She clenches around the knot, and the orgasm hits the bond like a detonation. Her pleasure crashes into my nervous system, triggers my own release, and the dual climax feeds back through the connection in a loop that amplifies with each revolution. I feel her coming from inside her body and from inside mine, and she feels me pulsing inside her from both sides, and the loop peaks and shatters and cascades until neither of us can tell whose body is doing what.
My markings blaze opalescent. The claiming color, full and brilliant, pulsing through every pattern in time with our shared heartbeat. The pleasure is genuinely unattributable: something the connection created that belongs to both of us.
We lie locked together, the knot still seated, my weight braced so I don't crush her. The afterglow is mutual and enormous, transmitting in slow, warm waves.
"The loop," she manages. "Gets stronger. Every time."
"The xenobiology literature suggests bonded pairs develop increasing neural synchronisation over time." My voice is rough, wrecked. "The feedback loop's intensity scales with bond maturity."
"You're citing xenobiology while knotted inside me."
"You asked me to explain the mechanism during month three. I researched it. Thoroughly."
Her laugh shakes against me, and the movement shifts the knot and both of us gasp as the oversensitive nerve endings register the motion from both sides.
"Don't laugh. Not while we're locked."
"Don't make me laugh while we're locked."
"Impossible. You laugh at everything."
"I laugh because I'mhappy." Her hand finds my face, traces the circuit tracery along my cheekbone, the opalescent claiming color pulsing where she touches. "Do you know how rare that is? Six months of being happy? My whole life I was chasing the next run, the next assignment, trying to prove I was enough. And now I'm locked to a seven-foot-two alien by his biology and I can't move for the next twenty minutes and I have never been more content."
"Twenty-two minutes," I correct. "Based on the average duration."
"You track the duration?"
"Bebo tracks the duration. I merely access the data."
"OfcourseBebo tracks the knot duration." She presses her face against my chest, and the vibration of her laughter transfers through the bond. "Our AI has a dataset on our sex life."
"A comprehensive dataset. He's expressed professional pride in it."
"We are the most ridiculous people on this station."
"We are the most ridiculous people in this sector."
The knot subsides gradually, and the separation is its own sensation: loss and relief and a tenderness that makes both of us sigh. I roll to my side, pulling her against me, and her body fits into the space against my chest the way it has every night for six months. Perfectly. Like the bond knew before we did that this was where she belonged.
Later. Replicated pasta that's terrible. Her wearing my shirt, which hangs to mid-thigh and does something to the possessive centres of my brain that the bond broadcasts at full volume.
"You're staring," she says, twirling noodles.
"You're wearing my shirt."
"It's comfortable."
"It looks like mine. On you. Marking you as mine."
"I have a literal bite mark and a neurological bond. I think the shirt is redundant."
"The shirt is not redundant. The shirt is supplementary claiming evidence."
Her amusement and her pleasure at being claimed. Six months, and the possessive rumble in my voice still makes her pulse jump. I can feel the jump, and she knows I can feel it, and the mutual awareness creates a specific tension that could easily become round two if we let it.
"Forty-three runs," she says, changing the subject with obvious effort. "Off probation. Full pilot certification. Partnership renewed."
"A productive six months."
