“Stop,” I say. Not the panic stop, theI have an agendastop.
He stops. Immediately. Pulls back. Looks at me. Concern flashing.
“Your turn,” I say. And push his shoulder.
He stands. The concern becomes confusion. The confusion becomes something else when I put my hands on his chest and push him back against the opposite wall — the corridor is narrow enough that opposite walls are three feet apart and the three feet are ours — and his back hits the bulkhead and I hold his gaze.
“The overalls,” I say. “Take them off.”
The power dynamics rearrange. A male who has been running this chase letting the woman he caught tell him what to do.
He pushes the overalls down. Over his hips. Past his thighs. Steps out of them. Stands against the bulkhead in nothing, and I—
I have seen him shirtless. I have seen the chest and the arms and the ridges, and the iridescence. I have felt both of him in my hands and in my body. But I have not seen him. Not all of him. Not like this.
The iridescence covers everything. Not just the forearms — the chest, the stomach, the hips. Bronze and copper and gold threading through the emerald in patterns that shift when he breathes. The musculature is not bulky. He is built the way a predator is built: long, lean, everything functional. Every muscle is visible. The V of his hips descending to —
Both.
I have held them. I have felt them inside me and against me. But I have not looked. The claiming shaft is larger than I remembered. Which is saying something. The ridges along it mirror the forearm ridges — raised, textured, dark bronze — and they are flushed. Warm. The other is sleeker, smoother, curved differently, and both are ready. The evidence of nine days of waiting is visible and impressive and doing things to my higher brain function.
I drop to my knees.
His whole body tenses. His claws scrape the bulkhead behind him. A low, involuntary rumble comes from his chest — the sound of a male watching his mate kneel before him.
“Lorri —”
“You’ve had your turn.” I look up at him from my knees. Naked. On the deck plate. Looking up at a male who is leaning against a bulkhead with his claws in the metal and his pupils blown and his whole body vibrating with the effort of holding still. “Nine days, Jazil. You spent twenty minutes with your mouth on me. You edged me three times. You told me everything you were going to do. Now it’s my turn.”
His jaw locks. He does not move.
I wrap my hand around the claiming shaft first. The ridges pulse under my palm — warm, textured, each one responding independently to the pressure of my grip. I stroke once, and his hips jerk forward, and the rumble in his chest drops an octave.
“The manual had a lot to say about these ridges,” I say. Conversational. Studying him. “Nerve-dense, hypersensitive. I’ve been thinking about that for nine days.” I stroke again. Slower. Watching his body respond. “I have questions. Practical ones.”
“Lorri —” His voice is wrecked. “If you are going to quiz me while your hand is on my —”
I put my mouth on him.
The sound he makes shuts down every adjacent system in my brain. His hand finds my hair — not gripping, resting, trembling — and I work the claiming shaft with my tongue. The ridges under my lips are textured in a way that is fascinating. Each one a slightly different height, a slightly different temperature, and when I run my tongue along the primary ridge, his whole body locks and his hips buck, and his hand in my hair tightens.
The taste. Mineral-warm. Concentrated. The river-stone scent turned into a flavor that is alien and clean andhis.I taste my way from base to tip, learning the geography, mapping the ridges with my tongue, and every time I cross one he makes a distinct sound. Lower for the thick ridge near the base. Sharper for the sensitive ring at the tip. I am going to know this body better than the manual does.
I pull back. Switch. The other one. My hand still on the claiming shaft, stroking slow, while my mouth finds the secondary. Different shape in my mouth — smoother, the curve hitting differently against my tongue. Different taste — sweeter, lessmineral, something almost floral underneath the salt. When I take it deep his hands leave the bulkhead and find my shoulders, and the grip saysI am dyingin every language.
“Lorri — I can’t — if you keep —”
I look up at him. Both in my hands. His in my mouth. His eyes on mine. I hold the eye contact, and I take the secondary deeper, and I stroke the claiming shaft, and his claws extend into the bulkhead behind him, and the scrape of metal fills the corridor.
“Enough.” Rough. Desperate. He reaches down. His hands under my arms. He lifts me as if I weigh nothing, and I am against the opposite wall and his mouth is on mine and he is tasting himself on my tongue, and the growl that comes through the kiss is from somewhere primal.
“My turn,” he says. Against my mouth. “Finish what I started.”
He drops to his knees.
The third edge breaks me.
He brings me up three more times — three more — on top of the three from before, and the sixth time he holds me at the crest his tongue does something new, both tips vibrating in tandem, a micro-frequency I have never felt, and I shatter. The orgasm rips through me so hard my knees give out entirely, and only his hands keep me from hitting the deck plate.
