Page 27 of Alien Healer’s Mate

“Leave him alone!”

Kellat looked down at her, his eyes dark and stormy, then he closed his hand around her wrist and all but dragged her off down the corridor away from the argument.

“Hey!” She had to half-jog to keep up with him. “You’re all being ridiculous! He was hammered, Kellat, it wasn’t… Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer her, just carried on walking down a corridor she didn’t recognize, his jaw set. Then they reached a door, and it hissed open. He hauled her through it, and it slid shut behind them, cutting the noise of the ship off dead.

Her eyes widened as she looked around. His quarters. They were in his quarters.

She spun around, and everything went up at once—the hurt from the med bay, the whiplash of the whole night, the icky feeling of Nivaak’s mouth still on hers—the whole mess boiling over in one go.

“What is your problem?” Her voice cracked like a whip. “You treat me like fragile glass one minute and a nuisance the next! You lock me in rooms, you drag me around, you almost kiss me, and then you run away… so which is it? Do you even like me, or am I just a fucking medical project?”

Kellat stood by the door, his chest heaving and his gaze locked on her like she was the only thing in the galaxy.

“You are not a project.” It came out as a growled rasp.

“Then stop acting like I am!” She stepped toward him. “You almost kissed me! You actually almost did it, and then you walked out and left me standing there like an idiot, and now you’re⁠—“

He moved, and she didn’t even see it coming. One second he was across the room, and her back was against the door. His palm slammed into the door behind her, his body caging hers, and her words died in her throat. Heat rolled off him in waves, his scent wrapping around her… leather and something warm and male, and her knees went loose as her breath hitched.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, violet-blue eyes moving over her face. There was nothing clinical left in them, nothing careful. There was just raw hunger and heat.

His fingers slid into the hair at the nape of her neck.

He didn’t hesitate.

His mouth came down on hers, hard and certain, and oh… It was everything she’d been trying not to imagine since she woke up staring at his perfect face. Making a small, broken sound against his lips, she surged up into him, arms winding around his neck, her fingers digging into the leather over his shoulders.

He groaned, deep and guttural, and hauled her closer, his arm locking around her waist until her toes barely brushed the floor. His thigh slid between hers, pressing her back into the wall, and she arched into him because there was nowhere else she wanted to be. The whimper broke free as he took her mouth like he’d been starving for it.

His hand tightened in her hair, tipping her head to open her up to him. She went, gladly, drowning in the heat and the taste of him and the sheer solid reality of his body against hers.

Pulling back an inch, he dropped his forehead to rest against hers, and they stood there breathing each other’s air.

“Mine,” he growled, the word vibrating against her lips.

She didn’t have an answer for that. Not one made of words, anyway.

So she fisted her hands in his jacket and pulled him back down to kiss him again.

7

Kellat’s mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, and Delilah forgot how to breathe.

Her back was flat against the door, and the metal should have been cold, but she couldn’t feel anything past the heat rolling off him. She surged up into the kiss, meeting him with a desperation that scared her a little.

Because the old reflex was already stirring. The one that had gotten her out of every good thing before it could go bad. Run before they figure out you’re not worth the effort.

She pulled back an inch, her lips swollen and tingling. “This is…”

Pulling her back, he kissed her again and groaned, the sound vibrating through her chest. His hand slid from the wall to the curve of her hip as he pressed closer.

Stop talking, and kiss him back.

He broke the kiss to trail his lips down her jaw, then over the sensitive skin of her throat. A small sound escaped her as her head fell back against the wall. God, he smelled so good.

Then his hands found the edge of the gown where it crossed her shoulder, and she froze for a moment. He was a doctor, from a species that had no women. How did she know he wasn’t⁠—