The words hit hard. I'd known, of course I'd known. The way he looked at me. The way his markings flickered when I entered a room. The careful distance he maintained, the professional boundaries he enforced, the way he pulled back every time we got too close.
He'd been protecting himself. And me.
"I know," I whispered. "I figured it out. I just didn't know if you'd ever admit it."
"I wasn't going to. Seemed inadvisable to complicate our working relationship with emotional entanglement." His markings flickered rapidly, the pattern I'd learned meant distress. "But then you received that signal. And you immediately volunteered for a dangerous mission into contested space. And I realized that keeping my feelings private wouldn't protect either of us. It would just mean I'd regret my cowardice if something happened to you."
"So you're coming with me because you love me?"
"I'm coming with you because you're right. Those are your people out there. And if this matters to you, it matters to me." He reached out slowly, giving me time to pull back. When I didn't, his large hand cupped my cheek with surprising gentleness. "But I'm also coming because I'm terrified of losing you. And at least if I'm there, I can try to keep you safe."
I leaned into his touch. His palm was warm, his skin textured with those subtle ridge patterns that marked Zandovian physiology. "You can't keep me safe. Not really. This is dangerous, and we both know it."
"I can try. It's probably futile. Statistically improbable. But I'm going to try anyway."
"That's the least romantic declaration of protection I've ever heard."
"Romance isn't incompatible with statistical analysis." His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, and heat flooded through me. "The probability that I'll fail to keep you completely safe is approximately eighty-three percent, accounting for unknown variables and hostile action. But the probability that I'll do everything in my power to ensure your survival is one hundred percent. That has to count for something."
I kissed him before he could say anything else. Just leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, human-small against Zandovian-large, reckless and desperate and absolutely certain.
He froze. For exactly 2.3 seconds, I counted, he didn't move. Then his hand slid into my hair, his other arm wrapped around my waist, and he kissed me back with an intensity that made my toes curl.
It wasn't gentle. Wasn't tentative. It was six weeks of suppressed wanting and denied attraction and professional distance all burning away in the space of a breath.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. His markings blazed with crystalline light, pulsing in patterns I'd never seen before. Beautiful and alien and absolutely mesmerizing.
"That was inadvisable," Zor'go said.
"Probably."
"We have a mission in three hours. We should be preparing. Running tactical scenarios. Reviewing communication protocols."
"We should."
"Instead I'm going to kiss you again."
"Please do."
He did. And it was better the second time. Deeper. More certain. His hands spanned my waist, lifting me off the couch like I weighed nothing, holding me against him as he kissed me stupid.
I wound my arms around his neck, buried my fingers in his hair, shorter than human standard but surprisingly soft. His markings flickered beneath my touch, responding to contact. I filed that information away for later exploration.
Much later.
Right now I just needed this. Needed him. Needed to feel something that wasn't fear or guilt or obligation.
"Jalina." He caught my hands, held them gently. "I could hurt you. Unintentionally. I'm stronger than humans, and you're?—"
"Small. Yes. I'm aware." I tugged my hands free and started working his uniform fastenings again, more successfully this time. "You're also the most careful person I've ever met. You calculate load-bearing capacity for chairs. You optimize traffic flow to prevent collisions. You notice when I skip meals." The uniform jacket opened, revealing the muscled expanse of his chest, silver-gray skin over lean strength. "You won't hurt me."
"How can you be certain?"
"Because you love me." I pushed the jacket off his shoulders, let it fall. "And I trust you. Completely."
Something in his expression shifted. The uncertainty faded, replaced by that intense focus he usually reserved for complex design problems. Like I was a puzzle he intended to solve—but this time, the solution involved pleasure instead of mathematics.
His hands found the hem of my shirt. "May I?"
