"Sorik.”My voice came out low.Raw.The professional space explorer was long gone.On hiatus.Fucking banished by the sex-starved maniac I was now.I felt like an alien.Like a wild animal whose instincts were in control.
"Yes."
One word.
Careful.He was being careful with me.He always was — that precise carefulness of a man who understood exactly how close to the edge I stood and had decided not to push.Not to take what I wasn’t ready to give.
Discipline.Restraint.Honor.This alien was large enough, strong enough, to overpower me.He knew the bond surged through my veins.That I would not be able to resist him.That with one kiss, he could overwhelm every defense I had.Every moment we were together, he gave me space.Let me choose.
I was so tired of resisting him.
What about the crew?
I was the engineer.I was the one who held things together.I had been holding things together for so long, for so many people, across so many missions, that I had forgotten what it felt like to be the one held.
The thought hit like cold water and the warmth retreated.The engineer's brain came back online with a guilty lurch.Ten people.Ten pods.Ten beacons in that jungle.I had been so consumed — by the clock, by the crystal, by the raw sexuality of the man in front of me — that I had not let myself worry about them.
But now I had the crystals I needed to repair the ship.Now, I had a way to get them off the planet.To take them all home.
How could I stay if they all wanted to leave?Shit.
Maybe I could convince our captain to report me dead, killed in the field.Or killed in the crash.No idea if she would do that for me, but I would ask.Because leaving Sorik didn’t feel like an option.It felt like death.
I didn’t want to go back to being a zombie.Unaware.Asleep.Alone.
"We have to find my crew."The words came out raw.Stripped of everything professional."There are ten escape pods.Ten beacons.They're out there in that jungle and I've been up here?—"
"Our warriors will find them.They will all be protected."
Not gentle.Not soft.Certain.The absolute certainty of a man who trusted his people with the same faith he had in his storms, in the nodes along his spine.
"You don't know that."My voice held.Barely."You don't know their condition.The pods could have broken.They could be injured.How do you know?—?”
"I know my warriors."He didn't raise his voice.He didn't need to."I know this valley."His eyes held mine across the crystal light — silver and steady and completely without doubt."Your crew will be found before the storm arrives."
I stood in the glow of the crystals and I believed him.
“Thank you.”I was not in love with him.I couldn’t be.Not if calling it love made leaving a kind of death.No.Absolutely not.This ache in my chest was not love.Couldn’t be.Not yet.
Not yetwasn’t very convincing.
The storm moved outside the cave.Lightning flashed in a violet sky.
His eyes held mine, steady and silver and patient.The tiny space between us hummed with everything neither of us said.
God dammit.I loved him.I loved the way he was always the wall between me and everything that wanted to hurt me.Loved the way he touched me.Kissed me.Let me climb the cliff and caught me when I fell.Loved falling asleep in his arms with our hearts beating the same rhythm.
I knew last night, with his cock buried deep, that something had permanently changed.That I had changed.
Anything else was a lie.I had been lying to myself all day.Pretending I was the same woman who had crashed the ship.The same woman who stepped out into the stormglass forest and was instantly attracted to the most stunning man I’d ever seen.
All this pretending was exhausting.I didn’t want to pretend anymore.
"Last night," I started.
His focus was absolute.He didn’t move.Didn’t flinch.Simply stared at me.Waited for me to figure myself out.
"I called it a physiological response," I rasped, my throat so tight with emotion I could barely get the words out."To an external stimulus."