Page 40 of Radiant Exception
I sighed against him, knowing it was dangerous to make promises I couldn’t keep, but too interested to see where this would go to turn him down. “Yeah.”
Slowly coming out of my post-orgasmic haze, he allowed me to turn in his arms. “I have a few rules of my own.” I looked up at him through my lashes, noting his dilated pupils and still able to feel his hard-on through his uniform.
“Of course you do.” He smirked, placing his hands at my waist before taking a step forward to once again pin me against his desk, making sure I wasn’t going anywhere without his permission.
“We’re working together on this mission from now on. If not, it’s a deal-breaker,” I said firmly, letting my hands gently rest on his chest.
“Deal,” he agreed a little too quickly for my liking.
“The schematics.” I glanced over my shoulder at the open desk compartment. “I want to take the lower-level printouts with me to study.”
“Only if they’re returned in the same condition,” he countered, his gaze searing.
“Do you really think I’d damage them?” I argued, trying not to look at his lips, because it was hard to focus when I wanted to kiss him again, more than negotiate.
“No, but our junior officer is a halfwit, and we’re trying to work undercover, so probably best to keep them hidden from the others, so nobody gets paranoid,” he reasoned.
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Why do you want them anyway?”
“I’ll tell you when I find what I’m looking for.” It wasn’t that I wanted to keep it from him, but I wanted to make sure I was right first. “And we do a nightly mission debrief back in the room,” I added my last caveat.
“Fine by me.”
“You’re being too agreeable.” I eyed him suspiciously.
Vaughn leaned forward, his lips brushing against mine softly before he retreated slightly to say, “You’ve been so cooperative, it’s the least I could do. And if I’m being honest, I get off on you doing as you’re told.”
Then he pulled me to him, his mouth clashing with mine in a much more brutal kiss. This one was claiming, as if to seal the deal we’d just made and to make sure I knew he was coming for me.
I knew.
And I wasn’t ready.
I’d been on pins and needles all day waiting for the evening to come. In such a short time, things had shifted so monumentally with Vaughn. I spent the rest of the day continuing to run a deep dive on the diagnostics, which pulled up a few points of concern, which I would address with the dear captain at some point.
I also scoured the schematics he’d allowed me to borrow, with no luck. They didn’t appear to be any different than the digital versions, but my gut was telling me something was off, so I’d go sheet by sheet, quadrant by quadrant, line by line, until I was satisfied I had left no stone unturned.
I was doing anything and everything to distract myself from the reality that when I went back to the room, I wasn’t sure what version of Vaughn I would get: the brusque captain, the suspicious spy, or the tender lover. I had to be prepared for all options, and I was determined not to get my hopes up about which Vaughn would be waiting for me.
It turned out, it was none of those. It was the wounded soldier who awaited me.
When I entered the captain’s quarters, Vaughn was sitting on the edge of the bed, clad only in his boxers, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers digging into his temples.
I’d waited for him in the mess for a little while, but when he didn’t show up, I wondered if something was wrong. Just in case, I’d brought enough food for the two of us to eat in the room, knowing that we couldn’t talk about such sensitive topics in a public space.
He looked up when he heard the door close behind me. “Is everything okay?” I asked, setting the tray of food on the desk across from the bed.
“I—” Vaughn paused. His gaze seemed to ask if he could trust me. He must have decided it was worth a shot. “I have lingering injuries from the rebellion, and…PTSD,” he reluctantly admitted.
I sat down on the bed beside him. He let his head fall into his hands, again rubbing at his temples. “I get headaches.”
I watched the muscles in his arms ripple with the motion of his fingers. This close to him, I finally realized that the dragon scale tattoo sleeve that started at his shoulder and went all the way down to his wrist was as I had theorized. Each scale was a line of tight cursive text. Each scale was a name.
Unable to resist, I reached out, tracing the tip of my finger along one of the scales.
He looked up at me, then down to where my finger was touching him, and sighed. “The team I lost.” He frowned.
