“Celebrate?”
“Our freedom. Our escape. The fact that we’re still alive.” Her fingers traced the texture of his skin through his uniform, sending sparks of sensation racing along his nerve endings. “I don’t want to wait anymore, Becsul.”
His breath caught. “Wait for what?”
“For you to make me your mate.”
The words almost knocked him to his knees. He’d dreamed of hearing them for so long. In the darkest hours of the night he’d allowed himself to imagine a future where she chose him willingly, freely, without the shadow of captivity hanging over them.
But they weren’t free. Not yet. Not really.
“Melissa.” He caught her hands, stilling their exploration, and forced himself to meet her eyes. “We’re still being hunted. We’re hiding in an abandoned building on a dying planet, waiting to be smuggled off-world in a cargo hold. This isn’t?—”
“I know what this is.” Her voice was steady and certain. “I know exactly what this is.”
“Do you?” He released one of her hands to cup her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheekbone. Her skin was so soft, so impossibly soft against his rougher skin. “Because I need you to be sure. I need to know that this isn’t just relief. Or adrenaline. Or gratitude because I got you out of that place.”
“You think I want you because you saved me?”
“I think emotions run high in situations like this. I think humans and Cire alike can confuse survival instincts for something deeper.” He swallowed, fighting against every instinct that screamed at him to stop talking and simply take what she was offering. “I think if we do this and you regret it later, it would destroy me.”
Something shifted in her expression. The determination was still there, but it was joined now by a tenderness that made his chest constrict.
“Becsul.” She reached up, her fingers brushing against his jaw. “I’ve been married to my work my entire adult life. I chose artificial insemination because I didn’t think I’d ever find a partner who could match me, who could challenge me, and who could stand beside me as an equal instead of trying to control me or change me.”
“Melissa—”
“Let me finish.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and the simple touch sent heat racing through his veins. “When the Vedeckians took me and I woke up in that cell with my son, I thought my life was over. I thought I would die there, or worse—that I would survive and watch them turn me into something I didn’t recognize. A vessel. A resource. A thing to be used.”
Her voice trembled slightly, but her eyes remained steady on his.
“And then you walked into my cell, and you held my crying baby, and you looked at me like I was a person. Like I mattered. Like my comfort and my dignity and my choices meant something.” She shook her head slowly. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since anyone made me feel that way?”
“I only treated you as you deserved to be treated.”
“Exactly.” Her smile was small but genuine. “You only treated me the way I deserved. That’s not nothing, Becsul. That’s everything.”
She stepped closer, pressing her body against his, and his tail tightened reflexively around her waist. He could feel her heat through their clothes and smell the unique scent that had become as familiar to him as his own heartbeat—warm and sweet, with undertones of milk from nursing Robbie.
“I’m not asking you because you saved me,” she said softly. “I’m asking because you’re the first person in my entire life who has made me feel like I could be saved and still be myself. Because when I think about the future—any future, any possibility—I can’t imagine one that doesn’t include you.”
“Melissa…”
“I love you.” The words were simple, offered without hesitation or apology. “I love you, and I want you, and we have four hours before we have to run again. I don’t want to waste them wondering what if.”
The last of his resistance crumbled.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle, not after weeks of wanting and waiting and careful restraint finally breaking free. He claimed her mouth with a desperation that surprised even him, his hands finding her waist, her hips, the curve of her back as he pulled her impossibly closer.
She made a sound against his lips, a moan that sent fire racing straight to his core, and her arms wound around his neck, her fingers caressing the sensitive skin at the base of his skull. The sensation made him shudder, made his tail tighten convulsively around her.
“Bed,” she breathed when they broke apart for air. “Now.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
He lifted her easily and carried her the few steps to the narrow bed. When he laid her down, she pulled him with her, and then he was above her, between her thighs, watching her face in thedim light and thinking that he had never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life.
