She doesn't want to kiss him.

She's imagined kissing him. Rough, against the ship wall, steel in her back and his hands in her hair. Quiet and inevitable, one night alone in the kitchen after too much wine and the irresistible ache of proximity. Kisses snatched in stolen moments, the taste of mischief and engine grease lingering even into the buzz of activity as they speed onwards, stars scattered in their wake. A carousel of kisses capered down the corridor, happy-go-lucky and lighter than air, some mission accomplished and with it all the optimism ill-gotten gains can buy. Broken and hopeless, shuddering against each other as the universe shatters beneath them. Everyday kisses, unremarked and unremarkable, a stamp of belonging she's never sought but doesn't know how to walk away from.

The art of kissing (but it's a science, really, their mistress used to say) is something she knows more about than she's ever yet needed to. But even in her head she's out of her depth, trespassing on something beyond the pages of any rulebook.

She did kiss him once, and it knocked her out.

She's not sure she's ready for that again.

Not yet.