His hands find my hips. Not gentle. Not tentative. Claiming.
“Careful,” I murmur, turning to face him. My fingers trace the edge of the bandaging on his shoulder. “You’re still healing. Doctor's orders!”
"Doctor's orders," he repeats, his eyes dark with want. he repeats, his eyes dark with want. “And I’m Velogian. We heal fast.” His thumbs trace circles on my hip bones. “Besides, I’m not the one who’ll be doing the heavy lifting.”
Heat floods through me at the promise in his voice. “Is that so?”
“Do you have any idea,” he murmurs against my ear, his breath making me shiver despite the steam, “how difficult it’s been to keep my hands off you for the last six hours? Watchingyou work through those forms, brilliant and determined, while every instinct I have was screaming to carry you to bed?”
“You could have just said something—”
“And interrupted seventeen forms of bureaucratic torture?” His hands slide up my sides, carefully avoiding putting pressure on his injured ribs. “I have more restraint than that.”
“Do you?” I lean into his touch, hyper-aware of his injuries but also of his need. “Because Dr. Yennix said no strenuous activity.”
His laugh is dark and full of promise. “Then you’ll just have to do all the work, won’t you?”
His eyes—golden with those vertical pupils now blown wide with want—meet mine. “The claiming in the cockpit was—”
“Survival,” I interrupt. “Desperation. Biochemical crisis during an asteroid field escape.” I slide my hands up his chest, careful of his ribs, feeling the way his scales shift under my touch. “And forty-eight hours ago, I watched you nearly die fighting Thek-Ka while I sat helpless on the ship, unable to do anything but feed you tactical data and pray you’d survive.”
My voice cracks slightly on the last word, and through the bond he feels my fear—the terror of those moments when the EMP cut our connection and I thought I’d lost him.
“But I didn’t die,” he says softly, his hands framing my face. “I came back. We both survived. And this—” he pulls me closer, mindful of his healing ribs, “—this is us choosing each other when we don’t have to. When we’re safe. When we have time.”
Something in his expression shifts. The last of his careful control crumbles.
“Time,” he repeats, and his hands tighten on my hips, pulling me flush against him. “We have time.”
His mouth crashes against mine—claiming, demanding, nothing gentle about it. This isn’t the tentative exploration from before. This is hunger that’s been leashed for too long, finallybreaking free. His fangs scrape my lower lip and I gasp, opening for him, letting his forked tongue sweep inside.
The bond flares between us—not overwhelming, not desperate, but bright and certain and amplifying every sensation.
I can feel his arousal pressed hard against my stomach. Can feel the way his body temperature has spiked, his scales flushing darker gold. Can feel through the bond how much it’s costing him to not simply take what he wants.
“Stop holding back,” I breathe against his mouth. “I’m not fragile.”
His hands slide down, cupping my ass and lifting me like I weigh nothing. My back hits the shower wall—cool tile contrasting sharply with his heat. I wrap my legs around his waist instinctively, and the position puts his cock right where I need it, thick and hard and ridged.
“Fuck,” I gasp as he rolls his hips, those ridges dragging against my clit through the water. “Crash—”
“Say my name again,” he demands, his mouth finding the claiming marks on my throat. His tongue traces the golden crescents, and the sensation shoots straight to my core.
“Crash. Please.”
His laugh is dark and possessive. “Please what, zihah’tel?”
I thread my fingers through his wet hair, pulling his head back so he has to meet my eyes. “Please fuck me. Right here. Right now. No more being careful.”
The last thread of his control snaps.
One hand braces against the wall behind me, the other positions his cock at my entrance. The head is broad, scorching hot even in the water, and when he pushes inside I feel every single ridge of his alien anatomy.
“Oh god,” I moan as he fills me—slow, deliberate, giving me time to adjust to his size. The ridges catch and dragwith exquisite friction, nothing like human anatomy, uniquely perfect.
“Too much?” His voice is strained, muscles trembling with the effort of going slow, of not aggravating his healing ribs.
“Not enough.” I dig my nails into his uninjured shoulder, using the leverage to take him deeper. “More. I can take it. The question is, can you?”
