Page 54 of Tail, Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates
“Sugar,” she yelped.
Hot water splashed down Winter’s chest. Grumbling, he reached around her for a towel, pressing their chests together. It was wet and warm and horribly inappropriate to find it so much fun.
“Get off me,” she said, pushing him away and in no way letting her hands linger on his chest, because that would send the wrong signal. “And now you’re taking your shirt off. Why?”
“You scalded me. Do you wish for my skin to be injured?” Maybe he flexed a little. Maybe she couldn’t take her eyes off the way his striations made everything about his chest so much yummier. She was only human, and Winter had a way of making a bad idea seem so, so good.
“Ha. Tal skin is tougher than human skin. You’re fine,” she said, definitely not staring.
With a finger under her chin, Winter raised her eyes to his. Okay, she was staring.
“I assure you,” he purred, “this was necessary and not vanity.”
She felt rather favorable toward his ability to find many necessary reasons for removing his shirt, but she kept that nugget to herself.
She grabbed the towel and shoved it at him.
“Sugar?” he asked, a grin lifting his normally stern mouth.
For a moment, her heart seemed to beat louder as she mistook him calling her sugar, not asking about her swearing. “Oh, um, I try not to use curse words on the job. Customer service, you know. No one wants a potty mouth pilot. Now it’s second nature to me,” she explained.
“It is cute.”
“It’s really not.”
“And you are…” His gaze swept over her, eating her up.
“Tolerable?” she prompted.
“Mmm.” He reached behind her again, pinning her to the counter. He leaned in, body pressed against her and lips brushing past her face. She shivered from the hot breath on the shell of her ear.
Mari turned, their lips so close. She needed him to kiss her. Right. Now.
Winter grabbed the box of crunchy fruit bars and tore into his snack. “What?” His tail danced behind him. “See something you like?”
“You’re cheating,” she managed to say, proud she kept herself from drooling all over him despite being all needy-greedy.
“I craved a snack. Is that against the rules?” That grin again, then he sauntered away, tail still dancing.
Fuuuck.
Mari banged her head against a cabinet.
She would call herself doomed, but she had a feeling that Winter’s brand of doom would be amazing.
Winter
The ship had been his refuge from the eyes of the universe. The female arrived and his refuge changed. The space felt confining and too large at the same time. His bed was definitely too large. He tried his best to sleep, but all he could think was that Marigold slept on a narrow bunk when he had a plush bed with the finest linens. It was incorrect for her to sleep on a thin mattress with a scratchy blanket.
She belonged in his bed.
The ship had changed in other ways. Before, it had merely been functional. It served a purpose but little else. Now he heard his kit’s laughter and the general noise of family life. When he searched for the change, he found that the physical remained as it had always been. The change was Marigold’s presence. She made the ship lighter, warmer—like a home.
Marigold remained skittish, but Winter felt convinced that he could convince her to accept his offer of mating. He was hard-pressed to explain what it was about her—her gentle smile? A softness that let him feel truly at rest for the first time?—that attracted him. Tension crackled and sparked between them, but it was more than physical attraction. He could hear it in her laughter and see the way her eyes warmed with affection when she spoke with Zero. While he and Zero were a family—no matter what his kit said—and they got along well enough on their own, they were missing something.
Someone.
Marigold fit them, and the more time they spent together, the more she became a part of their small family unit. The only time he had ever felt so certain that someone belonged in his life was when the medic handed him a red-faced kit, squawking and otherwise complaining about his arrival in the world. It was the first time he knew complete love, and he wondered if he could be fortunate enough for it to happen a second time.
