"You're doing that thing again," I stated lightly, though my pulse was anything but.
His brow furrowed. "What thing?"
"Standing there like you're deciding whether to save or destroy me."
A corner of his mouth lifted. "If that were a decision I had to make, you'd already know."
Something in my chest tightened at that, fear and trust braided together in a way I didn't fully understand yet. I took a step closer. Then another. The air between us thickened, became charged, the way it had just before the storm broke. My body was still riding the aftermath of adrenaline, nerves jangling, skin hypersensitive. Every instinct screamed that this was reckless. Every other part of me didn't care.
"I don't do this," I admitted quietly. "Not impulsively. Not without thinking it through."
His gaze dropped—just briefly—to my mouth. "You've been thinking."
Too much.
I stopped an arm's length away, close enough to feel the heat of him, to sense the way his focus narrowed, locked onto me like the universe had reduced itself to this one point of gravity.
"Yes," I admitted. "And if I don't stop thinking for about five seconds, I'm going to lose my nerve."
That did it. Something dark and hungry flickered across his expression, gone almost before I could register it. He didn't move. Didn't reach for me. He waited. For me to decide. That choice—that restraint—was what undid me.
"Dravok," I breathed his name.
He inhaled sharply, like the sound hurt. "If you step closer," he warned in a low voice, "I will not pretend this is a mistake."
"Good," I replied, and closed the distance.
I didn't kiss him like before, hot and desperate and fueled by survival. This time, I took my time. I slid my hands up his chest, feeling the solid reality of him beneath my palms, the barely contained tension in his muscles. His breath stuttered,and that alone sent a dangerous thrill through me. I rose onto my toes and brushed my lips against his, slowly. Exploratorily. A question rather than a demand. For a heartbeat, he held still. Then his hands came up—careful, reverent—cupping my waist like I was something precious instead of fragile. He answered the kiss with devastating patience. His mouth was warm and firm, and he deepened the kiss just enough to make my knees weak without taking control away from me.
The universe narrowed again. No storm. No Abyss. No looming war. Just the quiet, electric certainty that whatever this was—whatever we were circling—it wasn't running out of time. When we finally broke apart, I rested my forehead against his chest, breathing him in, grounding myself in the steady rise and fall beneath my hands.
"This complicates things," I murmured.
"Yes," he agreed without hesitation.
I smiled against him, pulse still racing. "I'm okay with that."
And judging by the way his arms tightened around me, just slightly… so was he.
She initiated the kiss,and every calculation in my mind blanked. For eons, I had known the curves and oscillations of power, and still I teetered between wanting to devour her and the mortal terror of breaking the thing I desired.
Her mouth was relentless, needy, more than the soft mouths I was accustomed to whenever the carnal urges took over, and I ventured out of Nox Eternum. Hers was ferocious, lips parted and tongue searching, and I wondered for a moment if I'd ended up on the business end of a predator. I pressed her body against the comm console. She must have forgotten she wasn't up to my mass, because when she pushed, she only succeeded in pinning herself in place, caught between my chest and the unyielding cold of the bulkhead. Her hands ran up my ribs, mapped them as if she might someday have to rebuild me from memory. Fora scientist, she had not yet internalized what it meant that an Arkhevari's flesh is not so easily undone. But I was not about to teach her restraint.
Carefully, I lifted her and set her on the nearest chair. She reached for me instantly, not willing to cede an atom of distance, and I obliged by kneeling at her feet. Every culture in every galaxy had protocols for moments like this. Sometimes a song. Sometimes a ritual. Sometimes, a carefully worded memo about consent and consequence. I had learned long ago not to overthink the form it took.
Nadine didn't wait for any of that.
I slid the fabric of her dress upward inch by deliberate inch, feeling the tension stretch thin between us. Heat rolled off her in waves, sharp and undeniable, each new patch of skin meeting air like a challenge. I was larger, stronger, built for conquest, but this wasn't about force. This was about friction. About restraint turned into weaponry.
Her mind brushed against mine. She wanted the slow burn. The anticipation. The moment when my control strained just enough for her to feel it tremble. She wanted to watch me want her.
There was far more fire in her than her composed, analytical mind had ever let on, an intensity she had mastered, not extinguished. And now that she'd decided to let it surface, it burned hot enough to make the universe narrow to the space between us.
I worked my hands up, past the trembling of her thighs, careful not to bruise. Her breath was already ragged. I buried my face at the apex of her, tasting salt and heat and the chemical tang of her need. She gasped, then clamped a hand into my hair, hard, as if to confirm that this was real, that she could leave a mark somewhere on me. She would not, but I respected the effort.
Tremors passed through her, gathering momentum, and by the time I slipped my first finger inside, followed by another, I had to hold her steady against the counterthrust. She writhed, arched, tried to pull away and pull me in both at once, and I pressed until her cries vibrated through the deck. Her thighs locked around my head. She tasted of dark honey.
Her walls tightened against my fingers; her heat and need wrapped in a fragility that sharpened my focus instantly. My cock reacted without permission, hardening, but I held back, suddenly aware of the difference in our size, the risk of overwhelming her. Her response wasn't fear—it was readiness—but it demanded care, control, and patience. She was wet, the taste of her slick was already changing my own chemistry, accelerating my hunger. I flicked my tongue against a raised spot at the front of her folds to explore it. Applying slow pressure first, then faster after she let out a sharp breath, I began to alternate, matching the pulse I could feel pounding through her entire system. Her hands scrambled for something to grip—my hair, the console, the edge of the table—each time I focused on that spot, the tremors grew. A low, throttled noise bled from her throat, more animal than human, and it made me want to swallow her whole.
