Page 74 of Star Bringer
But when she swings back around to face me, I’ve got nothing. So I just rub a hand over my face and say, “Go to bed, Princess.”
“Already on it.”
I watch as she sways over to the door, banging into every obstacle on the way. My turn to sigh—she’s a problem I don’t need right now. I have to focus on finding Milla. I can’t let anything distract me from that.
“Here, Kali, wait up.” Max springs to his feet, briefly interrupting Rain and Gage’s noisy chorus. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
“What the fuck?” I demand.
He holds an arm out to her. “One of us needs to be chivalrous, and it’s obviously not going to be you.”
“Thank you,” she says, looping her arm through his after untangling herself from a chair.
“I’ll come with you,” Gage says, climbing off the floor as well. He shepherds Rain and Merrick down the corridor toward the cabins, though I notice Merrick takes the bottle with him.
I watch them go, and then I’m alone on the bridge. Exactly as I like it. For a second, I imagine what would happen if I was the one walking Kali to her room instead of Max. Not that I’d let anything serious happen when she’s drunk, but if she wanted to kiss me one more time, I wouldn’t say no. Which is exactly why I didn’t offer to walk her. Neither of us is completely in our right minds tonight.
The only problem is, I’m not sure I’ve been in my right mind since I saw her. It sure as shit doesn’t feel like it.
One more reason it’s for the best that I didn’t walk her to her room.
Fuck it. I’m not going to think about this—about her—anymore. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing good is going to come of getting too close to a woman who comes with a death penalty attached.
Chapter 27
Ian
I wake up sprawled on the floor several hours later with a crick in my neck and a raging hard-on.
Which makes me think of the princess. And that kiss. Or kisses, as she reminded me last night. Neither of which is ever going to be repeated.
She’d be way too much trouble. Fuck—truth be told, she already is.
Not to mention there might be some tough decisions to make in the not-too-distant future, and I don’t want my judgment clouded by sex. Which means hands—and everything else—off the princess.
So, it looks like it’s just me and my hand. Again.
I ignore the disappointment niggling at the back of my mind as I push myself up. My mouth tastes revolting, but then, too much cheap gerjgin has a way of doing that to a person. It was worth it, though, just to see the princess all pink-cheeked and loose-lipped. Especially in that silver outfit I bought her.
Talk about hot.
But thinking about that—about her—isn’t going to make my problem any better, so I shove her out of my mind and prepare to start the day.
“You’re awake,” a voice says from above me. I squint up at whoever it is. Shit, who made that light so fucking bright?
“I thought you were dead,” the voice adds. “So I kicked you—sorry—but I wanted to be sure.”
My scrambled brain finally puts the voice with the image my aching eyes are seeing in the pilot’s chair. Beckett. Because going a round with her is exactly what I want to do when I’m too hungover to hold my own.
“No worries. Never felt a thing,” I tell her in an effort to keep things amicable. “Did you want me for something?”
“Not moving,” she answers.
I realize she’s right. The shipisstationary. What the fuck?
I push to my feet and stumble over to the captain’s chair. “Do we know why?”
She points to the screen to her left. A woman of few words, Beckett is.
