“Can I…?” I gesture to his shoulder.
He turns so I can see the brand beneath his collarbone. An old Coalition mark, faded but unmistakable.
“I didn’t choose it,” he says.
“I didn’t choose mine either.”
I slide the strap of my top down and show him the burn across my shoulder blade. “They left it as a reminder. Told me if I ever came back, they’d finish it.”
Roja lifts his hand but doesn’t touch. “May I?”
I nod.
His fingers trace the edge of the scar like he’s trying to learn the language of my pain.
“I used to think scars made you weaker,” he says. “Now I think they just mean you survived the worst someone could do to you.”
I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
We don’t speak after that. Not for a long time. We move to the bed, slow and cautious. Not desperate, not frantic. Just… deliberate.
He doesn’t try to control anything. He lets me guide the pace, the rhythm. His hands stay open. His mouth murmurs my name like it’s a question he’s never dared ask before.
And I answer.
But I don’t stop there.
My hands find the seams of his pants and undo them, the heavy fabric falling away from his scaled hips. He’s already hard, thick, and alien in a way that makes my breath catch. His cock is ridged, like everything about him is built for war—even this. It pulses faintly, a deep shade of green flushed to a darker hue withneed. I trail a finger along one of the veins, and Roja’s breath stutters, his claws flexing into the mattress.
“You okay?” I whisper.
“I’ve imagined this,” he says, voice gravelly. “But it didn’t come close.”
I press a kiss to his abdomen, feeling the tension in him, the restraint. “Then let me show you how real it can feel.”
I let my fingers explore first, learning the lines of him, the strange warmth of his skin, hotter than a human’s, with a faint, musky spice in his scent. My mouth follows—slow kisses along his hipbone, then lower, until he shudders under my touch.
When I take him into my mouth, his entire body jerks.
“K-Kelsea—” His voice breaks, and he grips the sheets rather than me, like he’s afraid of holding too tight. “Fuck—don’t stop.”
I don’t. I savor the weight of him, the alien texture that isn’t so different where it matters. His hips buck, but he doesn’t push. Just feels. Just lets go.
He comes with a low, snarling groan, his thighs trembling, his claws tearing faint lines into the mattress.
I pull back slowly, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his red eyes glow faintly in the dark.
“Your turn,” he says, voice hoarse.
I lie back, heart thudding.
He moves over me like a storm, slow but inevitable. His fingers slide beneath the band of my pants, dragging them down, revealing inch by inch until I’m bare beneath him. His gaze roams, hungry and reverent all at once.
“You’re so small,” he murmurs, his hand cupping my hip. “So fucking strong.”
His fingers find my pussy, already slick. He groans at the feel of it. “Gods, Kelsea…”
His mouth follows, and when he puts his tongue on me—thicker, hotter than any human—I gasp aloud, hips lifting.
