Page 17 of Ashes & Aether

“See something you like, Maggie?” I purr, my voice scraping the bottom of its register.

Her head snaps up. The icy barrier slams back into place, though the furious blush remains. Her blue eyes are wide, manic, and absolutely lethal.

“Are you entirely out of your mind?” she hisses, her voice vibrating with suppressed outrage.

“My mind is functioning perfectly.” I shift my weight, letting the fabric pull tighter across my groin. My cock twitches in response to the friction, a heavy, visual throb that she tries and fails to ignore. “My body, however, seems to have developed a rather sudden, violent appreciation for your temper.”

“You are an animal.”

“I am an Avaren male.” I tilt my head, and hold her gaze. “And you are the one who started an argument with me in an empty room.”

“I did not start it!” she snaps, taking a sudden, jerky step backward, putting a safe distance between her tailored trousers and my compromised ones. “You crashed my meeting!”

“Because you didn’t invite me.”

“Because you are insufferable!”

“And yet,” I murmur, taking a slow, measured step forward, tracking her retreat, “you haven’t shot me yet.”

Maggie hits the edge of the war table behind her. Her hands grip the metal rim, her knuckles turning white. She is trapped between the map of her dying world and the alien who cannot stop looking at her mouth.

“I am considering it,” she states, though the threat lacks its usual venom. Her chest rises and falls rapidly and the pink flush has settled high on her cheekbones.

I stop, leaving two feet of space between us. A strategic concession. If I push her any further right now, she will actually draw her weapon, and while my nanites’ shields are effective, I’d rather not test her aim today.

“Consider it all you want.” I flash her a slow, devastating smirk. “But tomorrow, when you hold your morning briefing, you will send someone to fetch me. Or I will simply kick the doors down again.”

She stares at me, her jaw clenched, her gaze refusing to drop below my chin again.

“Get out of my war room, Orien.”

“As you wish, Commander.”

I execute a flawless, mocking bow, the movement pulling the fabric tight across my groin one last time, just to ensure she remembers exactly what she saw.

Then I turn and walk toward the doors, the aching pulse of my arousal a pleasant reminder that I am alive. The doors hiss open, and I step back into the corridor, leaving Margaret Elmsleigh alone to rebuild her walls.

SUBJECT: ELMSLEIGH, MARGARET.

THREAT ASSESSMENT: IMMINENT.

I run a hand through my hair, a low chuckle escaping my lips.

I am going to unravel her. Piece by piece. And I am going to enjoy every single second of it.

4

MAGGIE

The heavy reinforced doors hiss shut, sealing me inside the war room.

I don’t move. I stand with my spine locked, my hands gripping the edge of the metal table until the cold steel bites into my palms.

An alien spymaster just cornered me in my own bunker and weaponized his erection. A massive, thick, bumpy… No.

A flush burns on my cheeks. I hate it. I hate the heat radiating through my chest, and I absolutely despise the vivid, high-definition image branded into the front of my brain. His cock pressing against the indecently form-fitting material of his clothes. The sheer, predatory arrogance in those molten orange eyes when he caught me looking.

I press the heels of my hands against my closed eyelids until bursts of white light pop in the darkness.