A few awkward dates.
One disastrous situationship in my mid-twenties.
Drunken New Year’s mistakes that ended with me feeling emptier than before.
Nothing—nothing had ever felt like this.
Sten kissed me like he meant it.
Like he’d been starving for it.
Like he wanted to consume every lonely, aching part of me and replace it with something brighter.
Warmer.
Wanted.
His growl deepened when I moaned again, and I realized with sudden, breathless horror that he liked those sounds.
Liked what he was doing to me.
The realization sent heat spiraling low through my stomach.
I pressed closer without thinking.
Couldn’t help it.
Every inch of him fascinated me.
His skin beneath my fingertips felt impossibly warm, smooth in some places and rougher where muscle flexed beneath it.
The heat radiating from him seeped through my clothes until I felt drenched in him.
Moonlight and fire.
That was what kissing Sten felt like.
I remembered watching a documentary once during one of my sleepless nights back on Earth. Volcanoes. Magma.
Rare blue flames igniting sulfur dust in the darkness.
That.
That was the kind of heat wrapped around me now.
Beautiful enough to hypnotize.
Dangerous enough to destroy.
And I liked it.
Oh yes.
I really, really liked it.
Sten tasted like smoky spice and midnight and every terrible decision I wanted to make twice.
His chest rumbled again, some deep inhuman sound vibrating through me so intensely I thought my knees might actually give out beneath me.
