“You are brilliant. Observant. Strong enough to survive five years in this place with your soul intact.” He turned fully toward me. “And you are compromising everything I came here for.”
“What did you come for?”
He paused, something shifting in his expression. “What I came for requires access to the restricted levels. I am getting close.”
“We should be professional,” I said. “During shifts. Keep boundaries.”
“We should.”
“We will not.”
“No.”
Neither of us moved closer. Neither of us moved away. The space between us hummed with possibility and terrible ideas.
“Walk me to my quarters?” I asked.
He offered his arm, formal, old-fashioned, careful. I took it, feeling the solid strength through his shirt, the way his body heat ran hotter than human normal.
We walked in silence through the station's corridors. Staff members saw us and quickly looked away. Word had spread. The Vinduthi who dealt with threats to the human dealer. The clear claim that had not been formally made but everyone recognized.
At my door, I turned to face him. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
But I did not go inside. Could not. My hand stayed on the door control, not pressing it, while he stood there looking at me with those red eyes that saw too much.
“Sabine.” My name came out rough, like he had been holding it back.
“Do not go,” I heard myself say. “Not yet.”
Something flared in his eyes. Heat. Want. The same thing that had been building between us since day one. He stepped closer, forcing me to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact.
“If I stay?—”
“I know.” I pressed the door control. It slid open behind me. “Come inside.”
He followed me in, and the door sealed behind us. My quarters had never felt smaller. He filled the space, not just physically but with his presence, his heat, the weight of what we were about to do.
“This is?—”
I stopped his words by pulling him down to me. No careful questioning this time. I kissed him like I had been wanting to for days, hungry, desperate, done with pretending I did not want this.
He made a sound low in his throat and his control shattered. His hands tangled in my hair, his mouth claiming mine withan intensity that should have frightened me. Instead, I pressed closer, needing more, needing everything.
He backed me against the wall, his body caging mine. I could feel every hard line of him, the strength he had been holding back, the want he had been hiding behind mathematical games. His mouth moved to my neck, and I gasped at the scrape of teeth, not his fangs, he kept those carefully away, but enough to make me shiver.
“I have wanted this since the first day,” he admitted against my skin. “Since you looked at me like I was just another gambler and dealt my cards with those perfect hands.”
My fingers found the fastening of his shirt, needing to touch skin. He helped, pulling the fabric off with impatient movements. The green traceries on his chest were a roadmap of his lineage, stark and unmoving, but the muscles beneath them coiled tight as spring steel. I traced them with my fingers, feeling him shudder.
“So controlled,” I whispered. “Always so controlled. Let go.”
“If I let go—” His hands gripped my waist, thumbs pressing into hip bones. “Sabine, if I let go, I will?—”
“I am not fragile.” I pulled him down for another kiss, biting his lower lip hard enough to make him growl. “Stop treating me like I am.”
That did it. He lifted me like I weighed nothing, carrying me the three steps to my narrow bed. My dealer's uniform was gone in moments, his hands and mouth exploring newly exposed skin with focused intensity. Every touch felt like fire, like awakening, like coming back to life after years of numbness.
