“I know you want me,” she said quietly. “I felt it. Whatever you’re trying to convince yourself of right now, your body told a different story.”
“Want is not the issue.”
“Then what is?”
He should walk away. He should turn his back, return to the cabin, and put walls between them until this madness passed. She couldn’t physically stop him, but then her hand closed around his forearm. The touch was light, gentle, nothing like the grip that would be required to hold him. She wasn’t trying to restrain him. She was simply… connecting. Offering contact that he could refuse or accept as he chose. He didn’t leave.
“Tell me,” she said.
He looked down at her hand on his arm. Her fingers were delicate against the corded muscle, pale against his silver-greyskin. She looked fragile next to him, breakable, like someone to be protected instead of wanted.
But she’d never acted fragile. Not once. Not when he’d found her in that crumpled escape pod, not when she’d woken in a stranger’s cabin, not when she’d demanded he teach her to fight. This small female had a spine of steel beneath that soft exterior, and she was using every ounce of it to hold him here.
“My kind does not take lovers casually.” The admission felt like pulling teeth. “When we… When a Vultor male finds his mate, the bond is sealed through a claiming bite. Once given, it cannot be undone. The connection is permanent. Lifelong.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “And you almost…”
“Yes.”
The word hung in the air between them. He watched her absorb it, watched the implications arrange themselves in her mind. He expected fear. He expected her to finally show the horror she should have displayed from the beginning—the realization that she’d been kissing a creature that had nearly bound her to him forever without her knowledge or consent.
Instead, she said: “Almost. But you didn’t.”
“I stopped myself this time. I might not next time.”
“So you have control.”
“Not enough.” He laughed bitterly. “Not with you. You have no idea what you do to me. What you have done since the moment I pulled you from that pod.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm. Not demanding, but anchoring.
“What if I want this?”
The question shattered something in his chest. He could feel the cracks spreading, could feel all the walls he’d so carefully constructed beginning to crumble.
“You do not know what you are asking for.”
“Then show me.”
He should refuse. He should turn away, put distance between them, protect her from his own nature. She was trapped and dependent on him for survival. Any honorable male would recognize the imbalance of power and refuse to take advantage. But he no longer claimed to be an honorable male.
This time, he kissed her, his mouth descending over hers, slow and controlled. A deliberate counterpoint to the desperate hunger of their first kiss, a demonstration that he could restrain himself when he chose to.
She melted into him immediately, her body swaying towards him, her lips parting beneath his. He tasted her slowly, thoroughly, mapping the curves of her mouth. When she tried to deepen the kiss, to pull him closer, he resisted. He set the pace himself, refusing to be rushed.
I can give you this much,he thought.This measured thing. This leashed desire.
But even though he maintained control, he felt it slipping. Each soft sound she made eroded his discipline. Each brush of her tongue against his pushed him closer to the edge. His free hand found her waist, pulling her against him, and the feel of her body pressed to his was almost enough to break him once more. He pulled back before he could lose himself again.
Her eyes were glazed, her breath coming in short gasps. She looked up at him with both wonder and frustration.
“That’s…” She swallowed. “That’s not exactly convincing me to stay away from you.”
A rough laugh escaped him. “That was not the intent.”
“Then what was the intent?”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was tender, almost reverent, and he saw her shiver at the contact.
