"I survived because I gave the wrong tactical order. If I'd called for retreat when we first detected the hostile force?—"
"Then the civilians might have died. Your unit might have died anyway during retreat. You made the best call you could with the information you had." I turned in his arms to face him. "That's not failure. That's just the nightmare of command."
His eyes were dark, haunted. "I carry them with me. Every name. Every face. Every moment I could have done something different."
"I know." I pressed my hand over his heart. "I carry my dead too. Everyone from Liberty who didn't make it. The people in that derelict who survived six months alone because I wasn't thorough enough in my search." My voice softened. "But Will and Lisa are alive. Improving in medical. We saved them. We actually saved them."
"Because you never stopped looking. Never stopped hoping."
"And they're going to live because you got us out of there alive." I met his eyes. "We're both haunted. Both trying to make up for surviving when others didn't. But maybe we can learn to live with it together. Learn to honor the dead by actually living instead of slowly destroying ourselves."
"How do you live with it?"
"Badly. Until recently." I touched his face, traced the scar along his jaw. "But then someone told me that living fully honors the dead better than slow self-destruction. That survival isn't something to feel guilty about. It's something to honor by actually living."
"Someone wise said that?"
"Someone I'm falling for said that." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Someone who makes me want to try. Want to believe I deserve happiness instead of just existence."
Vaxon kissed me again, softer this time. Tender. The kiss of someone learning what made me sigh, what made me press closer, what made my fingers tighten in his shirt.
His hands moved to my waist, careful and questioning. I answered by pressing closer, by showing him I trusted this. Trusted him. Trusted that whatever happened next, we'd figure it out together.
"Talk to me," he murmured against my mouth. "Tell me what you want. What feels good. What doesn't."
"I want this." My hands found the fastenings of his shirt, fingers trembling slightly. "I want you. I'm just nervous about the logistics."
"Then we go slow." His hands helped mine with the fastenings, patient and unhurried. "We communicate. We stop if anything doesn't feel right." He pulled back to look at me, expression serious. "Your comfort matters more than anything else. Understand?"
I nodded, throat too tight for words.
Vaxon took his time. Stripped away clothing with reverent care, his massive hands learning my body with the sameprecision he brought to weapons maintenance. Every touch was deliberate. Gentle. Designed to make me gasp or sigh or forget why I'd been nervous in the first place.
His charcoal-black skin was warm beneath my palms, the electric-blue markings that traced his shoulders and chest glowing brighter as his arousal built. I traced them with fascinated fingers, watching them pulse and brighten under my touch like living circuitry responding to my exploration.
"You're beautiful," he murmured against my skin, his breath hot against my collarbone. "Every impossible inch of you."
"I'm short."
"You're perfect." His mouth traced a path along my collarbone, down to the curve of my breast. "Compact. Powerful. Exactly right."
His hands, enormous compared to my smaller frame, cupped my breasts with such careful reverence it made my breath catch. His thumbs brushed over sensitive peaks, and I arched into the touch, my body responding with an intensity that surprised me. When his mouth followed where his hands had been, I stopped thinking entirely.
"Vaxon—" His name came out breathless, desperate.
"Tell me what you need." His voice was rough now, control fraying at the edges as his markings blazed brighter across his skin. "What feels good. What doesn't."
"Everything feels good." My hands explored the planes of his chest, the ridged muscle of his abdomen. So different from human anatomy, harder, more defined, with those glowing markings that seemed to respond to every touch I gave him. "You feel good."
His hands moved lower, learning the curves of my waist, my hips, the softness of my thighs. When his fingers found the heat between my legs, I gasped, my hips lifting involuntarily into his touch.
"So responsive," he murmured, his cobalt eyes dark with want as he watched my face. "So perfect."
He explored me with patient thoroughness, his large fingers surprisingly gentle as they learned what made me whimper, what made my nails dig into his shoulders. When he slipped one finger inside me, then another, stretching me carefully while his thumb found the bundle of nerves that made me cry out, I thought I might shatter from the pleasure of it.
"I need—" I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't find words when his fingers were doing that, moving in a rhythm that had my body climbing toward something inevitable and desperate.
"I know what you need." He withdrew his hand, and I almost sobbed at the loss until I felt him positioning himself between my thighs. "Look at me, Elena. Stay with me."
