Page 62 of Starfighter’s Salvation

“Priya.”

Of course. “Traitor.”

“You will eat one full meal every day while seated,” he said. “Non-negotiable.”

"You're using that no negotiation thing a little too much, don't you think?”

“No. I have not yet begun.”

“You do not outrank me at the dinner table.”

He pushed the cake closer. “File a grievance.”

I laughed but ate the cake. Because it was delicious, not because he won.

When the plates were empty, he stood and held out his hand. He pulled me to my feet. “Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Pain?”

“No.”

“Dizzy?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He picked me up like I weighed nothing, one arm under my knees and one at my back, and I laughed and wrapped my arms around his neck. Up close he smelled of soap and warm skin and my whole body knew exactly where this was going. “I can walk.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you carrying me?”

“Because I want to.”

That answer shut me up.

He laid me down like cargo marked fragile, and then he followed me down, and his mouth found mine, and there was nothing careful about that part at all.

“Yours,” I said. “And you’re mine too.”

His breath left him in a shudder.

He covered my body with his. The weight felt good. Solid. Warm. Real. I kissed him. My hands moved over his back, his shoulders, his ass.

“You have been waiting to do that,” he said against my mouth.

“Fourteen months.”

“Do it again.”

I squeezed, and he nibbled on my lower lip. Fair.

We stripped each other between kisses, clumsy with hurry, his flight suit fighting me until he growled and did it himself, and then there was skin. So much skin. Scarred and hot and mine to touch, finally, all of it, and I put my hands everywhere at once.

Corvan kissed his way down my neck. He stopped at the bonding mark and licked over it. Heat shot through my entire body.