When he wasn’t bathing me or coaxing me to drink the nasty nutritional gel liquid, Sir was holding me close to his big body, to try and share his own body heat with me. We spent a long time together in bed under his big silver bedspread with me cuddled close to his broad chest, soaking in his warmth and breathing in his masculine, spicy scent. He murmured to me and rubbed my back, telling me he would never let me go—that soon I would be feeling well again.
I hadn’t been taken care of like this since I was little and had the flu and my mom was so worried she slept on a pallet beside my bed and checked my temperature every hour. Sir treated me so gently and there was such tenderness in his deep voice when he spoke my name but I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to pay for my unauthorized trip. The consequences were coming and the thought of that made me uneasy.
At last, on the third or fourth day after we left O’nagga Nine, I woke up feeling significantly better. I yawned and stretched and reached down to stroke Sir’scandalla,which was curled protectively around my leg.
“Good morning,” I told it. “If itismorning.”
“Close enough.” It was Sir’s deep, rumbling voice that answered me, though his tail twitched appreciatively when I stroked it.
“Oh, you’re up?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“As you see. Lights low,” he added and the blue gloom of his bedroom was replaced with a soft, golden glow. Sir propped himself on one elbow and regarded me seriously. “How are you feeling, little one?” he asked.
“Much better, I think,” I said cautiously. “My muscles don’t ache anymore and I don’t feel cold either. See? No goosebumps.”
I held out my arm to show him.
“Hmmm.” Sir stroked my arm with his big, warm hand, sending shivers down my spine. As much as he had touched me in the past three or four days, none of those touches had been sexual. And now that I was feeling better, I found that my libido was waking up again too.
But it was my stomach that actually spoke up about how much better I was feeling. It growled angrily, making a gurgling noise that made me gasp and put a hand to my midsection in embarrassment.
Sir smiled at me.
“It seems to me that someone’s hungry.”
“Yes, I am—I’mstarving,”I said, which was true.
Sir frowned.
“You’re definitely looking malnourished—you have hardly any curves left, little one. I think we’d better get you some nutritional gel cubes.”
“Oh please, not thoseagain,”I begged. “I don’t think I can take anymore of them—not after having to eat them as that thick, slimy soup for the past three days!”
Sir shook his head.
“I’m sorry, little one. What would you like?”
“My mom always made me pancakes when I was little—I mean, after I was getting over some kind of sickness,” I said wistfully. “With chocolate chips in them.”
Thinking of the wonderful, fluffy, chocolate studded confections made me feel suddenly so homesick that I could feel my eyes stinging with tears. My mom hadn’t made them for me often—they were “junk food” and she didn’t want Taylor and me to get too “plump” as she so tactfully put it. But after an illness, she would break down and make them for me to celebrate when I was finally feeling better.
Making pancakes in the kitchen with my mom was one of my most cherished childhood memories and right then I missed her so much I couldn’t stop the tears from coming into my eyes.
“Oh, little one—please don’t cry.” Sir sounded concerned. “Or if you must, come here and let me hold you while you do.”
I sniffed and swiped at my eyes.
“No, it’s okay. I was just thinking of my mom’s chocolate chip pancakes. They were so good and I…I miss her and my sister, Taylor somuchsometimes.”
“I know you do.” Sir gathered me into his arms and I felt myself melting against him. “I know that I took you away from your family and everyone and everything you love,” he murmured. “I wish I could at least give you the foods you enjoy to help you feel less longing for your home.”
I began to have an idea.
“Maybe you could,” I said tentatively.“Ifyou’d let me justtryto use the Matter Synthesizer myself. Just hear me out,” I added quickly, before Sir could protest. “I think I can do it. I can read and speak and write your language—all three forms of it. And also, your ship responds to me! I sent it thought messages and asked it to let me in that night on O’nagga Nine and itopened upfor me! So if the ship listens to me, why wouldn’t the Matter Synthesizer listen too?”
I was prepared for Sir to shoot me down and at first his face looked like a thundercloud…but then his expression changed to one of thoughtfulness.
“We haven’t yet discussed that night, you know,” he said at last. “And there will have to be a reckoning for what you did and the way you disobeyed, little one.”