I toss a towel onto the sink, throat suddenly dry. “Flattery’s cheap. What do you want?”
“You.”
My brain shorts out for half a second. “You wantme.”
He nods. No hesitation. “Storage room. Ten minutes.”
I laugh. It sounds more like a bark. “You got some kind of nerve.”
He just waits.
Doesn’t push. Doesn’t plead. Just waits.
And that’s what does it.
Not the size, or the voice. Not the golden eyes or the promise of a body that looks like it was sculpted by planetary tectonics. It’s the stillness. The certainty.
He doesn’t try to convince me.
HeknowsI’m already halfway to saying yes.
I don’t remember walking there. One second I’m behind the bar. The next, I’m shoving open the door to the back storage room like I’ve lost my damn mind.
It smells like metal and dust and cold air recycled too many times. Shelves stacked with ration boxes and old tech spill shadows across the floor. It’s cramped and dim and absolutely the wrong place to make a mistake.
But there he is.
Waiting.
Troka steps in after me, shuts the door with a click that sounds way too final, and then we’re alone. Just him. Just me. Just a heartbeat stretching like a fault line under pressure.
He doesn’t touch me. Not right away.
His eyes drag over me like slow flame. “You sure?”
God, I hate how much I like that he asked. That pause, that ounce of control he hands me.
I nod.
He moves fast.
His mouth crushes into mine with a ferocity that short-circuits thought. His lips are rough, hot, devouring. One hand behind my neck, claws grazing my scalp, the other locking around my waist like he’s anchoring me to the moment.
I gasp. He groans, and the sound rumbles through my chest like thunder. His tongue brushes mine—slick, alien, demanding—and my knees buckle. I cling to the ridges of his armor, to the impossible heat of him, but it’s not enough.
I want skin. I want him.
His scales burn against me as he presses forward, and I feel every muscle under his uniform, every part of him that screams predator. Brash, brutal, male.
I break the kiss. Just for breath.
“Gods,” I pant.
“Say it again,” he growls, teeth brushing my throat as he licks down my skin.
“Cocky much?” I laugh, breathless.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, my back slammed against the wall. The rough metal digs into my shoulders, but I don’t care. I wrap my legs around his waist, and holy hell, I feel him. Thick, hard, grinding against the heat between my thighs.
