“Someone who could probably snap me in half without breaking a sweat.”
“I would never—”
“I know.” And I do know, somehow. “That’s what makes this so dangerous.”
His eyes search mine. “Dangerous how?”
“Because despite everything rational telling me to run, I want to stay.” The admission comes out in a whisper. “I want to see what happens if I stop fighting this.”
Something shifts in his expression—hope, hunger, carefully controlled desire. “Fiona...”
“But I need time,” I continue quickly, before the heat in his eyes makes me lose my train of thought completely. “Time to process, to understand what this means. What you mean.”
“You will have all the time you need,” he promises. “I have waited three years. I can wait longer.”
“Even if it means keeping your hands to yourself while we’re pressed together like this?”
His jaw tightens, and I feel his arms flex around me. “That will be... challenging.”
“Good,” I say, surprising myself with the admission. “I’d hate to think I was the only one struggling with self-control.”
The confession slips out before I can stop it, and his reaction is immediate. His pupils dilate, his breathing changes, and I can feel the sudden tension in his body.
“Fiona,” he says, voice rough with want. “You cannot say things like that and expect me to maintain proper distance.”
“Who said anything about proper distance?” I shift against him, ostensibly to get more comfortable, but really because I want to see what happens when I press closer to all that carefully controlled alien masculinity.
His response is a low growl that I feel more than hear, vibrating through his chest where I’m pressed against him. The sound is definitely not human, and it does things to my body that should probably be illegal.
“You are testing my control,” he warns.
“Maybe a little.” I look up at him through my lashes, feeling bold and reckless and alive in ways I haven’t in years. “Is that a problem?”
“Only if you are not prepared for the consequences.”
The threat, delivered in that deep, careful voice, makes heat coil tight in my stomach. “What kind of consequences?”
Instead of answering with words, he shifts position, one hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. The touch is possessive, claiming, and it makes my breath catch.
“The kind that change everything,” he says, eyes holding mine. “The kind that make it impossible to go back to the way things were.”
I should be intimidated. Should remember all the reasons this is complicated and probably stupid. But looking into those winter-blue eyes, feeling the careful strength in his hands, breathing in his scent in the warm cocoon of his arms, I find myself thinking that maybe some changes are worth the risk.
“Ja’war,” I whisper.
“Yes?”
But before I can figure out what I was going to say, the ship’s communication system crackles to life with an urgent message in a language I don’t recognize. The spell breaks as reality crashes back in.
He listens for a moment, his expression growing increasingly grim.
“What is it?” I ask.
“OOPS emergency frequency,” he says, gently moving me aside as he stands to respond. “The research colony. They are reporting accelerated plague progression.”
The warmth of his arms is replaced by cold air and crushing responsibility. Right. People are dying while I’m having romantic epiphanies in an alien’s lap.
“How much time do we have?” I ask, standing and brushing off my clothes, trying to shift back into practical problem-solving mode.
