Page 17 of Stolen By the Wraiths
"No," I said, backing her against the wall. "It's not."
The kiss was inevitable, desperate, a continuation of everything we'd been building toward. My mouth covered hers with hunger I could no longer deny while her hands grabbed my shirt, pulling me closer.
But when she responded, when she arched against me with obvious need, I forced myself to pull back slightly. She deserved better than being taken against a wall in the aftermath of adrenaline.
"Wait," I said, breathing hard. "Are you sure about this?"
She looked at me—really looked at me—and I saw something shift in her expression. Not hesitation, but something deeper. Recognition, maybe. Or acceptance.
"I've been thinking about this all evening," she said, her hands already working at the fastenings of my shirt. "Feeling you mark me, claim me in front of everyone."
Her fingers found the traceries on my chest, tracing the silver patterns. Wherever she touched, heat bloomed, the markings pulsing brighter under her exploration.
"Do you know what that did to me?" she continued, her voice low and dangerous. "Standing there, letting you scent-mark me like I belonged to you?"
"Alix—"
"It made me wet," she said bluntly, her hand sliding down to cup me through my pants. I groaned at the contact, my hips jerking involuntarily. "Feeling everyone's eyes on us, knowing they could smell your claim on me."
She squeezed gently, and rational thought scattered. "I want you to touch me," she said, guiding my hand to the waistband of her pants. "I want to feel those hands on my skin, not through fabric."
When my fingers slipped beneath the material and found her slick heat, she moaned—a sound of pure satisfaction that went straight to my groin.
"God, yes," she gasped, her hips moving against my touch. "I've been aching for this."
Her boldness was intoxicating. This wasn't surrender—she claimed me as fiercely as I claimed her. Her hands tore at my belt, her breath stuttering as my fingers drew helpless sounds from her throat.
"Tell me what you want," I demanded, my thumb circling the sensitive bundle of nerves that made her cry out.
"I want to come on your fingers," she said without hesitation, her eyes blazing with need. "And then I want you inside me."
The raw honesty of her desire nearly undid me. She was close, trembling on the edge, her body tightening around my fingers when the urgent comm from the Raptor shattered the moment, cutting through the suite's tranquility like a blade.
I stilled, jaw clenched so tight it ached. Every instinct screamed to ignore the comm, but I forced my hand to activate it.
"Ressh, respond immediately," Serak's voice carried the urgency of imminent danger. “You’ve got to get out. Now.”
ALIX
Serak's voice on the comm was a blade, severing us from the heat of the moment. The message was blunt: Vain's people were closing in, far quicker than we'd planned.
"The timing can't be coincidental," Ressh said, pulling on his shirt. His movements were fluid, economical, the predator re-emerging from the lover. "Not after what happened with Crask."
"You think she reported the theft?" I asked, my fingers fumbling with the fastening on my jacket. My body was still humming, a live wire of satisfaction and want.
"Or someone noticed her behavior afterward. Either way, we're blown."
The haze of sexual need evaporated, replaced by the ice-cold clarity of a mission gone wrong. The intimacy we'd shared was a lifetime ago; now, there was only survival. My mind snapped back into the familiar grooves of risk assessment, my hands suddenly steady as I checked the charge on my plasma pistol. This, I knew. This was home.
"Go," I whispered, and we were out the door, melting into the guest quarter's service corridors. The station's klaxons began to scream, a cacophony of lockdown alerts that echoed off the polished metal walls. Red emergency lights pulsed, paintingeverything in a bloody, urgent glow. We were no longer guests; we were fugitives.
I took the lead, my datapad in hand, my mind racing through the facility schematics I had memorized. I could smell the change in Ressh's scent behind me—the warm spice of him sharpening to something with the tang of ozone, of a storm gathering. It was a promise of violence against anyone who stood in our way, and it was deeply reassuring.
"Main transit corridors will be sealed," I said, my voice low as we moved through a network of maintenance tunnels. The air was thick with the smell of lubricants and recycled air. "We need to stay in the service conduits. It'll be slower, but more secure."
He didn't argue. He simply moved behind me, his larger body a solid presence at my back, his senses sweeping our surroundings for threats I couldn't perceive. His absolute trust was a tangible thing, a weight and a weapon.
We bypassed the first two security checkpoints with ease, my intrusion software slicing through the station's commercial-grade protocols. But as we neared the lower levels, the security architecture became more robust.
