Page 36 of Hijack!
She straightened. “Because of course fraternizing with a closed worlder is so wrong.”
“Because I wanted to leave the devotion mark on you. But I didn’t.”
Her blue eyes narrowed, only a shadowed gray between the fringe of her pale lashes. “Why?”
“You are a fragile Earther, aye, and under my command, though you object. But also, this night was supposed to be…just fun.”
A flicker in her eyes. “Fun?”
“That is what you told us. Three sunsets to enjoy, a game to play, drinks and dessert and fun. The devotion is not that.”
“And you think—what?—I’m not strong enough for it?”
“I already told you: I fear I’m not.”
“Ellix—”
“Felicity.” His voice broke, and he feared that breach would reveal the vulnerabilities left behind all those lightyears ago. “Come here.”
For an infinity, she looked at him, and he felt as if those blue eyes were lasers carving away at the last of his shields. Slowly, she crossed the few steps remaining between them, her chin angling up to hold his gaze.
Only when the toes of her magnetized boots bumped his did he let out a shaky breath. “Do you believe I will save this ship? Will you help me?”
“Aye, Captain.”
That she didn’t hesitate shattered the last of his restraint. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her closer. The soft warmth of her eased something that had been cold in him for too long. But he didn’t have anything to give back to her.
He lowered his head to brush his lips across hers, reveling in the feel of her mouth, softer and warmer yet. With a sigh, she parted to him. Aye, this he could give her, a moment of pleasure.
He kissed her as she’d shown him, with just enough bite that she tilted in to him, her hips nudging his thighs. He had to curl over her to hold the contact of the kiss. And she helped by wrapping both her arms around his shoulders, anchoring her fingers in his fur.
She hummed against his mouth, a little song of longing that shivered through him, sparking along every nerve.
He wanted to never let her go…
But eventually, breathing happened, and he straightened. As they stared at each other from almost no distance, he brushed the silky hair back from her forehead. “It’s fallen again,” he murmured, catching the wayward ribbon. He held it out to her.
“Keep it,” she said in a husky voice. “I give up.”
He closed his fist on the gift. “Nay, you don’t. And that inspires me.”
“So did kissing save the ship?”
“Not yet. But it will.”
Her lips, a shiny red from his rough caress, twitched to one side. “That’s how you want to manifest the energy distortion in the containment unit. You think it will appear and follow us if we…inspire it enough.”
Her quick understanding made him wonder why Earthers hadn’t already escaped their unsuspecting detention on their small planet. “This is not a command from your captain,” he said. “We don’t know enough about the anomaly to truly assess the risk.”
“For so long I was afraid to take risks,” she murmured. “But in the end, I didn’t let that stop me from joining the IDA. I’m not going to freak out now. Let’s go catch an anomaly.”
Chapter 11
Maybe she’d been a bit overconfident. She hadn’t even paused for a pro/con comparison. Was there such a thing as alien-kissing-induced delusion?
Or maybe it was just that a man who heard a cry for help and answered—even knowing it might be trouble—had asked her for help. Like he believed in her.
Well, hallucination or heroism, too late now.
