His head lifts.
His hair is a mess, falling over his forehead. His eyes are completely black now, pupils blown so wide there’s only a thin ring of molten gold left. His lips are swollen, his fangs fully extended and glinting in the dim light. He looks wild. Wrecked.
“Polly,” he rasps, and my name sounds like surrender.
“You’re crushing me,” I lie, because the weight is perfect and I never want it to end.
He looks down at where my hand is resting on his hip, at my shirt rucked up under my arms exposing everything to the cool air and his hot gaze.
“Fuck,” he breathes, human and wrecked and beautiful.
The hand on my stomach slides higher, knuckles dragging over my ribcage, cupping my breast through the thin bra, thumb finding my nipple and circling once, slow, deliberate, merciless.
My back arches clear off the mattress. A broken sound tears out of me.
“You think this is a game,” he growls, rolling the bud between finger and thumb until I’m panting, his voice rough with sleep and hunger. “You think I won’t take everything you’re offering and more.”
“I think you’re dying to,” I gasp, my hips bucking up to meet his thigh.
His restraint snaps.
His mouth crashes down on mine.
It’s not a kiss. It’s warfare.
Teeth and tongue and pure, filthy possession. He tastes like the moment lightning strikes—like ozone and dark spice and the promise of ruin. I fist his hair, yank him closer, open wider, take everything he gives and demand twice as much.
His hand slides down my pants, fingers digging into my hip, possessive and bruising. He grinds down on me, the friction almost unbearable, and I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him into the cradle of my hips.
He breaks the kiss, gasping, his forehead resting against mine.
“If I continue,” he growls, his voice vibrating through my skull, “I will claim you. Here. Now. Irrevocably. The bond will be permanent.”
“Maybe I want you to,” I whisper, reckless and aching.
He pulls back to look at me, his eyes burning with a conflict that terrifies me. He looks like he’s about to say yes. He looks like he’s about to devour me whole.
“ATTENTION CAPTAIN,” Zip’s voice blasts through the comms panel, shattering the world. “SENSORS ARE PICKING UP A PASSIVE SCAN GHOST. ECHO SEVEN-DELTA.”
Rynn freezes above me.
For a second, he doesn’t move. His chest is heaving, his hips are still pressed against mine, his hardness mocking both of us. He looks wild, furious, and completely undone.
Then, the soldier slams back into his body.
He rips himself away from me, hitting the opposite wall of the bunk with a thud. He runs a hand through his hair, his breathing ragged.
“Echo Seven-Delta,” he repeats, his voice rough, unrecognizable.
He looks at me—lips bitten red, hair a mess I put there, shirt shoved up, thighs spread wide—and the hunger in his face could level entire systems.
But the mask is back. The cold, impenetrable mask of his people.
“They found us,” he says.
He climbs out of the bunk without looking back.
I lie there for a second, trembling, empty, furious, and alive. I pull my shirt down, my hands shaking.
