They’d done it, they’d actually done it. She had an entire drive of evidence in her pocket.
Raaze looked at her. His eyes dropped to her mouth, and he surged forward, yanking her into his arms.
This time, she didn’t hesitate as his mouth crashed down over hers.
12
Chapter 11
The corridor wall was cold against her back, his mouth was hot over hers. Heat and need washed through her system, turning every cell into a live wire.
She couldn’t remember how they’d gotten here. One moment they’d been in the cargo bay, the next she was up against the bulkhead with his bigger, harder body pinning hers in the narrow space between the cargo hold and crew quarters. Heat poured off him as his heavily muscled chest pressed against her breasts, and one of his thighs shoved between hers as he made her go up on her toes, riding him. Every inch of him screamed power held in check.
Grabbing the edges of his jacket, she yanked him closer and deepened the kiss. He growled approval in the back of his throat, sliding his tongue along hers in an erotic dance.
This wasn’t anything like the cockpit kiss. That had been short, controlled… her proving a point. It wasn’t like the corridor kiss either… him calling her bluff, and her responding before her brain caught up. It wasn’t even like the kiss in the cleaning closet, all adrenaline and bad timing.
This was different.
This was what had been building between them since she hadn’t looked away as she watched him in the shower. Since he’d cornered her afterward and asked if she’d enjoyed the show, and she couldn’t make herself lie.
He was bigger than she was. She’d known that… she’d known it since the landing pad on Parac’Norr when he’d loomed over her ship like a wall with opinions. But knowing it from a distance and feeling it with his hands on her face and his body pressed against hers were different things entirely.
She broke the kiss long enough to gasp against his mouth. “My quarters.”
He pulled back to look at her. His pupils were blown wide, the amber of his irises reduced to dark red rings. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
She pushed off the wall, grabbed his hand, and tugged. He followed without hesitation, ducking through the hatch behind her as she palmed the door open. Her territory. Her terms. Same as that first kiss.
The door sealed behind them with a soft hiss, and she triggered the isolation sequence for her implant. There was no way she wanted Fred to interrupt them.
The room was small, as all the rooms on the H4-RPY were, but she’d made it hers. The quilt her grandmother had made was spread over the bed, and the nav charts she’d annotated during her first solo runs were pinned to the walls. A small collection of engine parts she’d salvaged from ships that didn’t make it lined up on the shelf like trophies.
Raaze didn’t look at any of it. Instead, he looked at her. “You sure about this, little female?”
She answered by shoving his jacket off his shoulders. It hit the deck behind him with a thud. “Stop talking.”
His lips quirked, and he bent his head to kiss her again, slower this time. His hands found the hem of her shirt and paused there, waiting. She nodded against his mouth, and he pulled it over her head, then stopped.
Just… stopped and looked at her.
“What?” Self-consciousness washed through her. She wasn’t much to look at… too small, too pale, too many calluses on her hands from years of engine work.
“You’re beautiful,” he breathed. “I’ve been thinking about this since the shower.”
“You knew I was watching.”
“Yeah.” His thumb traced her collarbone. “I wanted you to watch.”
She should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t. Instead, she reached for his shirt, tugging it up over his head. The scars she’d seen on the camera feed were different up close: raised and silver, mapping a history of violence across his skin. She traced the one that curved around his ribs.
“Did you get this playing warball?” she asked.
“Training accident.” His voice was rough. “I was nineteen. Thought I was invincible.”
“Were you?”
