Kitt held Honey carefully as he tasted the sweetness of her lips. She trembled with desire and his own human body responded in a wave of sympathy.

So this was the agony of sexual desire.

He had known somehow that his own fumblings in the lab could not be the stuff of Shakespeare and Nabokov. That business had been nothing but the pleasant scratching of an itch.

But this… this moment had nothing to do with his own wanting.

It had everything to do with Honey. Honey, soft and needy in his arms. Honey’s lips, so smooth against his, her small hands wrapped around his neck, her body swaying in his thrall.

He wanted to touch and taste every part of her at once.

Honey whimpered against his mouth.

He opened the kiss, tasting her clever tongue.

She tightened her hands on his shoulders and pinned her body closer to his.

Kitt shivered at the contact with her soft warmth. His body was so ready to claim hers.

He slid his hands around to cup her posterior and lift her up off the ground.

She wrapped her legs around him instantly, locking her heels behind his back and grinding her soft warmth against his rigid length.

Kitt let his head fall backward, clenching his jaw against the incredible pleasure.

Honey slowly placed a blazing trail of teasing kisses down his neck, adding fuel to the fire.

A loud crash shattered the intimacy of the moment.

Instinctively, he ran with Honey to the corner of the room, shielding her body from the screened front of the cabin with his own.

He held her there for a few thundering heartbeats, studying the area for signs of an intruder.

“Wh-what was that?” Honey’s voice was small and frightened.

“I don’t know,” he told her.

He held her there in the darkness long enough to calculate the jump speeds for three planetary drop runs, then whispered in her ear. “Honey, wait here. I’m going to check it out.”

She released him and only then did he realize how hard she had been holding him. She was frightened.

He took a few steps into the cabin, then allowed time to slow enough to give him a head start on any danger.

He did not wish to use the electric light, but there was enough moonlight to allow him to see most of the room.

They were still alone inside. But the door hung askew on its hinges, its screen torn loose.

And something was sitting in the center of the carpet. It must have been thrown inside. The crash would have been the sound it made breaking the screen door on entry.

Kitt approached cautiously.

It was an irregular shape so it could not be a bomb. He knew the Earth was a violent place filled with untempered emotion, but Kitt had never been able to truly fathom how one sentient creature could knowingly hurt another.

He had hoped that all they read of wars and violence would turn out to be fictions, the false tellings these creatures so adored.

But the more he saw of the humans, the more he had grown to believe that they were capable of harming their own kind.

And the more he grew to be a man himself, the more he felt alarmingly capable of harming another man.

Right now, for example, Kitt would have liked very much to find the person responsible for frightening his mate. This thing that had been launched at them, it was a threat.

“It’s a rock,” Honey said, from right beside him.

Kitt nearly jumped out of his shoes.

He brought himself quickly back into her perception of time.

“What are you doing?” He could tell his voice was demanding but he didn’t care.

“The same thing you are,” she replied. “Trying to figure out what made that noise.”

“But you didn’t know what it was,” he protested. “You walked right up to it.”

“So did you,” she observed drily.

Of course, from her point of view, that’s how it must have looked. She didn’t know he had taken his time.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Nikki’s voice cut through the darkness. She sounded worried.

“Someone threw a rock through the door,” Honey said. “It’s okay. No one’s hurt. What are you guys doing here?”

“Jeez, we leave you guys alone for ten minutes and you get attacked,” Nikki replied. “Honey’s car wouldn’t start, so we couldn’t go.”

“Someone threw a rock?” Addy echoed sarcastically.

They all looked at the offending hunk of mineral.

Kitt turned it over.

It was just a rock. There was nothing unusual about it, no note, no string, nothing.

“Fucking Wade Travers is in big trouble,” Addy said, sliding her phone out of her pocket.

“What are you doing?” Honey’s voice was worried.

“I’m calling the police,” Addy said.

“No,” Honey said, snatching the phone out of her friend’s hands. Kitt was impressed with her speed.

“What the hell?” Addy gaped at her.

“Look,” Honey said, “there’s no evidence tying him to this. All we’re going to do is make him angry, right?”

“You mean you’re just going to let him get away with this?” Addy was incredulous. “This is wrong, Honey. This is criminal. He’s obsessed with you and now he’s threatening you. You could have been hurt.”

“I’m not hurt,” Honey said. “I’m scared, but I’m not hurt. But please listen to me.”

Addy sighed, then gestured for her to continue.

“I think we should lie low,” Honey said. “Pretend it never happened. He’ll get over me. But if we escalate this with police he’ll get angrier. And we can’t have people poking around here. It would put the boys at risk.”

“You’re worried about paparazzi?” Addy asked.

“She’s right,” Nikki said. “If we call the police now, it won’t help. We have no proof. But it will cause a huge uproar, and it could blow the boys’ cover. If we pledge to keep someone with Honey at all times, we can wait for this to blow over. Or at least for an opportunity to get some evidence.”

“I don’t care about my cover,” Kitt said.

“This isn’t just about you,” Honey replied. “This is about your brothers, too. And about my friend, Posey, who risked everything to send you here.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Then I will protect you tonight,” he told her earnestly.

“I’ll take morning,” Nikki said immediately.

“Good,” Kitt said. “I can still see Violet before my morning shift.”

Honey got a pinched look on her face.

“You don’t need to stay, Kitt. Go get some rest.”

“It is my pleasure to stay,” he assured her.

“No, no,” she said more forcefully, “I insist. Go get some sleep. We wouldn’t want you to be tired tomorrow morning.”

He carefully analyzed each of her words. None seemed to contain any ingredient that matched the coldness of her tone.

But something was not right.

By the six moons of Thyroos, this place was confusing.

“We’ll be okay, buddy,” Addy told him, slinging an arm around his shoulder like the coach in one of those movies about unlucky baseball players.

She was walking him to the door.

He broke free for a moment and turned to Honey.

“I will see you at the studio tomorrow,” he told her firmly. “You will teach me to dance for the demonstration.”

He left briskly, before she could argue.

But he had already seen the indecision on her face.

Kitt stepped through the broken door and out into the mist. The trees closed in over his head and he walked on.

He wouldn’t go back to his own cabin, of course. He would find a quiet spot nearby in which to sit and contemplate all he had learned today, and keep a keen eye out for anyone who wished to frighten Honey and her friends. He certainly would not leave her exposed to danger with no one but her sleeping companions.

It wasn’t until he found what he was looking for, a large, flat rock, overlooking the lake with its tree-lined island, that he allowed his emotions to flow back into him.

He closed his eyes and experienced the whole night again: the glory of Honey’s dancing, the comfortable happiness of celebrating the evening’s liberty with the other workers, the ethereal beauty of the night lake, the yawning abyss of his naked desire for Honey, the ecstasy of her kiss, the danger of the hurled rock, the righteous urge to protect his mate, the pain of his abrupt dismissal…

At first he hoped that replaying the whole arrangement of emotions might help him understand what he had done wrong at the ending.

But no matter how slowly or quickly he replayed their conversation, he was unable to make heads or tails of his mistake.

And so Kitt sat quietly and enjoyed the sounds of the night birds, secure in the knowledge that Honey was safe, and confident that he would make amends tomorrow.