I pull my hand away and climb the ladder to the cockpit, my heart pounding a rhythm of fury and desire.
I drop into the pilot’s seat. Rynn straps into the co-pilot station next to me. He checks his weapon—a sleek silver blaster—and sets his jaw.
“Ready, Lord Broody?” I ask, my voice tight.
He looks at me then. The mask slips, just for a second, revealing the man who was ready to claim me in the dark.
“Ready, Captain.”
I punch the throttle. Pink Slip screams forward, leaping back into the stars.
Forty-eight hours. We have ten left on the clock, three ships hunting us, and a tension between us that’s thick enough to stop a laser blast.
5
Identity Crisis
Rynn
Icanstilltasteher.
Not a memory. A brand.
Her mouth is living under my skin, the slick heat of her tongue sliding against mine, the way she opened for me like surrender and defiance all at once. My fangs ache with the phantom pressure of wanting to sink into the soft place where her neck meets shoulder and mark her so deep no male in any system would ever mistake who she belongs to.
I am not in the cockpit.
I am crouched in the narrow supply alcove behind the co-pilot station, door locked, lights dimmed to emergency red. My spine is against the bulkhead, forehead pressed to the cold metal like it can cool the furnace roaring in my blood. It can’t.
I can smell her everywhere.
Salt-slick skin. Artificial strawberry clinging to pink strands of hair. And beneath it, heavier, filthier, the thick, wet scent of her core still clinging to my thigh where I ground against her like an animal in rut. My cock jerks at the memory, already painfully hard again, as if the frantic, shameful release I just tore from myself ten minutes ago never happened.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
Thirty years of iron discipline, gone. Obliterated by eight hours of her body curled into mine and five minutes of her hand wrapped around me, stroking once, twice, like she was claiming me instead of the other way around.
I should have fucked her.
I should have rolled her beneath me, spread those strong thighs, and driven into her so deep she felt me for days. I should have filled her until my scent was branded into her bloodstream and every breath she took reminded her body who it opened for.
The thought alone drags a growl out of my chest that rattles the plating under my skin. The vibration is agony now, an angry, subsonic demand for completion, for the slick clutch of her body,for the moment her core spasms around me and she screams my name like a prayer.
I shove my hand back into my trousers because I have no choice.
This isn’t indulgence. It’s triage.
My cock is slick from the last time, swollen and hypersensitive. One stroke and my hips punch forward involuntarily, chasing friction. I bite down on my own forearm to muffle the snarl that wants to rip free.
I close my eyes and she’s there instantly.
Polly on her back, shirt rucked up, breasts spilling free, nipples dark and tight from my mouth.
Polly’s thighs wrapped around my hips, heels digging into the small of my back, urging me deeper.
Polly’s core dripping down my balls while I fuck her raw, while I pump her full until she’s swollen with me, until the bond snaps into place and the entire universe knows she is mine mine mine.
The fantasy is so vivid I can feel her.
