The clutch of wet heat, the way she’d arch and sob when I hit that spot inside her that makes her lose language. I can hear the broken sound she made when I pinched her nipple, the way her slick coated my fingers when I almost, almost slid them inside her before Zip’s voice ruined everything.
My fist moves faster, punishing.
I imagine pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while I fuck her with the other, forcing her to take three fingers, then four, stretching her open for me. I imagine the moment I replace them with my cock, the way she’d flutter and fight and then yield, the way her eyes would go wide and glassy when I bottomed out inside her.
I come again, harder than the first time, hips snapping, seed streaking my stomach and dripping over my knuckles. I don’t bother stifling the groan this time; it tears out of me like awound. My fangs punch through my lower lip, copper flooding my tongue, mixing with the ghost-taste of her.
It still isn’t enough.
I slump against the wall, panting, waiting for the clarity that usually follows.
It does not come.
The biological imperative has dulled, but the hunger remains. The need to protect her, to possess her, to stand between her and the void—it is not just hormonal. It is structural. It has rewritten my DNA.
I adjust my clothes, washing my hands with the fiercely efficient sonic-scrubber, trying to scour away the evidence of my loss of control. I straighten my jacket. I force the mask of the Valorian Heir back onto my face, though it feels ill-fitting now. Tighter than before.
The hunger is worse now, sharpened, focused. It has a name and a face and a reckless, perfect mouth that called me Lord Broody while I was two seconds from mounting her against the bulkhead.
I step back into the cockpit.
She knows the second I walk in.
Her shoulders stiffen; her scent spikes, sweet and startled. She doesn’t look at me, but the flush racing up her throat is unmistakable. She can smell it on me: sex and desperation and the fact that I just jerked off twice thinking about ruining her.
I deserve the shame. I savor it.
“Sensor sweep clear on vector seven-seven,” I manage, voice gravel and smoke. “Asteroid belt will mask us for thirty minutes.”
“Copy,” she says, too calm. Her fingers fly over the controls, but I see the way her thighs press together under the console. I see the pulse hammering at the base of her throat where I want my mouth. Her voice is professional, focused, but there is a flushhigh on her cheekbones that has nothing to do with the ambient temperature.
She knows what I did.
She knows I’m still hard.
And when she finally glances at me, eyes dark, lips swollen like she’s been biting them, I know she’s wet again too.
Good.
Because the next time I touch her, I won’t stop at almost.
Next time I’ll be inside her so deep she’ll taste me when she breathes.
Next time I’ll give her every filthy thing I just imagined and more.
And she’ll beg for it.
“Zip, how’s our power signature?” she asks, studiously avoiding my gaze.
“RUNNING SILENT AND LOVELY, CAPTAIN. WE’RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE UNLESS THEY GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO READ OUR REGISTRATION.”
“Good.” She taps a command into the console. “I ran a spectral analysis on the Echo Seven-Delta scan while you were... checking supplies.” She glances at me then, her eyes dark and knowing, before looking back at the screen. “That signature doesn’t belong to corporate security or pirates. Those are heavy cruisers. Military configuration.”
She hits a button, bringing up a holographic display of the three ships hunting us.
“That’s a black-ops configuration, Rynn. Specifically, the Meridian Consortium’s special acquisition division. Diplomats don’t get hunted by kill-squads. Even wealthy ones.” She spins her chair to face me fully. “So we aren’t going to the drop-off. It’s compromised. If they have ships here, they have agents waiting at Helios. It’s a trap.”
My heart hammers against my ribs, a slow, heavy rhythm. She is brilliant. Reckless, infuriating, and brilliant.
