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The startling beauty of his answering smile made my heart skip.
I’d meant all my talk of waiting and communicating better before finalizing our mating-bond marriage thingy.
But on one level, it was already too late. My eager heart had leaped forward without consulting my brain.
I was already falling for him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Raxnor
I carried my soul’s breath into the shower stall and pulled reluctantly away.
“Stay!” Her beautiful eyes danced with seductive mischief as the water kicked on. “It’ll be like the waterfall.”
My tail lifted, humming behind me. Frek! I could never get enough of her! The mating pull drove me to her, demanding we finalize our bond. But it was more than that. Her joy drew me to her. I was a planet turning ever toward its sun, basking in the light and warmth of her being.
“If I stay, we’ll never get clean in time.” My voice dropped to a deep growl. “Don’t you remember what happened at the waterfall?”
“Hmm.” Her lips twisted as she stared off into the distance, tapping at her chin. Then she beamed up at me. “I’m feeling kind of forgetful. Why don’t you remind me?”
“I will. Later.” I’d lock Tark in the cockpit if I had to. Though knowing my friend, he’d lock himself in willingly. Then I knocked on the shower wall. “Besides, the stall is far too small for the two of us.”
Holding my eyes, she stepped back under the spray, letting the water course down her lovely body. “I don’t know. I bet we could come up with something.”
I groaned as my cock grew heavy and swollen. “Frek, female! You are temptation itself!”
She ran her hands over her breasts, her fingers circling her large nipples, drawing my attention to their burgundy-brown color, so different and lovely. “Sorry. Not sorry!” she sang out.
I spun around and shut the bathing room door behind me while I could still leave. And just in time. The light over the airlock flashed to indicate the outer hatch opening.
After yanking my pants up my legs, I sealed the back over my tail and was still working on the front when the inner hatch opened and Tark stepped into the main cabin.
“My plan worked!”
He grinned so widely I knew I’d never hear the end of it, so I scowled. But I couldn’t maintain it. “It worked,” I agreed. “It’s not the mate bond, but things are better.”
“Frek, Raxnor, the air-circulation system isn’t that fast.” Tark took an audible sniff. “I’d say things were better than ‘better.’”
The combined scent of Zo-Fee and me and sex still coated my skin, so I hadn’t realized it also filled the room. I grunted and took a playful swipe at Tark, which he sidestepped with an arm block. We sparred regularly back on theDaredevil, but the shuttle didn’t have the room for it. “Just you wait,” I said. “The next time we spar, I’ll clean the floor with you.”
“Yep, you usually do.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind. I know you only do it to keep me in fighting form.”
I grunted. It was true. Tark spent so much time working on critical engineering duties that when he found time to train, I made sure he sweated for it. “I keep getting stuck with you on missions. If you’re going to watch my back, you’re going to be good at it.”
He clapped a hand to my shoulder. “We both know you do it because you worry about me, but if you need to pretend it’s something else, go right ahead.”
Old reactions flared, and I almost knocked his hand away and downplayed what he’d said.
But my Zo-Fee’s words rang through my mind. I needed to get better at communicating and stop hiding everything—especially the important things with the important people.
Tark had already turned away, used to me by now, so when I grabbed him and spun him around, his eyes widened. “Raxnor?”
“Don’t talk yet. This is going to be hard enough without you interrupting me,” I ground out.
He nodded.
“You are my best friend. You’ve stood by me over the years when no one else wanted to be around me.” I snorted. “Frek, most of the time,Ididn’t want to be around me.”
