My Angel of the Dawn (WomanxBoy, ManxBoy, Sci-Fi + Romance)

***41***

The flight from Margotta to Cendar took a week, and that whole week Ariel's behavior had been blameless. Nominally. He hadn't tried to invade her space, to put a hand on her knee, to brush his shoulder against hers in passing, nothing that cheap. If he had, she might not have kicked him out after all, but would have given him a bloody good thrashing.

There were times when she had wanted him to cross the line. Because she could have done something too, slapped him or lashed out at him. But all he did was look at her with undisguised desire, and his gaze burned her. She would say nervously, "Stop looking at me like that!" He would answer innocuously, "Why, does it turn you on?" And she would feel like a bloody idiot.

Also Ariel was guilty of smiling in a manner that made Nelsa's heart skip a beat, and her fingers skip a key on the keyboard. Sometimes she would realize that her own eyes had been fixed on a single curl of his hair, on his lush mouth, on the way his t-shirt was stretching over his shoulders or his taut stomach. In other words, his presence was distracting her silly whatever she was doing.

The climax, no pun intended, was reached when Ariel gave her the usual cup of coffee without a tray, and their fingers brushed. Naturally, Nelsa flinched and dropped the cup, spilling the coffee all over the place. She reprimanded him harshly and ordered to 'wipe that mess at once, damn it to seven hells.' Which only made things worse, because he brought a rug, kneeled by her chair and started to wipe the floor half-heartedly, paying more attention to her than the mess on the floor. His smile was lazy, his eyes gleamed with mischief, his face so close to her knee that even a rough fabric of her cargo pants seemed no adequate barrier. She could almost feel his hot breath, and it sent equally hot shivers down her spine.

It had become unbearable.

As a last resort Nelsa had worked up enough courage (fortified by a few drinks) to tell him her story. She had meant to scare him off, but when could a story like that scare off a young man in love?

Her reasoning seemed flawless: let Ariel be horrified, let him pity her. Nothing better than pity to dampen arousal. At least for men. That was what Nelsa's vast experience had taught her. But she made a mistake somewhere along the way. Probably she should have focused on angst and drama, add self-pity, sadness, pain, desperation. But Nelsa couldn't shed her fierce love of life, her pride and courage, and her story didn't sound so grim and horrifying after all. Self-pity was simply impossible to feel while telling about things she had been proud of — her pilot license, her smuggling career, her revenge.