He follows. His mouth finds my shoulder—the spot where his old bite has faded—and his teeth sink in. Not gentle. Not careful. The claiming bite, the one his biology designed for this exact moment, specialized canines pressing into my flesh with enough force to bruise deep and mark permanently.
The pain is a blade—bright, sharp, too much—and for one heartbeat I’m drowning. Then the endorphins hit. His saliva carries bonding enzymes that flood my system and convert the agony into bliss so far beyond pleasure I don’t have a word for it. This is chemical reprogramming—my brain rewriting its definition of good to include his teeth in my flesh forever.
A third orgasm detonates. Not building—exploding. Triggered by the bite, by the biochemical cascade his claiming initiates, ripping through me so hard my back bows off the bed and I hear myself make sounds that aren’t words—aren’t language—raw, ruined noise pouring out of a body that’s forgotten how to be anything except his.
The ridges swell. Lock. Each node engorging to its full size, creating a seal—thick and tight and inescapable—holding him deep. His cock pulses. Not a single release but waves—rhythmic, rolling contractions that pump warmth into me in thirty-second cascades. Each pulse accompanied by a ridge-squeeze massaging spots that extend the orgasm into a continuous state rather than a peak.
He groans against my shoulder. The harmonics make the monitoring equipment on the far wall flicker. His hips jerk with each pulse, involuntary, his whole body given over to a biological imperative older than language.
“Dove.” My name, raw and breaking. “I love you. I—”
“I know.” I hold him. Wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold on while he shudders through wave after wave. My fingers trace the patterns along his spine and they pulse in response—syncing, I realise, with my heartbeat. Not his. Mine.
The bond settling in.
Ten minutes.
We stay locked together for ten minutes. His weight on me, his face pressed against my neck, his breath hot on the bite mark already bruising spectacular purple against my brown skin. The ridges gradually soften—each node relaxing in sequence, releasing their hold in a slow retreat that sends aftershock tremors through us both.
“Your pulse,” he murmurs. “Your breathing. It’s like—” He lifts his head. His patterns glow steady gold, synchronized with each beat of my heart. “You’re in my nervous system.”
“Romantic way of saying you’re stuck with me.”
“I believe ‘permanently bonded’ is the clinical term.”
“I prefer stuck with me. It’s got more commitment.”
He laughs. Low and warm and surprised, like he’d forgotten sex could end in laughter. He shifts—carefully, slowly—and pulls free. The absence is a physical ache, a void where warmth and pressure lived. I make a noise I’m not proud of.
“Shh.” He gathers me against his chest. Kisses my forehead, my eyelids, the bruising bite on my shoulder. “I’m here. Not going anywhere.”
“That’s my line.”
“You’ve corrupted my speech patterns. I blame prolonged exposure.”
I trace the patterns on his chest. They glow warmer under my touch, gold deepening to amber. “These are synced to me now?”
“Permanently. My nervous system has encoded your cardiac rhythm as baseline. When your heart rate elevates—” He pauses. Swallows. “I’ll know.”
“That’s either incredibly romantic or incredibly inconvenient.”
“Both. I expect I’ll be constantly distracted in staff meetings.”
I laugh into his chest and it turns into happy crying—the kind I don’t fight. He holds me tighter. His hand traces up and down my spine, the barest scrape of fingertips over sensitised skin.
“Station family,” I say quietly. “OOPS runs when the storms clear. I come back every time.”
“Every time,” he repeats. His arms tighten. “And I’ll be here. With dinner on the table and atmospheric readings prepared and a child who will demand a full mission debrief before bedtime.”
“Best logistics plan I’ve ever heard.”
We lie tangled together, his heartbeat under my ear, his markings glowing in sync with mine. The station hums around us—life support, atmospheric monitoring, the low-grade buzz of Pickles’ diagnostics running. Home sounds. Family sounds.
The comm panel chirps.
Cetus reaches over my shoulder and taps the display. Text scrolls—an automated OOPS dispatch update, and beneath it, a flag from the Commerce Authority.
“Blackstar Collective,” he reads, scanning the summary. “Enforcement fleet delayed by the outer storm band. They’re pulling back—abandoning the sector.”
