
but I can’t, not knowing all the while you’re wishing it was
him-”
Struggling to buckle his belt, he wrenched open the door
and left her lying there with a half-empty bottle of whiskey
and the scent of the wrong cologne on her sheets.
Up paused as he heard a door open, and drew back into
a shadowed corner of the corridor. It wouldn’t do for
anyone to see the commander of the ship sneaking into his
lieutenant’s quarters this late, even tonight. He peered
around the corner, and then his entire body went cold.
The door that had opened was Taz’s. Someone emerged,
someone taller and broader than his lieutenant, pulling a