Page 36 of Silver Slayer

An anchor.

That was what she was for me. That was what her voice had been in the dark of the nightmare. Something solid to hold onto while the dream tried to pull me under. I held tight to her warmth and let the steady rhythm of her breathing push the last of Gorka out of my mind, and for the first time in forever, slept without fear.

Chapter Twelve

QUIN

Iwoke to heat. Not the dry, relentless heat of a summer’s day in my hometown of Yuma, Arizona. This was something else entirely. A living, breathing furnace curled against my back, solid and immovable as a mountain.

Vennox.

Once my brain caught up with my body, I noticed his arm draped over my waist, heavy and warm, its weight pinning me gently against the bunk. His chest rose and fell in slow, even rhythm against my spine, and the warmth of him seeped through my clothes and into my skin like I’d been lying against a sun-warmed stone. His breath stirred the hair at the nape of my neck, soft and unhurried, and somewhere in the long stretch of unconsciousness we’d both fallen into, the careful distance I’d maintained had dissolved.

And then I felt it.

The rigid, unmistakable length of him pressed against my backside, hard enough that there was no mistaking it for anything but what it was.

My breath caught. Held. I lay perfectly still, every nerve in my body suddenly, acutely aware of him, the weight of his arm, the rhythmic pulse of his twin hearts beating against my back.

The rebreather had stopped hissing at some point. He must have pulled it free in his sleep. The only sound in the room was the quiet of his breathing and the louder, more insistent hammering of my own heart that had migrated south and taken up residence between my thighs.

His arm tightened. Pulled me closer. Not roughly. There was nothing aggressive in the motion, nothing that felt like a demand. It was the unconscious reflex of someone who had been alone for a very long time and had found something warm to hold onto in the dark. His hand settled against my stomach, palm flat, fingers splayed, searing through the thin fabric of my shirt like a brand.

I didn’t move. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t do any of the sensible, self-preserving things I should have done.

Because the inconvenient truth was that I didn’t want to.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed the heat of a man. And after living in a heightened sense of terror, not knowing what was coming at me next, I never knew when my last day would be on this hellscape.

I thought of Dana and Tessa. How quickly their lives had ended without warning. Bio-analyzer or not, that could happen to any one of us.

Ever since I’d first clapped eyes on Vennox, there’d been a low, persistent hum of arousal that had set up shop in my core, a frequency I’d been resolutely ignoring because survival had left no room for it.

But survival was a moving target, and right now, in this sealed room, with the ship groaning softly around us, no one watching and nothing trying to kill me, the frequency had grown louder.

Why not take pleasure where I could find it?

The question surfaced with a kind of reckless, exhausted honesty that I'd always kept locked down tight. What could it possibly hurt to do a little fooling around after everything I’d been through? After weeks of carnivorous plants and hallucinogenic spores and alien predators and the constant, grinding vigilance of keeping myself and everyone else alive? I was entitled to a little fun.

My decision crystallized before I’d fully finished the thought, and I rolled over.

The bunk creaked under the shift of my weight, and Vennox’s arm slid with me, his hand pressed flat against my back as I turned to face him. He didn’t wake. His face was inches from mine, relaxed and peaceful. The hard lines of his jaw softened, full lips slightly parted, just waiting to be kissed. His tattoo-like markings cast a soft blue-white light across the silver of his chest and arms, illuminating the narrow space between us.

My gaze drifted downward and stayed longer than it should have at each stop along the way. His throat first, where the collar scars sat in pale, raised rings against the silver of his scales. Faded but permanent, the kind of scarring that doesn't disappear so much as become part of the landscape of a person.

Then the broad shelf of his chest, to the he carved planes of his abdomen shifting subtly with each breath. Muscles carved that had nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with a body that had been tested and had not broken. And even lower, where the tight taper of his waist barely held up a low-slung kilt.

What was he wearing under there?

The question arrived with a grin I couldn’t quite suppress. Curiosity carried my palm along the heavy muscle of his thigh, drifting inward toward the turgid flesh tenting the fabric. Tangled together with my arousal was a scorching anticipation.

The bulbous tip of his erection met my palm through the kilt’s fabric, and the sheer size of what I was touching made my breath stutter. He wasmassive. Thick and rigid and straining against the soft material. My hand closed around him instinctively, fingers wrapping around a girth that made my palm feel acutely small.

He was as hard as stone in my grip. Maybe harder. And his body burned through the fabric like he was trying to set the kilt on fire. My fingers tightened involuntarily as my hand mapped the length of him. The weight and breadth of what I was holding spiked my pulse, and my core wept an embarrassing amount of fluid.

Vennox moaned.

The sound was low and rough and torn from somewhere deep in his chest. Silver eyes eased open. Not all at once. Slowly, the way someone surfaces from a dream they’re not ready to leave. His lashes lifted in increments. Still caught between sleep and waking, his gaze was unfocused, his body responding to my touch before his mind had fully caught up.