Smiling with girlish abandon, she was glad she’d had to take a quick shower toward the end of the dinner prep. Scott had stumbled and spilled pasta sauce all over her. “Oh, Kaia”—she shook her head with a soft laugh—“that was your security chief’s doing.” She wondered what he’d said to Scott to get the boy to agree to act the klutz in front of his crush—and how he’d known she’d feel foolish putting on this beautiful dress after getting all sweaty in the kitchen.

“Because he listens, he watches, he cares.”

And he was so, so dangerous to her. But Kaia didn’t have it in her to turn away from a gift this sweet, this wonderful. Even if the future was a burn at the back of her eyes and the past a heavy weight on her shoulders, her worry thick with guilt.

She still couldn’t step away. This moment would never come again.

Reaching back, she tugged down the zipper of her knee-length dress with its skirt just full enough to allow her to move with freedom and the fabric light and floral. It fell to the floor in airy grace. Now clothed in lace panties and a matching bra, she picked up her dress to hang it on the clothes stand, then went to the table.

The first thing she did was remove the beaded wooden bracelet from around her wrist. Pain speared her as she put it gently aside, but she thought Hugo with his laughing eyes and outgoing ways wouldn’t begrudge her this—not if he knew Bowen as she knew him. Her friend was not a man who held grudges.

After inhaling a long, shaky breath, Kaia gently rubbed in her face cream, then stroked the tiare-scented lotion over her body. The bottle of foundation was the next thing she picked up. She took her time doing her makeup and brushing her hair until it shone. A man should wait for his lover. Bowen would wait for her.

The bra had to come off at the end—the dress didn’t allow for it.

Skin soft from the moisturizing lotion, she pulled on the dress. It moved over her body like a lover’s hands, hugging her curves and flowing in a fall as liquid as water.

That was when she realized: “No shoes.” Laughing as the being inside her twisted in an exhilarated dive, she wondered what else the security chief had noticed.

The last thing she did was tuck the tiare flower behind her ear.

Ready, she opened the door and walked out barefoot.

The man who leaned on the wall on the other side was wearing an old-fashioned tuxedo, his hair neatly combed and his face lean. “Where did you get this?” She ran her hand covetously over his lapel, sensing the tensile strength of him.

“Dex borrowed it from another clanmate.” He stood still as she stroked the smooth line of his jaw, then buried her nose in his throat and took a deep breath.

“I like the smell of you, Bowen Knight.”

He shivered and raised his fingers to the tiare flower. “You’re wearing it behind your left ear.”

Kaia’s lips curved. “I am.”

His own smile was young and possessive and a little smug. Oh, he noticed everything, this man—even the silent language of flowers spoken by those on Ryūjin.

“Come on, Siren,” he said with a touch of the flower that told the world she was taken. “I have plans for you.”

Refusing to acknowledge the dark shadows that awaited in the corners on wings of night, Kaia took his elbow and he escorted her to the door of the old warehouse.

She thought she was ready, but she wasn’t. “Bowen.” Releasing his arm, she walked into a dream. She’d forgotten this warehouse was right at the top of the habitat and had a seaward wall above. The warehouse was currently unused because the station team was discussing how to turn it into living quarters.

Streamers of white fabric fell from the support beams below the seaward sky to pool on the floor. Those gauzy curtains were held back by ropes of tiny lights that glittered like stars under the simulated moonlight, turning this room into a cocooned piece of the night sky.

More rose petals covered the floor, and in the center of the splendor was a Persian rug in hues of midnight blue and gold. On that rug stood a table covered with a tablecloth as white as snow, and two upholstered chairs in white with black swirls. More streamers of twinkling golden lights ran across the tablecloth.

The only other thing on there was a metal bucket of ice that held a bottle of champagne.

Bowen’s hand on her lower back, his mouth kissing the curve of her throat. “No tears,” he whispered, kissing away the hot wet that rolled down her cheeks. “No sadness tonight.”

He was breaking her heart with the gentleness with which he kissed her tears into his own mouth. “I know life can’t stop,” she found herself whispering, “but it feels wrong to experience any kind of joy while Hugo and the others are out there, lost and hurt.”

“I get it, Siren.” Bowen’s cheekbones sliced into his skin. “I carry the same guilt inside me every single day.” Hard words, a tender touch. “The chip protects my thoughts, but there are millions of humans who can’t say the same. They wake up knowing that today might be the day an invisible hand reaches in and rapes their mind.”

Her gut lurched at the idea of it. “I’m sorry.” She couldn’t imagine being so without moral boundaries that she’d violate another’s mind. Her parents hadn’t had to teach her that; she’d known right from wrong even as a small girl. Other people’s minds were private places unless they invited you in.

“You have no reason to be sorry.” He rubbed his thumbs gently over her cheeks to capture the final remnants of her tears. “Take this night with me, Kaia. Live this dream.”

Unspoken was the bleak reality hanging over his head.

She held on to the passionate life of his eyes. “No tears tonight.” It was a pact that shut out the world: the chip in his head, the compound, the inevitable end of this dance, the accusations against the Alliance, Hugo, the other vanished . . . all of it.

Tonight was their impossible dream.

Chapter 38

Love is a razored blade of glass.

Gleaming facets more brilliant than rubies and emeralds.

A jewel among jewels.

—Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)

“POUR ME CHAMPAGNE,” she whispered, then took a kiss, her hand on the warm skin at the back of his neck, his overlong hair soft on her fingers.

His own hand on the curve of her hip, he let her lead. When she pushed playfully at his chest in an echo of their morning encounter, he smiled and walked to the champagne bucket. He’d had flutes tucked in there, pulled them out to place them on the table before he popped the champagne.

The liquid he poured out was a cool gold, the foam a delicate white.

Picking up a flute, he held it out. “For my lady.”

Laughing, she took it, clinked it against his with a clear bell-like sound that was a delight to her senses. It bounced around the room, brought the shape of that room to her. “To us.”

“To us.”

Their second kiss tasted of the crisp bite of champagne.

Music filled the air in the aftermath, soft and romantic. She nuzzled his nose. “Magic?”

“Or a remote in my pocket.” He put the flat black rectangle on the table, did the same with his champagne, and held out a hand. “Dance with me?”

Setting aside her flute, she placed her hand in his and they danced under the moonlight and the starlight.

No one swam above them and she knew he’d somehow arranged that, too. Tonight, they existed in a cocoon, in each other’s arms, in each other’s eyes.

It felt dreamy and wonderful and a gift.

They danced, they drank champagne, they whispered silly things that lovers say. Later, her security chief asked her to wait a moment, then, as she watched, he whisked the bucket to the floor before pulling out the chairs. Taking the ropes of lights off the table, he placed them behind the chairs.

As if the stars had fallen to earth to create a carpet just for them.

When he lifted his hand again, she took it, allowed him to seat her. Smiling, she sipped champagne as he ducked behind a curtain. Of course she’d made pasta today. But even the prosaic simplicity of the meal wouldn’t change the romance of this night—Bowen had worked so hard to pull it all together.

He entered pushing a cart that held several covered dishes. “Don’t judge me too harshly,” he said before pulling off the lid on the first plate.

Her hands flew to her mouth. “Crepes? How did you know I love crepes?” Savory like these, sweet, experimental flavors, all kinds.

“I have sources.” He slid the plate in front of her with a lopsided grin. “But I’m not the best cook.”

Kaia’s heart melted into a puddle. “You cooked?” There were small kitchens in all the other main residential habitats, for use by those clanmates who felt like cooking for themselves, but she’d never imagined that Bowen Knight, security chief and weapons specialist, would do that for her.

“Cooking is how you show care, affection, love,” he murmured as he took his seat. “I want to speak your language.”

He’d told her no tears tonight, but he was going to make her cry if he kept this up.

She ate every bite, and with pleasure. He’d created more than one course, even included dessert. It was strawberry ice cream.

“I ran out of cooking mojo.”

Laughing and giddy as a schoolgirl with her first love, she lifted a spoonful of ice cream to his lips. He fed her in turn and it was silly and young and wonderful. She saw no tension in his face, no weight on his shoulders.

If she could, she would’ve lived this night forever, but time kept moving on.

The station was quiet when they snuck through like teenagers out too late. Once inside her room, they kissed slow and deep, undressed each other as slowly, stroked and touched with endless patience, found pleasure in every fragment of a moment.

But dawn, it still came, and the clock, it continued its inexorable countdown.

Chapter 39

Genetics is a game with an infinite number of possibilities. Every so often, the rarest of those possibilities combine in a single individual.