Epilogue #2
“You love you,” she corrects breathlessly, but her fingers are already fumbling with my shirt, pushing it open to rake her nails over my scales. They flare gold at her touch, hypersensitive ridges that send sparks straight to my groin.
I love her. Gods, I love her—even when she’s impossible, especially then.
I catch her wrists before she can free me completely, pinning them to the desk on either side of her hips. She strains against my grip, testing, and the bond floods with her frustration and arousal in equal measure.
“Not yet, mate.” I lean in, dragging my tongue up the column of her throat, feeling her pulse thunder beneath my mouth. “You’ve been teasing me all morning. Now you wait.”
“Rynn—please—”
“Please what?” I release one wrist only to slide my hand down her body, cupping her breast through the thin undershirt, thumb circling her nipple until it’s a hard peak. She arches into me with a whimper.
“Touch me. Really touch me.”
“I’m touching you.” I pinch her nipple lightly, rolling it between my fingers until she gasps. “But I think you want more.”
“You know I do,” she pants, her free hand diving for my belt. I catch that wrist too, pinning both again.
“Tell me exactly.” My voice is rough, strained with the effort of holding back. “Tell me what you’ve been fantasizing about all day while you pretended to work.”
She licks her lips, eyes locked on mine, defiant even as her body trembles.
“I want your fingers inside me. Your mouth on my clit. I want you to fuck me so hard this desk leaves bruises on my thighs. I want to feel you for hours—every time I shift in that meeting, every time I cross my legs, I want to remember exactly who I belong to.”
The words snap the last of my control.
“There’s my good girl,” I growl.
I release her wrists only to strip her with ruthless efficiency.
Jacket gone. Undershirt ripped over her head.
Bra shoved down just enough to free her breasts—full, perfect, nipples begging for my mouth.
I take one between my lips, sucking hard while my hand works her trousers open, shoving them down her hips along with her underwear.
She’s breathtaking like this—half-undressed, flushed and panting, thighs already slick with how badly she wants me. I drop to my knees between her spread legs, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her arousal.
“Rynn—” It’s a plea now, all bravado gone.
I don’t make her wait any longer. My hands grip her thighs, spreading her wider, and I drag my tongue through her folds in one slow, deliberate lick. She cries out, hips bucking, and I pin her down, holding her open for my mouth.
She’s soaking, dripping onto the desk beneath her, and I feast like a starving man.
Long, slow licks at first—savoring her taste, circling her clit until she’s writhing, then pulling back just enough to make her whine.
I slide two fingers into her heat, curling them against that spot that makes her see stars, pumping slowly while my tongue flicks faster.
The bond is a wildfire—her pleasure crashing into mine, amplifying everything until I’m dizzy with it. I can feel how close she is already, how every stroke of my fingers winds her tighter.
“Come for me, Polly,” I murmur against her clit, the vibration making her sob. “Let me feel you fall apart on my tongue.”
She does—shattering with a broken cry, her walls clenching around my fingers, flooding my mouth with her release. I work her through it, drawing it out until she’s shaking, oversensitive, trying to push me away and pull me closer at the same time.
But I’m nowhere near done.
I stand, licking my lips clean of her, and she watches me with glazed eyes as I free myself from my trousers. My cock springs free, heavy and aching, the ridges along its length already flushed darker with need. A bead of precum glistens at the tip, and her gaze locks on it hungrily.
“See what you do to me?” I wrap my hand around myself, stroking once, twice, watching her thighs clench at the sight. “A year, and I still get this hard just smelling you. Just thinking about being inside you.”
“Then do it,” she breathes, reaching for me. “Fuck me, Rynn. I need—”
I sink into her in one slow, relentless thrust.
We both groan—the stretch, the perfect, wet heat of her taking every inch, the way her body yields and clenches like it was made for me. She wraps her legs high around my waist, heels digging into my back, pulling me deeper until I’m seated to the hilt and still not close enough.
Through the bond, everything doubles: the slick drag of her walls, the pulse of her pleasure, the way she feels utterly claimed and still wants more. I can feel the ghost of my own cock inside her, the ridges catching on every sensitive spot, driving her wild.
I start to move—long, deep strokes at first, savoring the way she gasps my name with every thrust. Then faster, harder, the desk rocking beneath us, datapads clattering to the floor. Her nails score my shoulders, my back, urging me on.
“Harder,” she demands, voice wrecked. “Make me feel it tomorrow.”
I give her everything—pounding into her with a year’s worth of learned precision, angling to hit that spot inside her that makes her sob. My hand slips between us, thumb finding her clit, circling in tight, ruthless strokes.
She’s close again—I feel it building through the bond, a white-hot coil ready to snap.
“Come with me,” I growl against her throat, teeth grazing her mating mark. It flares gold under my mouth, sending a fresh surge of pleasure through both of us.
She breaks first—clenching around me so hard my vision whites out, screaming my name as she comes undone. The bond explodes, her orgasm ripping through me like a supernova, and I follow her over the edge, spilling deep inside her with a roar that the soundproofing barely contains.
For a long moment, there’s nothing but the two of us—pulsing together, joined in every way possible, the mate marks blazing gold between us.
When the light fades and I can think again, we’re both breathing like we’ve run a marathon. She’s limp beneath me, boneless and glowing, pink hair stuck to her sweat-damp forehead.
“That was—” She stops. Laughs weakly, breathless. “Stars, I don’t have words.”
“Good. I prefer you speechless.”
“Rude.” But she’s smiling, utterly sated, and the bond hums with warm contentment.
She’s looking at me strangely now. Nervous. Happy. Something else.
“What is it?”
Through the bond: she’s shimmering. Not just the satisfied thrum of good sex—something different. Excited. Joyful.
“Polly?”
She takes my hand. Her fingers are warm, her pulse quick against my palm.
And then she places my hand on her stomach.
My heart stops. Starts again. Racing.
“So.” Her voice is light, but I can feel her trembling through the bond. “Funny story.”
“Polly—”
“The med-scan came back this morning.” She’s watching my face, searching for my reaction. “Apparently Valorian-human compatibility is very real.”
The world narrows to the feel of her belly under my palm. Flat still, unchanged, but—
“And your genes are just as extra as the rest of you,” she continues, grinning through the tears gathering in her eyes.
I can’t breathe.
“Because there’s two of them.”
I stare at her. “Two?”
“Twins, Lord Chaos.” Her smile wobbles, brave and terrified and brilliant. “We’re having twins.”
For a long moment, I can’t move. Can’t think. The information crashes through me like a wave, reshaping everything in its path.
Twins. We’re having twins.
The joy hits so hard the bond nearly whites out. I pull her from the desk, crush her against my chest, bury my face in her hair.
“Twins,” I manage, voice rough.
“I know, I’m scared too—”
“I’m not scared.”
I pull back, cup her face in my hands, make her look at me. Her eyes are bright, searching.
“I’m not scared,” I repeat. “I’m—”
The words won’t come. There aren’t words big enough for this. For the life growing inside her. For the future that’s suddenly more real and more terrifying and more wonderful than anything I’ve ever imagined.
I kiss her instead.
Through the bond, I pour everything I can’t say: love, hope, terror, joy. The overwhelming gratitude of a male who expected to die alone and instead found this. Found her.
She laughs against my lips, and I feel the tears on her cheeks—happy ones.
“Your mother is going to LOSE HER MIND.”
“She’s going to demand we move to the main estate.”
“Over my dead body.”
“That’s what I told her when she suggested it last month.”
“See?” She grins up at me, and the tears are happy ones. “We’re in sync.”
“CAPTAIN.” Zip’s voice cuts through the moment, powering back up from his diplomatic hibernation. “I CALCULATE THAT I WILL NOW BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THREE CHAOTIC HUMANOIDS INSTEAD OF ONE.”
“Think of it as career advancement, Zip.”
“I THINK OF IT AS STATISTICAL INEVITABILITY. I HAVE ALSO CALCULATED THE PROBABILITY THAT YOUR OFFSPRING WILL INHERIT YOUR COMBINED TALENT FOR CAUSING DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS.”
“And?”
“97.3%. THE GALAXY IS NOT PREPARED.”
Polly laughs, and I hold her close, and the future stretches out before us—terrifying and wonderful and ours.
Later, we stand at her office window.
The crystal spires glitter in the afternoon light, the city sprawling beneath them in patterns I’ve known since childhood. But even the view feels different now, seen through the lens of everything that’s changed.
I have my arms around her, her back against my chest, both of us looking out at the world we’re building together.
“I never thought I’d have this,” I say quietly.
She leans back into me. “The view or the pregnant wife you just ravished on her desk?”
“Any of it. All of it.” I rest my chin on her head, breathing in the scent of her—familiar now, woven into every part of my life. “The mission was supposed to be my last act. I was prepared for it to end.”
I think about the man I was a year ago. The weight I carried, the death I expected, the grim determination that was all that kept me moving.
“And then there was you.”
She turns in my arms, looping her hands behind my neck.
“For the record?” Her eyes are warm, teasing. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for the cargo either. Mother’s going to hold it over me forever.”
“Mother’s going to hold it over you?” I raise an eyebrow. “My mother has already commissioned a nursery.”
Her jaw drops. “She what?”
“In my defense, Ayla helped.”
“That’s not a defense. That’s an accomplice.”
I laugh—real, surprised, the easy sound she’s taught me to find again. She grins up at me, and the bond pulses with joy.
Two heartbeats between us. And soon, four.
“Together?” I ask.
It’s become our question. Our promise. The word that holds everything we are to each other.
“Always.”
Her comm chimes—the meeting, finally reasserting itself.
She straightens my collar, kisses my cheek. “Go terrorize your council or whatever lords do.”
“I believe the agenda today is tax policy.”
“Even worse.” She pats my chest sympathetically. “Godspeed.”
She starts to pull away, but I catch her hand. Press a kiss to her palm. Then to the mating mark at her throat, watching it pulse gold at my touch.
“Same time tomorrow?”
“Are you scheduling sex into my calendar now?”
“I’m scheduling quality time with my wife.” I smile against her throat. “The sex is just a bonus.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You love it.”
“I love you.” She kisses me once more—quick, sweet, a promise of more to come. “Even when you’re making me late for things.”
“I love you too, Polly West-Valorian.”
“Love you, Lord Chaos.”
She’s gone in a whirl of pink hair and purpose, the door sliding shut behind her. I hear her voice in the corridor, already shifting into command mode, rallying her staff for whatever crisis needs solving.
I stand at the window and watch the city gleam beneath the afternoon sun.
A year ago, I expected to die.
Now I’m mated. Loved. About to be a father. Married to a woman who still makes me work for every kiss and challenges me at every turn and looks at me like I’m worth something.
Through the bond, I feel her—bright and busy and brilliantly alive, already handling her rescheduled meeting and probably causing diplomatic incidents with every decision.
Worth it.
I think about the night we met. Her pink hair under station lights, her irreverent grin, the way she’d looked at my formal wear and asked if I was lost.
I think about every explosion, every near-death experience, every moment I was certain we wouldn’t survive.
I think about her bent over that desk twenty minutes ago, coming apart on my tongue, taking me so perfectly, saying my name like a prayer.
I think about our twins. Twins. Two tiny lives that will have her chaos and my stubbornness and stars help the galaxy when they’re old enough to cause trouble.
Worth it, I think again.
Every moment.
Always.