Page 26 of Naughty List Delivery
“Not as much as I missed you.” His arm tightens around me, and his alien warmth seems to reach for every cold place I’ve carried since I left. His tail shifts, the tip stroking across my hip in what might be unconscious comfort. “Two years of wondering if you... if you just preferred death to staying with who I was.”
“It wasn’t about preferring death.” I close my eyes, breathing in his familiar scent and feeling something fundamental shift between us. “It was about preferring who I could become without you to who I was becoming with you.”
“And now?” His voice carries a vulnerability I haven’t heard since the day I left. When he speaks, his breath ghosts across the sensitive skin of my neck, making me shiver.
“Now I’m wondering if maybe you could become someone new too.” I turn in his arms—a mistake, because it brings us face to face in the cramped space, our lips inches apart. This close, I can see the way his alien pupils dilate as he looks at me, canfeel his breath against my lips. His tail is still wrapped around my thigh, warm and possessive, and the new position means I’m practically straddling it. “The Ober who said he’d try to be someone I wouldn’t be ashamed to love.”
His inhale is sharp, and I watch his nostrils flare as his enhanced senses catalog everything—my elevated pulse, the heat building between my legs where his tail presses, the way my scent is changing despite every logical thought screaming at me to maintain distance.
“Noomi.” My name comes out like a prayer, like a plea, like a promise all rolled into one harmonic growl that vibrates through his chest and into mine. His hand slides from my hair to cup my face, thumb tracing my lower lip with careful reverence. “You have no idea what your scent is doing to me right now.”
“Tell me.” The words escape before I can stop them, breathless and wanting.
His alien eyes go molten, pupils dilating until there’s barely any iris visible. “You smell like arousal and determination and something that’s purely you—something I’ve dreamed about for two years.” His tail tightens around my thigh, pulling me closer until there’s no space between us at all. “You smell like you want me, despite every smart thought in that brilliant mind telling you not to.”
The raw honesty in his voice sends heat spiraling through my core. “Maybe I’m tired of being smart.” I lift my chin, bringing our lips even closer, close enough that speaking requires brushing against him with every word. “Maybe I’m tired of pretending this isn’t still here between us.”
“Don’t say that unless you mean it.” His voice drops to that register that makes my bones melt, and the hand on my face slides back to tangle in my hair. Not controlling, not demanding—just holding me like I’m precious. “Because if you give mepermission, I’m going to kiss you. And if I kiss you in a space this small, with your scent driving me out of my mind...”
“What?” I challenge, my pulse hammering against my throat where I know his enhanced senses can track it.
“I won’t be able to stop at just kissing.” His tail shifts higher on my thigh, the tip curling around to stroke along the inside where my flight suit has ridden up, and the sensation makes me gasp. “I’ll want to taste every inch of you. Want to make you come apart under my hands until you’re screaming my name and begging for more.”
The explicit confession sends liquid heat straight to my core, and I know he can scent my reaction immediately. His pupils blow wide, and a rumble builds in his chest that’s pure alpha possession.
“Your heartbeat just spiked,” he murmurs, leaning closer until his lips brush my ear. “Your breathing changed. And the way you smell...” He inhales deeply, and the sound he makes is almost a purr. “You want exactly what I just described, don’t you?”
I should deny it. Should maintain professional distance. Should remember that we’re in an emergency pod, that rescue is coming, that everything between us is complicated and messy and dangerous.
Instead, I close the final inch between us and press my lips to his.
The kiss ignites like touching plasma to oxygen. His mouth is alien and familiar all at once—warmer than human, with the hint of sharp canines that should be frightening but instead sends thrills through my nervous system. He kisses like he’s starving, like he’s been holding back for two years and my permission just broke every restraint he’s maintained.
His hand in my hair tightens, angling my head so he can deepen the kiss, and his tongue traces my lower lip before sliding against mine in a dance that’s purely sensual. The taste of him—alien spice and something fundamentally Ober—makes me dizzy with want.
When I make a soft sound against his mouth, his tail responds by stroking more deliberately along my thigh, the tip finding the sensitive spot where my leg meets my hip and pressing in a way that makes me arch against him.
“Two years,” he breathes against my lips, punctuating each word with another kiss. “Two years of dreaming about having you in my arms again.”
“Ober,” I whisper, and his name seems to break something loose in both of us.
This time when he kisses me, it’s with the kind of intensity that rewrites neural pathways. His free hand slides down to my hip, pulling me tighter against him until I can feel exactly how affected he is by our proximity. The hard length of him presses against my core through the thin fabric of our emergency suits, and the friction makes me gasp into his mouth.
“Feel what you do to me,” he growls, his hips rolling slightly against mine in a movement that’s both claim and question. “Feel how much I’ve missed you.”
The sensation of him, hard and hot and wanting, makes coherent thought impossible. This is madness—we’re in an emergency pod, waiting for rescue, with nothing resolved between us except two years of hurt and longing. But his hands on my body feel like coming home, and his alien warmth is melting resistance I’ve maintained through sheer force of will.
When his tail shifts to stroke along the seam of my flight suit, finding the sensitive spot between my legs and applying just enough pressure to make me moan, I realize I’m past the point of stopping this.
“Yes,” I breathe against his mouth, and the word seems to unleash something primal in him.
His hand slides under my jacket, finding the place where my shirt has ridden up and stroking across bare skin with reverent fingers. The touch sends electricity through my nervous system, and I arch into him, seeking more contact.
“You’re so warm,” he murmurs, his lips trailing down my neck to find the spot where my pulse hammers visibly. When he presses a kiss there, using just enough teeth to make me shiver, I feel the sensation straight to my core. “So perfect. I forgot how perfectly you fit against me.”
His fingers trace patterns on my skin that feel like writing promises in a language only my body understands. Every touch is deliberate, worshipful, like he’s trying to memorize the texture of my skin after two years of dreaming about it.
“I never forgot,” I admit, my hands fisting in his jacket as his mouth works magic on my throat. “Never stopped wanting your hands on me.”
