Page 50 of Silver Slayer

Silence settled over the crew quarters once more, heavy and expectant, as though the ship itself was holding its breath. Quin stood before me, her dark hair falling in waves around her shoulders, her dove-gray eyes searching my face with an intensity that made my scales prickle. For several heartbeats she simply studied me. Her gaze traced the line of my jaw, lingered on the set of my mouth, then dropped to the scars at my throat that I could not hide. I held still beneath her examination, offering no resistance.

Then her lips curved. A bittersweet expression that carried so much tenderness it made my chest ache, and beneath it, a sadness so profound it nearly broke both my hearts.

She crossed the remaining distance between us and stepped between my knees. My hands found her waist as naturally as breathing, resting there with gentle restraint, my thumbs tracing idle circles against the fabric of her shirt. She was warm beneath my palms, solid and real, and the ache of her spirit ribboned around mine, a faint echo of emotions that were not my own but had become impossible to distinguish from what belonged to me.

“Then let us make an agreement,” I said, smiling despite myself. “I will do my best not to overwhelm you with my... warm and fuzzies, if you will stop sharing the ache of your heartbreak with me.”

She cupped my face in both hands. Her palms were warm against my scales, her thumbs resting against the ridges of my cheekbones with a gentleness that made my breath catch. Her eyes held mine, gray and steady and impossibly deep.

“I wish I could,” she whispered. The words were barely audible, shaped by lips that trembled slightly. “I wish I knew how to stop feeling what I feel. But I don’t.”

Before either of us could overthink it, she leaned down and kissed me.

Softly. Tenderly. Her lips pressed against mine with a gentleness that belied the storm I could feel building beneath her skin. The kiss was unhurried, a slow exploration that tasted of salt and warmth and sweeter beneath both. She lingered, her mouth moving against mine with a patience that made my hands tighten at her waist, and when she finally pulled back, the space between us felt charged with everything she had not said.

My forehead pressed against hers. I felt the warmth of her breath on my lips, slightly unsteady, and watched the delicate flutter beneath the skin of her throat where her pulse raced.

“If you kiss me like that again,” I said softly, my voice rough with restrained desire, “I will forget every promise we made to deny the bond.” I swallowed hard, my thumbs pressing against the curve of her waist. “And I will have you beneath me before either of us remembers why we should stop.”

Chapter Eighteen

QUIN

“If you kiss me like that again,” Vennox uttered, his voice quiet and even, each word laid down with the careful weight held just barely in check, “I will forget every promise we made to deny the bond, and I will have you beneath me before either of us remembers why we should stop.”

His words landed in the pit of my stomach like a lit match dropped in gasoline.

Heat flooded my core so fast it stole the air from my lungs. My thighs clenched involuntarily, and I felt the slick, unmistakable evidence of my body’s betrayal pooling between my legs, soaking through the thin fabric of my pants with embarrassing speed. My skin prickled with a flush that climbed from my chest to my cheeks, and the echo of his restraint, that raw and barely leashed hunger vibrating through the bond, made my knees go weak.

I remembered what it felt like to have him inside me. The thick, devastating stretch of him filling me to the hilt, the ridges of his shaft dragging against my walls, the triangular flaps teasing my clit with each thrust, and the way my body had clenchedaround him like it was trying to keep him there forever. My channel ached with the memory, empty and throbbing, and every instinct I possessed screamed at me to close the distance between us and take what I wanted.

But I knew better now.

Another round of sex would only tighten the thread between us, weaving another strand into a bond I was already struggling to resist. The shawra pulsed beneath my shirt like a second heartbeat, and I could feel his desire bleeding through the connection. Not as words or images, but as pure, unfiltered sensation. Heat. Pressure. The desperate, aching need of a male who had been denied physical intimacy his entire life and had finally found the one person who made him burn.

I couldn’t give him that. Not again. Not if I wanted to maintain any hope of walking away.

But I also couldn’t walk away from him right now. Not when his hands were warm on my waist, and his forehead was pressed against mine, and the taste of his kiss still lingered on my lips like a promise I wasn’t ready to break.

“There are other ways,” I rasped. “To ease the ache. Without... without going all the way.”

His brow furrowed, the silver of his irises flickering with confusion. “I do not understand.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering in my throat. “Sex isn’t the only way to pleasure each other. There are things we can do that feel incredible without... without penetration. Without sealing the bond any further.”

His hands tightened at my waist, scales flushing a deeper shade of blue. “Show me,” he said, and the raw hunger in those two words nearly undid me.

I dropped to my knees.

The deck plating was cold against my shins, but I barely registered it. My fingers found the hem of his kilt, and I pushed the fabric up his thighs with deliberate slowness, watching his face as his breath caught and his jaw clenched. I felt a wicked, knowing grin spread across my lips, heady with power.

I was about to blow his mind. Literally.

The thought sent a thrill racing down my spine. Everything I did with Vennox would be his first. His first kiss. His first touch. His first time inside a woman. And now, his first blow job. The knowledge was intoxicating, a rush of heat and possessiveness that made my core clench with want.

I pushed aside the thought that tried to surface. Some other woman taking my place once I returned to Earth. Some faceless stranger who would get to experience all of this with him after I was gone. I shoved it down deep and locked it away. Right now, he was mine, and this was ours.

And there, freed from the confines of his kilt, was the evidence of exactly how much he wanted this. His erection jutted upward, thick and rigid and flushed a deep, vivid blue that darkened to navy at the swollen, weeping tip. Pre-cum beaded at the slit, catching the dim light, and the sight of it made my mouth water.