She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Her gaze became thoughtful.

“Your silence is my answer.” Nils returned his gaze to the tracking device.

“There are different kinds of engagements.” Her voice was weighted with experience. “Not just combat, but engagements between people. And I’ve learned from all of them. Including the fact that when a man looks at me with stars in his eyes, he’s going to be disenchanted when the daylight comes and the stars fade.”

“It would have been different with me.”

“Maybe, but I’d seen that look too many times to want to see it again.”

The weariness in her voice made him look up from the display. Her eyes gleamed with a rare vulnerability. How had no one seen her isolation? A reputation like hers had its benefits, yet it must also keep her in seclusion. How frequently she had been disappointed by her lovers? He didn’t particularly want to dwell on the image of Celene in bed with another man, but however often she encountered that disappointment, it had most assuredly left a lingering mark.

She wore her reputation like armor, shielding her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shrugged, though the gesture was not as careless as she likely intended. “I fly forward. I’m very good at it.” Turning a curious gaze toward him, she said, “So you meet me once, lose your nerve to ask me out and then…kiss me on the Night of Masks years later. A long stretch of time for you to formulate a plan.”

“Not all of it was spent contemplating how to kiss you.” For much of the intervening months, Nils had tried to put her from his mind. Compartmentalization came easily to him, as well as the logical means by which he could resolve dilemmas. “I went about my duties in Engineering. Trained. Studied.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Went on a few dates.”

“Here I was, thinking you were some kind of Llinanian monk.”

He gave a self-deprecating snort. “I wasn’t a priest of the love goddess Oshun, either.” He hesitated. “But when you’d come back from missions, I’d run extra diagnostics on your Wraith. Even if I wasn’t assigned to do so. Making sure your ship wasn’t harmed.” It was the closest he would ever come to looking after her.

Beautiful, strong, capable. He would go over her Wraith carefully, and thoughts had filled his mind as his hands were busy running the tests. What would it be like to get close to her? To feel the lean length of her body against his? To taste her mouth? Or, gods, even simply talk with her?

He could say that the scientist in him wanted to know—the spirit of intellectual inquiry compelling him to pose a question and then answer it. That would be a lie. He was a man, and it was with a man’s desire that he dreamed of her, distant and brilliant as a star.

“Even if you weren’t thinking about kissing me all that time,” she pointed out now, “you certainly picked a prime opportunity to do so.”

“It’s foolish to waste a promising prospect.”

A corner of her mouth turned up. “That’s either very rational, or a supreme example of justification.” Her smile turned into a frown. “But everyone was wearing masks. How’d you know it was me? There are plenty of women in 8^th Wing with hair the same color and length as mine, whose height and build matches mine.”

“Maybe I kissed them too,” he countered.

“No, you didn’t.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I didn’t.” He hoped she might let the question pass, but she continued to hold him with her incisive gaze. Her reputation for tenacity was also well earned. “I just…recognized you.”

“Recognized me,” she said, her voice heavy with irony. Clearly, she did not believe him.

He sighed roughly. “Something about you…I could always find you in a crowded room. Even if I wasn’t looking for you, even if I didn’t know you’d be somewhere in particular, my gaze…went straight to you. Instinctively.”

Frustrating to attempt to explain something for which he had no explanation. He, who dealt in specifics and known quantities, found himself utterly at a loss. Because the truth was that he truly didn’t understand how it was he could find or recognize Celene in a crowded room full of people wearing masks. He simply saw her and knew.

She looked at him now across the cockpit, her eyebrows raised in surprise. It seemed that had not been the answer she had expected.

“I never knew.”

“Why would you? A sun isn’t aware of orbiting planets, especially the ones furthest away.” He looked at the stars surrounding them now, distant and shimmering. “I hadn’t planned on finding and kissing you on the Night of Masks. Wasn’t even intending on going to the celebration.”

“Everyone loves the Night of Masks.”

He shook his head. “Too noisy, too chaotic. I only went that night because some of my Engineering colleagues dragged me from my quarters. They shoved a mask into my hands, insisting I come with them.”

“And you had a great time.”

“Had a terrible time.” He sighed, recalling that night. “The evening played out pretty much as I’d anticipated. Hovering at the periphery of the festivities, feeling tense and ill at ease. It’s just…not an environment I enjoy.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I almost did. I was moments away from retreating back to the shelter of my quarters—when I saw you. Dancing.” With three men.

He’d been profoundly aroused, as well as raked with jealousy. Then he didn’t know himself or his actions. Only that he had been standing at the edge of the dancers one moment, and the next, he had moved through the crowd with the intent and precision of an ion knife.

He had seen his hands on his shoulders, felt the curve and warmth of her, watched himself turn her around. She, of course, hadn’t recognized him. But she had stared up at him with a smirk, challenging him. He’d been unable to resist the challenge.

Five solar months had passed, yet the memory of her kiss hadn’t faded. She’d been hot, spiced and sweet, guarded at first and then, at careful coaxing, lushly responsive. Her kiss had lit something within him, a long-buried charge that exploded at the feel of her. The deepest hunger had ripped through him. Within moments, he’d wanted to drag her away from the dancers, learn every part of her and explore her body with his own.

The need had been so strong, it had alarmed him. He’d been unable to recognize himself. Not Lieutenant Nils Veit-Rigel Calder, author of five digitablet monographs about high-velocity guidance systems, who spent all his hours either in Engineering or in the training chambers.

He had felt himself transforming into something basic and instinctive, something radically different from the cautious, rational man he believed himself to be.

So he’d run.

But not far enough, because here he was, sitting in a small cockpit with Celene, and instead of feeling embarrassment about his past actions, he only wanted to do them all over again. Let them spin out to their natural conclusion—he and Celene, naked, their bodies fitted close as interlocking parts. No, that wasn’t right, for he couldn’t think of them as predictable, controllable machines. They were made of flesh and muscle and need.

“When you came into the briefing chamber a few solar days ago,” she said, staring at him, “we shook hands.”

“You’d prefer if I’d I pulled you into my arms? Kissed you until our uniforms burst into flames?” He raised a brow. “Not precisely protocol, especially in front of Admiral Gamlyn.”

“The Admiral has done ten combat tours. I’m sure she’s seen it all.”

“Not two officers making love on a briefing chamber table.”

She pursed her lips. “Pretty bold assertion. That one kiss would lead to making love.”

“We can test that hypothesis.” Another shock from his own mouth. Only a solar week earlier, he never would’ve spoken so boldly, or with such naked hunger. And yet the words came from him naturally now, coaxed forth by a new confidence. “Just a few minutes ago, we kissed again. No one was wearing a mask. It was only you and me, undisguised. Let’s try again, see where it leads us. What we learn about ourselves.”