Page 51 of Claimed By the War Brute
Her breath flutters across my scales. “Don’t tell me. Show me.”
I lean in; our mouths meet slow. I kiss her with intention—letting her taste hope, survival, desire. Her lips part, a moan caught between breaths. She tastes like firelight and dark. I pull her closer, hands trailing up her sides, meeting a heat I match with soft, calculated pressure.
Her arms loop around my neck, fingers digging into the back of my armor. The confidence in her hold teaches me something new.
We move together toward the rear bay, where the soft glow of emergency lights suggests privacy. I lower her gently onto a padded console, careful but driven. She arches into me—no fear, only fierce want. I cup her face, brushing my thumb across her cheek; I taste salt—her tears or mine, I don’t care.
Her voice is low. “Careful.”
I smile, humming across her lips. I shift over her, don’t rush. My broad hands focus on her comfort—slipping fingers beneath her jacket’s collar, brushing across the soft plane of her neck. I kiss her collarbone, shoulder, leaving warmth and breath in my wake. Her skin flushes beneath my touch.
She gasps when I find the pulse under her ear and circle my tongue softly around it. Then I whisper: “Tell me what you want.”
She trembles, voice husky: “You. Us.”
I ease aside clothing, revealing skin and scars, light and shadow. I press kisses across her chest—gentle, firm, a promise in each. Her lips brush mine, fingers threading through my hair, tugging my scale-ridges. She wants this—needs this.
I hang back for a second, watching her expression of awe and hunger. I brush my thumb across her bottom lip. “Your pleasure comes first,” I murmur.
Her breath catches sharply. “Garrus…” She’s lost in want.
I trace slow arcs down her ribs, whispering her name, affirming her presence. Nothing desperate, just attentive. I want this to fill her. She’s been stripped down for worlds—now I rebuild her, touch by touch.
She arches upward, eyes fluttering. My hand drifts lower, sure and kind. I don’t rush—exploration keyed to her breath, her sigh, her ripple of delight.
She murmurs, “Harder.” Encouragement or dare. I respond—calibrated strength, not brute force. Watching her face for every shift—joy, surrender, connectivity.
The moment breaks soft, soundless—but in the aftermath, she clings to me. I linger, pressing kisses across her bare chest and throat. Our breathing syncs; the world outside fades.
She laughs, sleepy and full. “That… happened.”
I grin, sweeping a knot of hair behind her ear. My voice quiet, husky: “Are you good?”
She reaches up, hands framing my cheek. “I’m more than good.” She kisses me—long, sealed, sacred.
We lie together, dusk and afterglow tangled. We speak little—no words needed.
Eventually she whispers, “Next time, I take the lead.”
I chuckle low. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
We drift, still warm and spent and quietly victorious in each other’s arms. Space beyond the hull feels less cold.
And next to her, I know—this is more than victory or vengeance. It’s beginning.
CHAPTER 37
SYD
Iinch forward in the hot gusts of Varka-Ten’s sandstorm, the wind gnawing at my cloak and filling my mouth with grit. The cargo depot stands behind a wall of swirling dust, half-buried and all but forgotten—ideal if you want to hide criminals, or ghosts. Garrus stands back with his arms crossed, blaster sheathed, eyes flicking over my plan. He doesn’t argue when I say, “My op. My way.” He just nods, that slow, granite-solid assent that says he trusts me—no questions asked.
I press a neural patch against the uplink terminal’s port, blood-warm from weeks of buried code I carved into it. Garrus flicks his gaze toward the dunes: “Storm’s ideal. Static’ll mask our breach.”
I grin, taste salt and metal on my lips.?“I’m not charging in with guns blazing. They’re expecting that. Let them stand around like statues. I’ll dig their graves in the system logs.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Suit yourself, rockstar.”
I crouch behind a rust-pitted wall, lights from sand-blinded drones blinking in the distance. I feed them ghost-alerts into the uplink—“Unidentified presence in the east quadrant. Repeat. East quadrant.” Two drones peel away from the entrance,engines whining far off. That’s my cue. I tap Garrus’s comm. “Showtime.”
