I’m a pilot, not an engineer. I know my way around a cockpit but I only had basic training on this space ship before we were basically thrust into space. Natalie is the ship’s engineer but she was injured when we crashed so she was taken to the city with the rest of my team. Now I’m sitting on the floor with the actual user’s manual in my lap, trying to figure out why the hell this beast won’t start.

On top of my frustration with not being able to figure out how to fix the ship, I can’t stop thinking about how damn guilty I felt when I woke up this morning.

I should be happy.

I’ve never met a guy who makes me want to shed all of my inhibitions and jump into bed like Lodyn does. But I shouldn’t have let things get so intimate last night. My stay on this planet is temporary and being with me means a death sentence for Lodyn.

The guilt washes over me. I shouldn’t be playing this game. A lasting relationship isn’t a possibility with us and I have an important job to do.

So of course I made things awkward. I woke up and ran out of there, claiming I had a lot of work to do today. Really I just needed to get away from him before I jumped his bones again. Oh man, he looks at me with the bluest of eyes, the window to his soul. I see myself there and it’s too much for me to walk away from.

So I didn’t walk, I ran.

And now instead of focusing on my job, I’m daydreaming about how his eyes devour every inch of me. There’s a constant heat that radiates off of him when he’s around me. And then there’s his cock. I’m daydreaming about how hard he felt pressed up against my back when I woke up.

“Focus, for fuck’s sake, Margo,” I say to myself. I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the second panel full of wires, switches, and black boxes that look really important. The first section of the panel only required replacing a few wires and reconnecting some of the fuses that shorted out. I crossed my fingers that the same would work on this side, but no such luck.

Hence the user’s manual.

And I know how important it is that I figure this out quickly and get us the hell out of here. If I could live the rest of my life never seeing a Salthu again, I’d die a happy woman. They were monsters straight out of my worst nightmare. Now the warriors are keeping watch while I try to figure this out on my own.

My mind is full, worrying about so many things that I don’t hear anyone come on the bridge. My blood warms as it moves through my body, my pulse quickens. My initial thought is that my anxiety is about to give me a panic attack. Until I hear a voice behind me.

“Making progress?” Lodyn asks.

I jump a foot, my hands covering my chest. “Shit, Lodyn! You scared me.” I turn around and attempt to glare at him. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

“I didn’t sneak. You are preoccupied,” he says.

Taking a deep breath, I try to focus on the manual in my lap but everything just looks like gibberish. His eyes are watching me and it makes me squirm. The smoldering heat coming from that look tells me everything I need to know about what he has on his mind.

“What’s up, Lodyn?” I ask, looking away again so I can think straight.

“What’s up?” he asks. When I turn around he has a confused look on his face and he’s literally looking up at the ceiling. I forget that slang isn’t something that easily translates from language to language.

“It means, what do you need? Or, what can I help you with?” I say, attempting to clarify. It’s killing me how cute he looks with such a confused expression on his face.

“Oh.” His face lights up with understanding as he shifts in his seat. “I wanted to see you.” He says it with such simplicity it makes me wonder if I’m overthinking everything. “You are avoiding me today.” His voice is a quiet rumble that makes my insides tingle with delight. I’m not sure what to say to his astute observation, though.

After a moment of thought I hold up the user’s manual sitting in my lap. “Trying to figure out how to get us out of here.” That’s all of the honesty that I can muster right now. I’d like to confess that he’s confusing me because of how he makes me feel.

“You’ll figure it out. And if not right now, there are engineers in the city that can help you get the ship up and running again.”

“I don’t want you to have to fight again.” His eyes bore into mine and my heart starts beating so fast. I quickly amend what I was saying. “I mean, I don’t want any of you to have to fight again. It was never part of the plan, you know?” It’s a good thing he’s still sitting a distance away from me or I’d have an even harder time stopping myself from reaching out to him.

“It is our job to fight. You don’t have to feel guilty because we are doing what we are suppose to do for you.”

“Defending our crashed ship wasn’t part of the plan.” I can’t seem to let that guilt go.

“Defending you always was. There are a lot of things that could kill you on this planet and it is our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He studies me so closely it’s hard to hide anything from him. He knows exactly how I’m feeling even when I’m trying my best to hide it from him.

“That’s just it, isn’t it? Fighting is your job. This is my job,” I say, holding up the stupid manual again. “And nowhere in our job descriptions is this…” I motion back and forth between us with my finger so he can get my point, “supposed to happen.”

“You are upset with me?”

“No, I’m not upset with you. Just the situation. And I need to figure out how to fix the ship but I can’t concentrate when you’re around.”

“You’d like me to leave?” He leans forward on his knees, an electric current passing through the air between us as he devours me with his eyes.

“See? That look…how do you expect me to concentrate when you look at me like that?”

A mischievous smile plays at his lips but he hides it behind his hand. “I can’t help it. You make me feel so many things. But I will go if you need to concentrate.”

My confession makes him proud, I can see it on his face. But he’s going to have to leave if I want to make any more progress today.

“Yes, Lodyn. You should go. We need to keep things professional. We’re playing with fire, you and I, aren’t we?”

“I actually have a very high tolerance for heat. It’s the way our bodies are made to easily adapt to this environment.”

“Well good for you. But, that’s not what I meant. It will cause trouble for us if we don’t keep things professional. You’ll especially get in a lot of trouble and I wouldn’t be able to handle feeling any more guilt about things that happen on this trip.”

“Okay. I will go keep watch with the others so you can work. I don’t know that I’ll be able to agree to keep things professional, though. I like how I feel with you too much. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”

A shy smile spreads over my face and his confession makes me feel tingly and warm inside. I can relate to what he’s feeling all too well. Being with him is like nothing I’ve ever felt before either.

He smiles and leaves the room. Like always when he leaves, the loss of him is all around me. I know exactly what he means when he says he likes the way he feels when he’s with me. It’s a surreal feeling of euphoria when we’re together.

Forcing myself to focus on the job at hand, I turn back to the panels. Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I make myself think back to just before we came out of hyperdrive. We came out early and at first I thought something hit us hard. Shortly after feeling that jolt we started to lose the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. Then all of our systems started to shut down and our back up power switched on.

I was focused, my mind closed off to anything else besides landing. But now, figuring out what that initial hit was might help me figure out how it affected the ship in the first place.

Damn it, this is where it would really help to have Mina with me. She’s the team’s scientist and the one person that I go to with any questions I have about anything. She would be able to give me a very scientific explanation on Attala’s atmosphere and anything that we might have encountered that would have negatively impacted a successful landing.

I already know that we came out of hyperdrive into the eye of a fucking storm. The odds of the weather changing as severely as it did are so slim. With the technical equipment that we have we should have been able to see that big of a storm coming.

But we didn’t.

Perhaps it’s an anomaly or maybe it’s something else. Something with the atmosphere that we were unable to predict.

Jumping up from my spot on the floor, I dash out to find Lodyn again. Stopping suddenly just outside the entrance to the bridge, I almost run head first into Lodyn.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, his arms reaching out to steady me.

I grab onto his forearms, immediately distracted again from the way my heart lurches in my chest whenever our skin touches. “Yes, I didn’t expect you to be so close by.”

“Everything is quiet for now. We’re just waiting.”

His hands start to slowly rub up and down my back. That look is back in his eyes and I have to step back out of his touch in order to concentrate again.

“Can I ask you a question?” I ask, smoothing my hair back into my ponytail and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Of course.” He mirrors my body language, crossing his arms over his chest as well. I’m not sure if he’s being playful or trying to be serious, but regardless it makes me smile.

“When we first entered Attala’s atmosphere, it felt like our ship took a big hit from something. Even before we were sucked into the storm. Do you know anything about the atmosphere on Attala? Do you have any idea what we passed through when we came out of hyperdrive?”

Creases accentuate the features on his face. “There are frequent electromagnetic storms that interfere with our technology. Maybe that’s what your ship encountered.”

For the first time in days, I’m excited. This feels like something that could shed light on how to figure out what else I need to do to get the ship back in working order. With the one person on our team that would know the answer to that question back at the city, I’m going to have to use the resources that I have.

“Right after we came out of hyperdrive, all of our systems started to shut down. Almost like a power outage.” Now Lodyn is forced to be my sounding board. “Or a blown fuse. So maybe if I can treat it like a blown fuse, I can find the fried fuses on the power grid and start by replacing those.”

Yes, finally a solid plan. I have a good feeling about this. I smile at Lodyn and then turn around and hurry back to the bridge. Replacing the parts at the source is the best place to start.

“Thank you!” I say, over my shoulder as I move with purpose.

There’s amusement in his husky voice as he says, “I didn’t really do anything.”

But he’s wrong. Without even wanting it, slowly he’s becoming everything to me.