Page 35 of Starfighter’s Salvation

“Renn,” he said finally. “He handled minor injuries during missions.”

Of course. I placed the last magical, alien suture and tilted my head to inspect my handiwork. It was good. The bleeding had stopped completely, and the healing material seemed to already be knitting the wound together. I grabbed a bandage and covered the wound. That would do. “Well, now you have me.”

The words came out automatically. I said them to patients all day. Corvan reacted as if I had touched something much deeper than the wound. His hand closed around my wrist, careful, his calluses warm against my pulse. I froze.

“Do I?” His voice had gone lower, and the gravel ran straight through me.

“Do you what?” I was standing too close. He was sitting, our height difference eliminated so that I stared straight into his sexy as sin eyes.

“Have you?”

This was a terrible time to make a life-altering decision. The bay door was open. The crew could come back at any moment. We had maybe three hours until we left on a suicide mission, flying blind into a narrow trench full of wounded people and enemy guns. Logic told me to step back and keep my hands where they belonged. The last thing either of us needed was a deep dive into this emotional hurricane that had been building between us. Right?

Or maybe, he was exactly what I needed right now. If he wasn't such a stubborn idiot, I would have been in his bed last night and this longing wouldn't be tearing me apart.

To hell with logic. I twisted my wrist in his hold so I could lean forward and kiss him. I meant the kiss to be soft. A thank-you for letting me see the hurt. A small answer to the uncertainty in his voice. And, most importantly, in invitation to more.

His mouth was warm and still for one suspended second, as if he had not decided whether he was allowed to respond.

Then he made a rough sound against my lips.

His free hand came to the back of my head, holding me in place. He gave me every chance to pull away. His thumb trembled at the base of my skull. I kissed him again because I wanted him to know this was exactly what I wanted.

Corvan pulled me closer.

The table edge pressed the fronts of my thighs. His bare chest was hot under my palms. I climbed half onto the med table, onto his lap, without thinking. His arm came around my waist to steady me as I kissed him again and again. Need hit me hard. This huge, wounded man held me as if I were both precious and entirely capable of destroying him. His breath rushed against my cheek. The outside world seemed to fall away until there was nothing but him and me and the small, warm space between us.

His tongue touched mine, slow at first. A question. I answered by sliding my fingers into his hair. Softer than it looked. He shuddered, and the bond mark at my nape went from feeling like a warm blanket to a live wire shooting desire straight down my spine to my core. I had spent months looking at him on a screen, telling myself the low voice, the scars, the impossible shoulders were just game design. The real man smelled of warm skin and hot metal and the sharp medicinal tang of the suture seal. He tasted like heat and salt and something I knew was unique to him. The roughness of his hands told me his restraint was slipping.

Good. I wanted him just as lost and out of control as I was.

When he deepened the kiss, I forgot everything else. The game, the mission, the launch clock. There was only Corvan’s mouth and the terrifying relief of finally being wanted by someone who knew me. The real me. He'd spent hundreds of hours training with me, seen sides of me I'd never shown anyone else. And he didn't run.

His tongue stroked mine. His hand tightened in my hair, careful and rough at the same time. Heat shot through me fast enough to burn off whatever restraint I had left. I tasted him again and again, because I could. I had imagined this mouth while sitting alone in my apartment, and the real thing was hotter, rougher, and impossible to resist.

Corvan released my wrist, moved so that his palm cupped my ass. He lifted me higher between his thighs. The hard ridge of his cock pressed against my clit through my uniform, and I moaned as need arced through me like electricity and went straight to my empty, aching core.

If we didn't stop, I was going to be riding him like a wild cowgirl right here. Right now.

I pulled back and rested my forehead against his as I struggled to regulate my breathing. “That was not part of our training." Good thing, because I would have been totally addicted to that stupid game to the point I would called in sick to work so I could make out with my imaginary boyfriend. God help humanity if the tech giants ever figured out how cross that virtual reality bridge.

“No. It was not.”

“What are we doing? You don't even want me.” The sad, sad admission tumbled past my internal sensors right out of my mouth. Damn it. I couldn't take it back. I sounded desperate and lonely and emotional. All the things I actually had been since he'd abandoned me on Earth.

“Gina. That is not⁠—”

"Not what? The truth? It's the truth that you don't want me here. That you think I should have stayed back on Earth where I'd be safe." If he tried to deny his own words now, with my sensitive clit pressed against his hard cock, my lips swollen from his kisses, and his hand on my ass, I was going to scream.

“I can't lose you.”

I kept my shoulders loose and rubbed against him because I was a god damn masochist. "Just shut up and kiss me. Take me bed and put us both out of our misery."

"That would be unwise." His eyes closed. “You are deliberately being difficult.”

“You knew that before you came to Earth.” I leaned in and kissed his jaw. The corner of his mouth. He tasted good. Warm and male and real. Very real.

“Gina.” He said my name against my skin like a warning.