Esayr stepped into the hallway ahead of me. I found my attention lingering on him; on the lines of his legs, the sharp edge of his jaw, or --more often than not-- the graceful arc of those fingers that had been buried effortlessly deep inside me.

"You're not listening to a single word I'm saying, are you?"

He'd caught me, but the way the muscles in his hands flexed for a moment beneath my gaze made me think he didn't actually mind. I wonder if they remembered the feel of me in the same way I remembered the feel of them.

Esayr must have noticed my continued inattention --or attention depending on what we were referring to-- "I was saying if you still wanted to go see our friends--" he paused letting the insinuation linger as long as it took him to leisurely glance down my body, "--our best bet would likely be to find Kayle down at one of the media halls that he helps run."

The singular male that could read the dirty thoughts in my head.

When I finally gathered my stray thoughts I was nearly breathless, "I thought you'd mentioned Kados or Addric as options before?"

The corner of his mouth ticked up quickly, "We could. I'm certain Kados would be more than happy to oblige us--" that pause was a different sort of pause that I couldn't decipher "--though as always he'd likely try to keep us longer than we intended to stay."

I didn't think my raw emotions could handle Kados' shrewd gaze. The very same that had in some way I was certain had sussed out the fact that we'd been kissing in that garden that time. No doubt something would tip him off this time too. What it was I still hadn't figured out. "What about Addric?" Him I could handle with his easy quiet presence so at odds with that of his brother.

"Addric would humor us, but it's hard to hold a conversation with him when he's waist-deep in the mechanical underbelly of a cruiser. Though, if the mechanical job would interest you we'd both be more than happy to show it to you."

Addric is out then. I don't want to bother him while he's busy, especially if it could end up with him getting hurt. "What about Laene?"

"Laene, I believe, is in a meeting, though I might be misremembering the date of it. We could check, however. As a member of his Riniere, we have access to view his schedules."

"That seems excessive."

Esayr only shrugged at my comment, suggesting a normalcy to the openness of their culture.

"What kind of meeting is he in, anyway?"

"I'd imagine it's one discussing options to mitigate unrest and restless anxiety of some of the males on board the ship," at my confused look Esayr continued, "I've mentioned it before but this Temani Bercari has been unprecedented. They each have had their struggles certainly, but to have gone this long with so few matches to show for it is unheard of. That knowledge has trickled down to the mass of males on this ship and we've become...restless."

"Like Bask?" I felt the cool metal of the wall seep through the thin fabric of the shirt I'd changed into.

Esayr nodded, "Yes, like Bask. There have been discussions on how to remedy the issue. Currently, from what Laene has disclosed, the idea with the most traction is to offer the option to reinstate the professional nature of our Riniere's for those interested."

"What does that mean?"

"There are different--" Esayr paused searching for the right words, "--I suppose the best description is 'distinctions' again for our Professions. Val' people have a primary and a secondary profession, though even that is misleading. Both professions are equally important, one simply pertains to inner ship professions and the other is outer ship professions."

I watched as his hand brushed over his mouth in an absent-minded gesture. I had to forcefully yank my concentration back to the words he was saying and not the curve of his lips and how the pull of that movement of his fingers had brought them to my attention.

"It's easier to give an example. Our Riniere serves multiple functions. It's our support group as we navigate large obstacles in our lives, it's a bonding of lifelong friendship and camaraderie, but it's also --in a sense-- a tactical and skilled professional group of colleagues in a sense as well. We each have our separate jobs we engage in while on the ship during periods of breaks or large life milestones --of which we are in one thanks to our ongoing Searching. However, as a whole --or a unit-- we have another professional function as Val' people that once we enter into a new period of stability we would naturally reacclimate to."

"So...what exactly does your Riniere do?"

"Our Riniere focused on intelligence gathering for the most part. Kayle and I handled interrogations when the need arose for any jobs we were on. Kados and Addric mostly handled infiltration as their bond allowed them a little more fluidity with changes in their appearance. Laene was our shield for any mental offense we might encounter. Though, in truth, we rarely ever had to use those jobs. More often than not we handled reconnaissance or even jobs as simple as foreign research on lifeless exoplanets or outlying asteroids."

"Is that standard for most Rinieres?" The idea was fascinating and it reminded me that there were sides to Esayr that I'd never considered. Something fluttered in my stomach at the idea of what else I would learn of this male in front of me.

"Yes and no? In the crassest terms possible we're mercenaries. Men for hire, though we do ally ourselves with the ruling high counsel, which takes a lot of the sting out of your English words. We're choosy about our contracts and their impact in the greater cosmos."

He must have read the confusion in the scrunch of my eyebrows.

"As a whole, our culture and peoples incline themselves towards being the 'good guys', at least as much as we're able." His smile was soft again, pulling his lips up slightly at the corners and crinkling the edges of his eyes. "Our aims are always peace, research, and freedom, though it would be a lie to say that achieving those goals didn't sometimes require more savage inclinations."

My eyes strayed again to the curving lines of the muscles in his arm. This time when it flexed unconsciously I could sneak glimpses of ridged lines of veins, reminding me that as gentle and as soft as he was with me he was a large and powerful male.

Despite that knowledge and the insinuation of a darker past than I would have expected from my quiet male, I felt no inkling of fear or apprehension.

Strength didn't come from anger or aggression or brute force, not in a way that human males seemed to think it did with its posturing and intimidation. Strength was the solace of comfort and the tender handling of those bits and pieces of us that were fragile, and that was done with an outstretched hand whether it was the size of his or mine, it didn't matter.

The warmth of his fingers at the back of my neck combined with the pressure as he gently maneuvered my face so I was looking up at him only strengthened those flutterings of comfort and warmth, inclining me to lean into the gesture.

"I should have asked you before. Are you all right?" Esayr searched my face, trying to read any emotion I might show on it since he couldn't feel them through that bond between us. "Does anything hurt?" His finger swiped along the line of my jaw and just below my ear in that little hollow near where my pulse thundered.

"I'm fine," my mouth was nearly dry, so at odds with other parts of me.

"Are you sure?" his eyes flicked back to the door to our room, reminding me that we'd barely made it anywhere for all the talking we'd been doing.

So much for going to see our friends.

"The last time something like this happened," Esayr paused only to continue a moment later, "there was a miscommunication afterward."

This large male was always so ready to be vulnerable with me; always so ready to be open and honest. I slid my fingers along the top of his hand that rested along my neck and tugged it up until it cupped my cheek. I let him have that affection and intimacy that I knew he wanted. And I admitted to myself that I wanted it too even if it terrified me.

"I'm wonderful, Esayr. Nothing hurts...physically or otherwise."

I could see his pulse along the column of his throat, the fact that it fluttered just as fast as mine comforted me. His nod was a polite jerk of his chin. He started to pull away from me but I tightened my grip on him.

"I'm giving you permission." The words were out in a rush and the rest were about to spill out just as fast. I watched the crinkle of confusion along his forehead and the slight way that he canted his head to the side, "I told you I'm not running and I mean it. I told you to be my friend and you accepted that, but I'm telling you now that I'm giving you permission to seduce me. To pursue me. To come after me. I won't run away from you."

The silence stretched between us and I could feel the heat from my blush under his hand as he stared at me with only a mild amount of shock showing on his face. Then, with agonizing slowness the corners of his mouth turned up, revealing those dimples that I knew would be my favorite despite only becoming so recently aware of them.

He stepped forward until nothing separated us at all and the pressure of him pressed me back into the cool wall of the hallway. His chuckle was warm against the other side of my neck, "I'll consider it a pleasure spending the rest of my life coming after you."

My mind blanked as soon as his hand slipped back down to my neck, keeping me still as he trailed those heated, biting kisses along the line of my jaw. "I'm not saying you'll fuck me tonight." Those words were just as rushed as the others.

His laugh was loud. It echoed down the metal hallway around us and I was grateful we were the first mated couple here, lest we end up rousing someone who would play audience to our lewd little display; me pressed up against a wall covered by a very large and very hard body. "Of course not," his voice was warm and teasing, "you won the right to the couch tonight after all, though I would say you should probably amend that statement to 'you won't have me on your cock tonight.'"

The gasp I sucked in sounded just a little too much like a whimper and it startled me.

His thumb ran along the edge of my bottom lip, pulling my mouth open just a little further than it already was, "That is of course if we're going for complete honesty, seeing as I did just fuck you with my fingers, not more than an hour ago."

I'd never seen Esayr's eyes look so dark, his pupils having devoured the coloring so completely as he looked at me, trying to drink me in.

This was another facet of a male that was entirely mine and no one else's. This was a male that could make me burn in a way that I'd never known and could scarcely wait to understand. He wouldn't fuck me tonight, but I decided then and there that it would be soon.

Esayr's whispered words continued on, barreling through the blushing and the anxious energy that had my hands tightening in his shirt and pulling him closer and closer. "I won't have you on my cock tonight, Addy. But you've given me a gift. I know the slick feel of you on my hand." He pressed his more firmly against me and my body urged me to wrap my legs around him in a way I could only describe as instinctual, "That knowledge alone will keep my hand and cock company tonight while I'm alone in our bed."

My gasp ended in sputtered sounds that were only the beginnings of words I didn't know how to articulate. Finally, when I'd gathered the scattered remains of my thoughts I managed a shaky, "You're going to touch yourself tonight?"

His hand tightened on the side of my neck and he leaned back to look me in the eyes --a near deathblow to any and all self-control I would ever have in the future I imagined-- "If you don't believe me, you could always come and find out".

"Your friends! We're going to see your friends!" I'd let him have me on the floor in this hallway if I didn't separate us, and while I was becoming more and more accustomed to the idea, there were still things that I had to deal with before we let that happen. Namely, I'd need to be a still seemingly unbiased participant in this conversation with Cecelia tomorrow. Likewise, I would prefer to discuss the topic with my friends before I theoretically got married...and not after I'd effectively run off to Vegas after a week of flirting and an emotional rollercoaster.

Esayr watched me for a moment longer before that lethal deadly sexy side of him cooled from a boil down to a constant simmer. He offered me one of his soft smiles that still undid me, but in a more manageable way. He placed as chaste of a kiss as one could against the juncture of my neck and shoulder while his thumb caressed my cheek again. He didn't move his face away as quickly as I anticipated, instead, he sucked in what I imagined to be a steadying breath, the likes of which I certainly needed as well before murmuring, "We'll go to Kayle...anyone but Kados, or we'll never hear the end of it."

*****A/N*****

It's been a minute since my last update. I've had a lot of this actually written up, but hadn't finished the last bit of it until now. This ended up being longer than I anticipated and a lot more exposition and world-building heavy as well. I realized I never really went too far into depth about what the Val'Dornn like did...other than desperately want to bed their soulmates that is I suppose lmao.

It's something I'll have to address when I eventually rip this story apart and edit it. Which is a whole other thing I consider regularly. I frequently wonder about the best way to go about it. Would I effectively delete every chapter and reupload everything new? Would that detract from the story that everyone already read especially if the new story is vastly different? What if people still want to see those old bits that might end up getting cut? Should I upload anything I edit as a whole new story entirely? A lot of questions that I honestly never thought I would get to...like ever, which is still insane to me seeing as I've always been a serial quitter of stories.

Actually, I suppose that isn't true. I've never been a 'quitter' of stories I guess since I'm awful enough to just never let things go. I'm just a serial beginner of new things that are shiny and look interesting at the moment because they're foreign and delightful and not filled with all the questions and the things that I perceive that need to be fixed right now.

I'll take a page out of Esayr and Addy's story and admit to a bit of vulnerability here, I'm terrified of ending stories. I've never managed it before because there's this odd feeling of that being it. Once I sit there and type out that "The End" I'll have to come to terms with the parts of this story that aren't perfect without that buffer of the understanding of "Oh I'm still working on it" being there to soften the blow to my perfectionist's heart.

But, despite that, despite everything, I think Esayr and Addy deserve their happy ending. They've stuck with me so long and I'm happy that it will be them that have managed to wrestle that first ending out of me.

And I'm happy that all of you have been here with me too, while I figure out all these things that are new to me and learn to be a better author in so many ways that still keep me up at night sometimes. I've said it before and I promise you I'll say it again and again and again; as many times as you all deserve to hear it.

Thank you

~Layla

We'll get to that ending and then the next and the next and the next. And, I'm hopeful you'll stay around for each journey.