“My…lips feel moist now.”

She shook her head. “If someone I loved, or even someone I simply desired, did that to me, my heart would beat faster. I’d feel a little giddy, a physical rush of excitement.”

Ice blinked twice, so Alana kissed him again, this time letting her tongue find his and tangle with it. He moved his own in an unskilled attempt at kissing back.

She moved her hips

against his lap seductively, hoping to feel that she was affecting him. He simply stared at her. Sexual desire didn’t seem to be the answer here.

Alana stood and leaned her hips against the desk, crossing her arms. “If you love someone, you want to hold them in your arms and bask in their presence. You cherish every moment you get to spend with them.”

Her face was warm. A shiver went through her as Ice stood and moved close.

“I have never experienced love, then. Would…wouldn’t the desire to spend that much time with someone take away from work and other pursuits?”

Disappointment swelled inside Alana. She realized she’d been hoping she could make Ice feel something. “Sometimes it’s a distraction, especially at first, but mostly being in love makes the rest of life better.”

She stood and placed both palms on his chest. “Love can bring you the greatest joy imaginable. And sometimes the greatest pain, but the potential for joy is worth the risk. When you love someone enough, you’ll be willing to set aside your own comfort and happiness to ensure theirs, and to sacrifice everything to protect them, even at the cost of your own life. Love is generous and selfless. And I’m not sure those are concepts compatible with Crimean philosophy.”

“They used to be,” he said softly. “Before Arcana. We just have to find a way to get back to that. With your help.”

“Ice, I’m human. We’re social animals. Love isn’t something we have to learn to feel. Almost all of us are born with the potential to love, and we need companionship, social interaction, warmth, and intimacy. If human babies aren’t held and cuddled, they don’t develop properly, and many die. Even adults can wither away from loneliness. We need contact, physical contact, from the moment we’re born, so we crave it, first in the form of a parent’s hug or family affection, later in a lover’s embrace.”

That was what Alana knew. Crimeans, who seemed as cold as they appeared with their ice-chip eyes and white hair, couldn’t seem to understand any of that.

“We used to not be so different, Alana. We can rediscover our past. Surely we can learn it again.”

Alana tilted her head. She wished she could be so sure of that. “Crimeans, who are created in a growth sack and receive little to no physical contact or affection as they’re raised by the state, don’t seem to need any of those things. I can’t even relate to that, let alone understand how to overcome it. You don’t seem to understand the most basic of emotions anymore. If I were dealing with humans, I would know where to start, because these needs are built into us. I’m not sure the same approaches will help here. As a scientist, surely you understand that.”

She leaned closer to Ice, her hands still pressed against his chest, hoping against hope that some kind of buried instinct might kick in and he’d at least put his hands on her hips or touch her in some way. Something she could work with.

“I do understand it,” Ice said. “But we have to try.”

When Ice didn’t move, Alana let her hands drop as she stepped away. “I will try. But I think you should be prepared for the possibility that the things we try may not work.”

Ice nodded and quickly left the room.

Alana slumped in the chair to read over her notes one more time and hope for inspiration to strike. Her pulse raced. She licked her lips, still cool from the kiss, and wondered why she’d wanted him to put his hands on her so badly. Was it Stockholm Syndrome already? He’d kidnapped her and brought her here against her will. Ice had his reasons—mostly fear for his planet—and she felt for him. But she should still be furious at him.

Yet, she wasn’t.

She’d imagined him kissing her back. Touching her.

He doesn’t seem to feel anything for me, not even empathy at the situation he’s put me in.

There was that lack of empathy again. If he couldn’t even feel too badly about uprooting her, how could he ever love her?

Alana gasped at the thought, wondering what could put an idea like that in her head. How could he ever love anyone? Not her specifically. That was all she meant. Wasn’t it?

She stared at her notes a long time without reading or really seeing them at all.

Chapter Eleven

When Ice left Alana in his office, he wasn’t sure where he was going. He only knew he needed time to think without distraction. Alana’s pessimism about her purpose there bothered him, but he couldn’t convince her of anything until he figured a few things out for himself.

He walked for a while, thinking about the things she said about how hopeless it would be to try to teach a people with no empathy how to love. On the surface, that sounded correct. But Ice knew that Crimeans once loved each other and reproduced. There was art, music, dance. It had taken both the misguided Arcana system and enough technology to provide options for ordinary romance and coupling to drive out the survival instinct in his people. But that instinct had been there, for most of Crimean history.

If it was there before, they only had to find a way to bring it back.

Tags: Lizzie Lynn Lee Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net