Page 40 of Rogue Starfighter

The silence coming off him was deafening. I'd miss him for a while, but I'd get over him. Right? Eventually? Like when I was dead, maybe?

“I can't let you go.” His tone made it seem like he was speaking of a death sentence, not falling in love. Still, my traitorous little heart did a zig-zag, flip-flop in my chest anyway. He was supposed to be mine and I wanted him. All of him. Including his broken heart.

I just needed to push him a little harder so he'd let me get close enough to heal it. I leaned closer. "You have to make a choice. Either let me go or stop fighting this and kiss me."

His hand went into my hair. He dragged me across the gap and kissed me. Vesh did not kiss like a cautious man. His mouth came down hard, hot and open. He caught my lower lip between his teeth. I gasped. His tongue swept into my mouth, and the sound that came out of me was not calm, professional, or remotely dignified.

He growled and kissed me harder. My hands found the front of his uniform. I climbed over the sensor housing to get closer, one knee wedged beside his thighs, my body half across his lap. His fist tightened in my hair. The other hand closed around my waist and hauled me the rest of the way. His cock was hard beneath my thigh. Huge. Hot even through two layers of uniform.

“Oh, God.”

“Not a god,” he said against my mouth.

“Really not the time for alien theology.”

His laugh was one rough breath. Then he kissed the corner of my mouth, my jaw, the spot below my ear. His teeth scraped my skin. I shivered. The mark on my neck burned. Vesh felt it. His mouth moved directly over the swirl, and the bond detonated. Pleasure shot down my spine. I arched against him and cried out. His hand slid from my waist to my ribs, thumb brushing the underside of my breast.

His tongue lingered over the mark as if he had discovered something sacred there. The heat gathered in a tight, trembling coil beneath my skin, then spread through me in waves. I felt his own shock through the bond, the fierce pleasure he took in making me react, and the restraint beneath it. Vesh wanted me. Not as an obligation, not because some alien program had put us together. He wanted me enough that his careful control was starting to fray.

That knowledge burned me almost as much as his mouth. I clutched his shoulders and tipped my head farther back, offering him more. He made a rough sound against my throat, and my body answered before my brain caught up. Every brush of his lips made me ache for the next one. Every second he held back made me want to push him harder until he forgot every reason he had given for keeping his distance.

“Vesh.”

“Tell me to stop.”

“No chance. If you stop now, I'll be furious.”

He cupped my breast through the flight suit. My nipple tightened against his palm. He made a sound so dark and hungry my hips moved on their own. I rubbed myself over the hard ridge of him once, twice, and his head dropped back against the seat.

“Priya. Fuck.”

Hearing that controlled voice break on my name was better than flying the corridor. I did it again. He caught my hips and held me still.

“Why did you stop me?”

“Because if you continue, I am going to take you in this cockpit.”

I looked around the tiny, enclosed space. We could make this work. It would be tight, but… “I’m not seeing the problem.”

“There are exterior bay cameras.”

I looked out the cockpit window and realized we were very much going to put on a show. I liked sex, but I wasn't an exhibitionist. Especially knowing Wroxxon was probably out there scowling at us right this second. “Okay. So there's a problem.”

His mouth curved against my throat. I turned so I could kiss him again. Slower this time. No collision, no fight. I learned the shape of his mouth and the way he breathed through his nose when I ran my tongue over his lower lip. His hand stayed on my breast. Mine slid beneath the edge of his uniform jacket and found hard muscle and hot skin. He shuddered. That nearly undid me. Not the strength. The loss of control.

Vesh pulled back far enough to look at me. His hand moved from my breast to my jaw. His thumb dragged across my wet lower lip. “Never ask me to give you up again. You're mine. No one touches you. No one but me.”

Maybe him going all alpha male should have irritated me. Instead, the bond mark flared and every cell in my body answered. “Yours,” I whispered. Then, because I was still me, “Don’t get smug about it.”

“Impossible.”

The bay comm crackled before I could kiss the grin off his perfect face.

“Recon Two,” a bored technician said, “the qualification run ended six minutes ago. We need the cradle.”

Vesh closed his eyes. I pressed my face into his shoulder and started laughing.

“Were they watching?” I whispered.