Page 27 of Ravaged By the Reaper
His eyes narrow, twin embers against the shuttle’s red glow, bone-spurs glinting in the flicker. I taste smoke and slick metal linger in the cockpit air. His breath, heated and tangy with iron, drifts across my cheek, and I feel like every nerve ending in my face is learning to burn.
Before I can catch the flicker of danger, or remind myself that this man is savage and overwhelming, he’s pressing his mouth to mine.
The kiss is not soft. It’s jagged. Rough as broken glass. Claiming. My body jerks—first in shock, then submission. His lips part against my lower lip, teeth grazing in a sharp nip that sends a bolt of pleasure and alarm through me. Sharp. Demanding.
His clawed hand threads deeper through my hair, fingers snaking to grip at my scalp. It’s not violence. It’s command. Possession. It roars in my spine:I own this moment. I own you.
I freeze.
I taste blood—mine, hers?—and fear threads a chilling echo through my bones. Companion logic screams: this is forbidden. This is dangerous. This is surrender.
But my body rebels. The cold armor of training melts. I gasp again—this time, without protest. Lips parting, and for the first time, I'm aware of how dry they feel, hot with adrenaline and something sharper—want.
My hands are at my sides. I’m still trembling. He doesn’t let up. The kiss deepens. Tongue meets tongue in a fierce, unsettling dance. My senses spin: I taste him—sharp andancient. Smell him—the scent of storm and burned circuits and something primal that I can’t name. I feel the press of his bones hidden beneath skin and armor—hard, protective.
Every instinct I’ve cultivated screams at me to pull back. To fold under. But another set of instincts—so old I don't even recognize them as mine—shatter those illusions and claim me.
I moan, surprised by the sound, the surrender. His hand tightens in my hair, not hurting, but anchoring me to this moment, tohim.I let my head fall backward, giving into the pull of him.
He pulls back slightly, breath ragged, nostrils flared, a beast triumphing. The look in his eyes is not soft. It's not tender. It’smine. A wordless vow. I shiver under the intensity.
“I…” My voice cracks. “I…” Another moan escapes before I can tame it. Heat floods me. The coolness of the shuttle’s metal walls presses against my back. My knees are shaky, but I don’t slide down.
He lowers his forehead to mine. “Don’t,” he whispers into the echo of my heartbeat. “Don’t run.”
My eyes search his. Wide, disbelieving. My chest tightens. There’s a grounding pain at my collar, in my shoulder, in my bruised pride.
“I—didn’t?—”
He presses a finger to my lips. Sharp, surprisingly gentle. “You didn’t have to.”
He lets me breathe then. Enough to let me know that I can.
We stand suspended, heartbeat sparking heartbeat. Every breath is tremor. The world beyond the cockpit—shuttle hum, alarms, distant chaos—is erased from me.
My hands drift up, instinctively tracing the edge of his cloak, brushing against bone spurs, skin scarred and cold under fingers. I feel memory uncoiling inside me, something deeper than fear, not fear—want.
It’s so wrong, but not. It's not seduction. It's claim. It's connection.
And I let it happen.
“Why?” My whisper is ragged.
“Because you’re mine,” he replies, voice low as gravel.
That claim still makes heat spread down my limbs. But something deep in me flares:not as prisoner. As partner.
I press forward anyway. Not to seize control. To rest in the claim of him.
He kisses me again.
Harder. Deeper. Scorching. And this time, Iwillthis moment into being.
My life’s always been about precision: calculated glances, measured words, performance perfected down to a hair’s breadth. Everything is polished. Everything is under control.
And this ischaos. Wild. Messy. Glorious and terrifying.
He presses me back into the shuttle’s wall. It’s cold metal against my spine, but I feel nothing but heat—raw, percussive heat coursing through my veins. His hands grip the front of my gown, fingers undoing buttons with deliberate force, as if each release strips a layer of the world I understood before him.
