Page 37 of Starfighter’s Salvation

10

Gina

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“You have no idea what you are doing, female." He stood, swung me into his arms as if I weighed nothing, and turned us both around so I was the one on the padded med table with him standing between my thighs. He didn't let go. It was as if his hands we magnetically locked to my hips.

I rested by palms flat on his bare chest and looked up into the face of a man trying desperately to hold himself in check. I locked my gaze to his as I slowly, deliberately slid one hand down over his impressive abs and cupped his rock-hard cock. "I'm calling your bluff. You want me. I want you. We're going on this mission whether you claim me or not. I'm going to be in danger and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

Any hint of amusement or smile vanished. "This is a bad idea."

"I know. I know. You don't want to fall in love with me. You think you'll make bad choices. You won't."

"I will. And it's too fucking late." One big hand closed around the back of my neck. The other braced beside my hip on the table, caging me in. He lowered his head until his lips hovered a whisper over my own. "Remember this moment. When I sacrifice lives because they mean nothing to me compared to yours, remember, this was your choice."

Well hell. That was intense. I processed the words, but my body didn't care about some future hypothetical. He was mine and I wanted him inside me. Wanted his hands all over my skin and his lips on mine. I wanted him to consume every thought and sensation until nothing else existed.

I reached up and tangled my hands in his hair to pull him into a kiss. He was immovable. Too strong. I could barely breathe. I was panting, every moment his scent invaded my lungs driving me mad with desire. My pussy was so wet and achy I could barely think. He was right there and I couldn't get him to close the distance between us. The big hand at the back of my neck tangled in my hair and tilted my face up, his touch deceptively gentle. I was going to crawl out of my own skin if he kept me on edge like this much longer.

He blinked slowly and waited until our gazes met and held. "Once I claim you, there shall be no going back. You will be angry with me. One day, you might even grow to hate me, and I still won't be able to let you go."

"I don't care." The absolute truth burst from me in a rush I could no longer hold back. For years I'd taken care of everyone else. Family, when I had them. Patients. Strangers. No one ever cared about me. Put me first. Protected me. Maybe I was a horrible human being for being so fucking selfish, but I did not care. I was no stranger to death. I'd seen plenty of it in the ER. People died every day for a million different reasons. I wanted someone who would kill for me. I wanted someone who always put me first. This wasn't Earth, this was an alien war zone, and I was tired of feeling guilty for wanting something for myself. "You're mine. If you make me angry, we'll fight, then we'll fuck, then we'll move on. It's war. People die. We'll figure it out."

The hand in my hair became a fist in reflex at my words and a soft sob escaped me, not from pain, from being restrained when everything I wanted was right in front of me.

A shudder passed through him. "I am trying to protect you. I am not rational when it comes to you. I will not be controlled or influenced. There will be no negotiation, mate."

Maybe that had been a poor choice of words, spoken out of pride, not truth. My heart knew the truth, and I was too tired to argue. I was in love with him. That was the beginning and the end of everything between us. "I don't want to negotiate, Corvan. I just want you."

He finally closed the distance between us. I was lost the instant his mouth found mine. There was nothing tentative in the kiss. No careful test, no restrained brush of lips like the ones we had stolen while I worked on his injury. Corvan kissed me as if the three hours between now and launch had already begun burning away, as if he meant to take back every second we had lost to distance, fear, and his damned conviction that I needed protection from him, that I couldn't comprehend the kind of man he was or the choices he might make.

He was wrong. I knew him.

He tasted real.

This was no simulation. And it was nothing like the countless nights I had spent imagining the weight of him, the heat of him, the rough sound he might make if I bit his lower lip.

I did it now.

Corvan growled against my mouth.

The sound went straight between my legs to my wet heat, made my aching, empty core pulse with need.

His dark eyes opened. Hunger had erased every trace of distance from them. His face changed, became calculating. Almost cold. Utterly reserved. For one breath, I thought he would retreat again.

“You don’t get to do this halfway,” I warned. "If you're mine, you're mine."

“I have done everything halfway since I learned you were real.” He dragged his teeth lightly over the sensitive place beneath my ear. “I am finished with halves.”

Then he kissed the corner of my mouth. His lips moved down my jaw. The scrape of his stubble against my skin pulled a shiver from me. He felt it. Of course he did. His mouth lingered at the pulse in my throat, and when he sucked there, hard enough to mark me, my knees tightened around his hips.

He caught the hem of my fitted uniform shirt and pulled it upward. I lifted my arms. The black fabric vanished over my head and landed somewhere behind him. Cool air swept over my bare breasts, but embarrassment never had a chance. Corvan went utterly still.

His gaze moved over me with such naked reverence that my breath caught.

He bent to take my nipple into his mouth.

His tongue circled slowly, contradicting the urgency in the hands that gripped my waist. He sucked until the pleasure sharpened, then soothed the ache with a broad stroke of his tongue. When his mouth crossed to my other breast, his palm covered the one he had abandoned. He learned me with infuriating speed. Every change in my breathing made him bolder. Every helpless movement of my hips drew a rougher sound from his chest.