Page 69 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

Ghar goes still.

The bond flares hot, not with the overwhelming psychic rupture of first contact, but with something lower, closer, and much more dangerous. Awareness moves between us in the damp silver-lit chamber. His proximity becomes impossible to ignore. The breadth of him. The blood on his skin. The disciplined restraint barely holding against everything he feels and refuses to claim. My own pulse turns traitorous, thudding against my throat with embarrassing force.

Sira rises with elegant tact. “Brakk, I believe the relay requires inspection at the chamber entrance.”

Brakk looks between us, then groans. “Subtle as orbital bombardment, but fine.”

They move away, though not far enough to give privacy in any real sense. In these ruins, privacy is another fiction, like safety, theology, and my ability to make good decisions.

Ghar remains in front of me.

I should step back.

I do not.

“You should rest,” he says, though his voice has changed.

“So should you.”

“I can continue.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No.”

The admission makes something ache between us.

I look down at his hands. They are scarred, strong, and still flexed with the effort not to reach for me. That restraint undoes me more than touch would have. He is choosing. Every second, he is choosing.

And damn it, I want to believe that matters.

“You scare me,” I say.

His expression tightens. “Because I kill.”

“Partly,” I admit. “I’d be lying if I said watching you tear through those attackers didn’t rearrange some things in my head. But mostly you scare me because I believe you when you say you choose.”

Ghar’s eyes search my face. “Why does that frighten you?”

“Because if this were only biology, I could hate it properly.”

The words come out softer than I intended.

The air between us changes.

Ghar does not move closer, but he no longer feels distant. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, so quickly I might have pretended not to notice if every nerve in my body had not noticed on my behalf.

My breath catches.

He hears it.

Of course he hears it.

“Anita,” he says, and this time my name sounds less like warning and more like restraint under pressure.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

His face goes still. “Don’t what?”