Page 109 of Stars in Aura

She surrendered.

To pleasure. To laughter. To a man she was growing to like more than she ever expected.

Because Ki’Remi Sable, behind closed doors, was nothing like the cold, calculating commander she had first met.

The gruff, one-word-answer man disappeared.

In his place was someone thoughtful, observant, and shockingly funny.

Who cooked for her without asking.

Who memorized how she took herkahawawith a dash of cream and ensured a mug awaited her before she woke up.

Who pulled her into slow, indulgent kisses while making breakfast and lifted her onto the counter so the food had to wait.

Who never complained when she stole his tee and sweatpants, just eyed her in them like he was committing every second to memory.

She loved it.

After years of functioning on all cylinders as a medic, warrior, and worried daughter, always on high alert, a lazy interlude was liberating.

They hibernated on his couch, curled up in blankets, as they binged a holo series neither of them would admit in public they were obsessed with.

She found out Ki’Remi had a secret soft spot for reality trash viewing when she caught him gripping a pillow during the season finale.

They cooked together, which was usually an excuse for him to press against her from behind and distract her with slow kisses along her neck.

They played cards, with Ki’Remi going at it with all the ruthlessness of a card shark. Until it got too competitive and ended with her sprawled beneath him, their clothes in various stages of disarray.

They made love til they couldn’t breathe.

‘It’s too much. You’re too extra,’ she protested one moment when he was thrusting into her, driving her to the precipice of oblivion.

‘Fokk, we were fighting off celestial warriors and working all week; we deserve it,’ he growled at her as he groaned while bottoming out, stroking his cock into her, taking her to the edge of bliss once more.

Then they napped, tangled up together, limbs draped, skin on flesh, lost in each other.

With Remi, because he was Remi now in private, she felt like true to self.

She had the freedom to be herself.

Even when he raised a brow at her proclivity for pickles and cheese for lunch, he indulged it with a lazy smile.

When she danced in his kitchen whilst waiting for the food to simmer, he joined in and churned his hips to hers in an age-old grind.

He laughed without holding back when she muttered in a celestial tongue when she lost a round of holo-cards.

There was no pretense with him, no pressure.

Just a sense of acceptance, and for the first time in her life, that was enough.

The room was quiet except for the unhurried, steady rhythm of their breathing.

Issa lay against her lover’s chest, her fingers tracing lazy patterns over his inked skin.

The glow of his metanoid tattoos pulsed beneath her touch, the shifting symbols responding to the slow beat of his heart.

He wrapped an arm around her, idly skimming her spine. His other hand rested over her hip, his grip firm as if anchoring her to him.

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