Too late. I can already see the way his pupils blow wide, swallowing the gold with black ink. He looks at me like I’ve just pulled the pin on a grenade and handed it to him.
He stands. Slowly. The motion brings him into my orbit, and the temperature spikes ten degrees in a heartbeat. His scent slams into me—ozone and expensive spice and something darker, like smoke over snow. My mouth actually waters.
“You have no idea what you’re asking,” he says, voice so low it feels like it’s coming from inside my own chest.
“I’m asking you to keep your pilot alive. The rest is your overactive nobility talking.” I stand up, forcing my legs not to shake. “Unless you’re scared?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, lingers, drags back up. The muscle in his jaw jumps like it’s trying to escape.
“This is a mistake,” he rasps.
“Then it’s my mistake,” I say, and turn on my heel before I do something idiotic like drop to my knees in the galley and find out exactly how hot that plating gets when it’s flush against my tongue.
I don’t wait to see if he follows. I feel him. Every step down the corridor is a heavy pulse between my legs.
My quarters are barely bigger than a closet. I kick off my boots, crawl into the bunk, and slap the privacy shutter. Darkness folds around me like a secret.
I’m already peeling off my overshirt—too many layers will trap the cold out instead of keeping heat in.
Rynn fills the doorway for a heartbeat, a silhouette cut from shadow and restrained violence. Then he exhales, a sound that is half surrender, half curse in a language I don’t know, and climbs in after me.
There is no room.
None.
We have to lie on our sides or one of us will fall out and probably break something important.
He tries to be a gentleman about it—back to the wall, giving me the outer edge, hands held carefully away from my body like I’m made of spun glass.
It’s adorable. It’s infuriating.
“Turn around,” I order.
“Excuse me?”
“Back-to-chest is tactical,” I say, my voice trembling slightly. “Face-to-face is intimate. Pick one, Lord Broody.”
He makes that sound again—half laugh, half growl—and refuses to move. “I do not turn my back to a door.”
“Zip has the door. The only thing breaking in here is your restraint, and we both know it’s on borrowed time.”
A pause. Then, his breathing roughens.
“Turn around, Polly.”
The way he says it—low, filthy promise wrapped in velvet—makes me obey before my brain catches up. I roll, presenting my back to him, and immediately scoot backward until I hit a wall of living furnace.
Holy fuck.
The heat is instantaneous, overwhelming. It pours through my thin undershirt, sinks into muscle and bone, melts the ice in my blood. I can’t stop the moan that rips out of me.
“Oh, that’s—fuck, that’s better.”
He goes rigid behind me, every muscle locking tight. I feel it like seismic activity against my spine.
“Relax,” I whisper, reaching back blindly. My fingers close around his wrist—thick, unyielding—and I drag his arm over my waist, forcing his hand to splay just beneath my breasts. His palm is so hot it brands me through the fabric.
His cock—because of course he’s alien nobility, not a saint—nestles heavy and hard against the curve of my ass like it was custom-molded to fit there.
