After three disastrous years working for one of their mining operations, their corporate logo was burned into her memory. Especially after she’d learned what they really did with the tech they “acquired.” She’d sworn she’d never let them get their hands on anything she found.
“Jaz?” His deep voice cut through the spiral of panic. “Your heart—it beats too fast. What is wrong?”
“GenCon.” The word came out strangled. “That symbol—it’s GenCon. They’re a corporation. A very bad corporation. And if they’re out here…”
They’re looking for something. Looking for?—
Her eyes snapped to his face.
“Oh God.” She tried to pull away, but his wings held her gently in place. “Adjar, listen to me. If the anomaly that woke you registered on my scanners and they’re that close, it probablyregistered on theirs too. GenCon has monitoring equipment all over Mars, even in places where they’re not supposed to be. If they detected the explosion, if they know something came out of that ice?—”
“They will come looking,” he finished, his voice flat.
“They’ll want you. They’ll want to study you, to—” Her voice cracked. “You don’t understand. GenCon doesn’t care about people. They care about profit and power and acquisition. If they find out what you are, they’ll?—”
“Jaz.” His hands came up to cup her face, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Breathe.”
“I can’t just breathe, there’s a GenCon search party nearby and you’re—you’re?—”
“I am here. With you. Safe.” His thumbs stroked her cheekbones, the touch impossibly gentle for hands that could crush metal. “The storm hides us. They cannot search in this weather.”
“But when it clears?—”
“When it clears, we will have a plan. We will prepare. We will not panic.”
“I’m not panicking, I’m being realistic?—”
He kissed her, his mouth firm and demanding, shutting down her panic spiral with the most effective tool available. His mouth covered hers with an authority that stole her breath, his tongue sliding past her lips before she could form another word of protest.
Her hands fisted on his shoulders and she kissed him back. She let the fear transmute into something else, something hot andhungry and infinitely preferable to the cold dread that had been consuming her. It hadn’t disappeared, but she was willing to push it away. For now.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
“That,” she gasped, “is not a fair argument technique.”
“I am not arguing.” His eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, the ice-blue nearly swallowed by black. “I am distracting.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, and the sensitive spot below her ear. “Arguing uses words. This uses?—”
“I get it.” She shivered as his lips found her pulse point. “Point made. Very… very thoroughly made.”
“Good.” But he didn’t stop. His mouth traced a path down her neck, and his hands—which had remained carefully above her waist until now—slid lower, following the curve of her hips.
“Adjar—”
“I want to touch you.” The words were a growl against her skin. “May I?”
The formal question, so at odds with the raw heat in his voice, made something flutter in her chest.
“Yes,” she breathed, and he was already moving.
The thermal jacket came off first, his claws careful against the zipper, and then the underlayer beneath it. The cold air hit her skin and she gasped, but his hands followed immediately, spreading warmth wherever they touched. He explored her like she was a landscape to be memorized—the dip of her waist, thecurve of her stomach, and the swell of her breasts still covered by her thin base layer.
“You are so soft,” he murmured, something like wonder in his voice. “I have never touched anything so soft.”
“That’s actually kind of sad.”
