Gunner pulled the claws out of his skin, letting them recede, and feeling his flesh weave itself back together. The panels that vibrated and poised to shift settled back into his humanoid frame. He took a step toward Ely where she was pressed up against the cold brig wall, lured by her despite how hard he held back.
Her eyes were wide and her face was turned in his direction. He watched as her arms came forward to clasp over her mouth. It was too dark for her to see him, but she knew he was there.
“Gunner?” she breathed, hearing her perfectly through all the noise.
What do I want more? My ship?
He pressed his palms on the wall to either side of her head.
Or her?
He leaned in until his nose hovered over her nape, straining as her smell crashed over him. Her body stiffened, aware of his nearness. Gunner’s eyes squeezed shut as he claimed the air that had touched her.
“What’re you doing?” she stammered, and the warm breeze of her words caressed his cheek.Real.It was real. His body shook with need.
“Everything,” he groaned directly in her ear, “This is my territory. This right here. I’ll touch you, will reach through your bars, but will never hurt you. If you want to try and claim your space back then say so right now because I’m going to claim mine. And this spot, right here,” he kissed the air right over her lobe, “is my safe spot.”
Ely trembled beneath him as his words sank in. They’d been loud enough for only her to hear. Gunner waited, on edge, and when her hands dropped from her lips to softly fall on his chest, he became her safe place.
He caught her wrists and pressed them against the wall.
She startled and their bodies briefly came together before she jerked back against the paneling. Gunner closed the distance, hungry, and captured her mouth, consuming words she never had a chance to say.
“Everything,” he said again between his teeth, skating them over her worried lips, trapping her against the wall. There was nothing to stop him this time. Nothing but the quickly diminishing time.
The screeches of the sirens pounded through his ears, he half-sensed the running of several dozen men searching the ship outside the walls he shared with her.
My fucking god, I’m going to get myself killed because of her.Adrenaline pumped through his body, his muscles tensed and bulged, and he covered her from all possibility of danger with his body. A consuming need to protect her, from everything, including himself, filled him.
But her mouth tasted so damned sweet, drowning out the chaos around him. Gunner crushed his lips to hers with the need to be inside her any way that he could. A hundred bullets in the back be damned.
Then, Ely responded to him; she responded to the pressure he released onto her with a crazed need he fed on. Her supplication punched him in the gut because despite the shallow innocence that clung to her, in the back of his head he knew what he was doing was wrong.
He pushed her up the wall, telling himself it was right. He released her locked hands and hauled her ass up to cup the backs of her thighs; he knew it was dirty. When he ground his swollen cock into her pelvis, he knew he was going to take everything from her.
She moaned.
He devoured it.
She dug her nails in.
He thrust.
Ely’s lips moved under his and he was fucking lost, her body opening up for him to fill it.
Gunner slammed his tongue into her mouth and licked everything he could reach, consuming and swallowing her taste, starved for it. He felt Ely’s hands run up his arms, scraping the entire way, to clutch his shoulders and hold onto him.
He pushed her farther up the wall until she was forced to lock her legs around his hips and he had to tilt his head to keep their mouths locked.
She gasped.
He cupped her head.
Their teeth clashed.
He opened his eyes. He was the only one who could see.
They were surrounded by darkness and chaos, hidden from the eyes and ears of everyone else in the brig.
