He gazed at her sleeping form. Her long black hair haphazardly laid across her pillow and her face leaned towards his. Her chest slowly rose and fell, her eyelashes splayed across her cheeks, her lips swollen from his kiss, and her arms cradling the pillow like a newborn babe. She made cotton sheets look like the finest silk. She was a goddess weaved from heaven's cloth. Jamison couldn't stop drinking in the sight of her; he couldn't look away, not even for a moment.
The room still smelled of their sex. The floor remained cluttered with his patched green shorts and the Vishkar uniform Satya tried so desperately to keep clean.
He lightly ran his fingers down her arm and watched the goosebumps rise. He cupped her face gently and heard a sleepy sigh escape. He swallowed and felt his stomach drop with a threatening realization. Oh, he was so long gone. He was completely and utterly fucked!
She had made love to him beautifully, lighting up like a star. Her body had been like clay in his hand, allowing him to mold her anyway he liked. She had arched into him and moaned as he sculpted her. She had whispered incoherent words and cried "Jamie" when she came.
He suddenly wanted to tell her he was so, so helplessly in love - that he would follow her wherever she ventured and not look back. He wanted to tell her that he was hers to do what she wished; he was completely at her mercy no matter how undeserving he was to have her.
He wanted to tell her, but fear kept him in his place. Jamison never had the luxury of allowing himself to be vulnerable. He couldn't have, otherwise he would have been dead long ago. He was a master of survival. He was a dirty junker, a mad bomber, who had stolen and killed more then he could count.
But now, that's exactly what he's become: vulnerable to the umpth degree. He had let things go too far with Satya. It had only been pure physical attraction. He had thought her to be the snob, the clean freak, the "Ms. Goddamn Suit Sheila"! But then, he started spending time with her. He listened to her explain the complex mechanisms of hard light. He had seen her determination to spare as many lives as possible. He had seen her drink far too much alcohol at the holiday party and stumble on his limbs as he helped her to her room. He had seen her laugh at his jokes with a rare, unguarded expression. He held her while her limbs shook and tears poured from a particularly devastating fight. He had looked into her eyes helplessly as she cradled his face and said, "You are a good man, Jamison Fawkes.".
Since Satya, his eyes had softened, his laughter had become genuine, and his heart had begun beating with the perilous spark of hope. She believed in him and trusted him when he was an unworthy, childish, stubborn, and dangerous man. He knew he didn't deserve her and he knew it could be suicide to let himself fall. Yet, there he was: lying bare next to her in the dead of night and aching to touch her again.
He couldn't love her. Fucking Christ, he couldn't, but it was already too late.