I may not always know what's right, but I know I want you here tonight.
Mallos grinned into Croe’s neck, imagining her losing her patience at the office. There was something incredibly hot about the storm of violence which undoubtedly accompanied any indulgence of rage. If only he could have been there.

She should know better than to kiss him part-way through a story. Mallos forgot immediately what they were talking about, forgot the existence of work and offices, forgot the world. His heart rate climbed, in contrast to the accompanying feeling of light-headedness. It was a combination only Croe seemed capable of inducing. She drew back and he ran his hands around her hips. Her words didn’t register for a moment, and then they came crashing all together at once. Goddess? Lorraine? What?

He’d seen Lorraine earlier, when they’d been on the Santiago working through the mysterious case of Tsi’s disappearance together. Why would Lorraine have then left Shaman to go and ‘provoke’ Croe? Provoke into what? He studied her face, searching, unpicking her delicate expression. Her question drew the breath out of him as easily as her kiss had.

Well, fuck. Lorraine had figured it out faster than he had.

The implications were overwhelming. Mallos pushed past the realisation that she must have showed up at Croe’s place of work specifically to threaten her, trying to get his thoughts in line. It would have been easier to focus on that, to let anger consume him instead, but the competing feelings were hard to ignore. Unless he was in hyperfocus, Mallos’ mind hopped from one incomplete idea to the next, bouncing a host of unrelated notions off each other, even at the best of times. The question opened a floodgate on neural connections which all seemed to be firing simultaneously.

Fortunately, being assaulted with a tsunami of new information was the kind of environment his mind thrived on. Mallos let the colours of the grass, the tree bark, Croe’s skin brighten into drunk vivacity. Distant sights and sounds sharpened. He could have counted her eyelashes individually, if it could hold his focus that long. It was difficult when the competing scents of orange and jasmine, the glimmer of the stars and the rustle of the breeze all vied for his attention.

Amidst the mess of physical sensations, interlocking emotions and runaway trains of thought, and beneath his thumping heart, he noticed that she didn’t look averse to the idea.

“I want to.” He drew his hand up to her shoulder and pushed her loose hair past it, bringing his palm round to the back of her neck. It was easier to focus on a point over her shoulder than on her face. “Because I’m in love with you, and I want to be with you. Just you.”