Chapter 9 Operational Parameters
Operational Parameters
Zola
The asteroid field stretches ahead like a maze of death and sharp edges, each rock the size of a shuttlecraft spinning through space with casual indifference.
My hands move across The Precision’s controls with practiced efficiency, but my focus keeps fragmenting because I can feel Crash’s erection like it’s inside me.
Not metaphorically. Not through some vague bond awareness.
I feel the pulse of his cock like a ghost limb buried deep in my body. My internal muscles clench around empty air, trying to grip flesh that isn’t there, and the phantom sensation is so visceral that my thighs tremble against the pilot’s seat.
The ship’s vibration hums through the deck plating—a steady mechanical frequency I’ve felt thousands of times before. But now there’s another vibration overlaying it. Lower. Deeper. Rhythmic like a heartbeat but emanating from somewhere that shouldn’t exist in my body’s mapping system.
I try to input a simple vector correction—a sequence I could usually type in my sleep. My fingers slip. The console beeps.
ERROR. INPUT UNRECOGNIZED.
I stare at the red text, humiliated. My hands are shaking so badly I can hear the rattle of my rings against the control board. And deep inside me, that phantom pressure twists, mocking my attempt at professionalism.
It feels like he’s already stretching me.
Like his cock is dragging deep, heavy strokes that make my breath hitch and my vision tunnel.
I shift in my seat, trying to find friction against the flight suit, but nothing helps because the sensation isn’t on my skin—it’s in my nervous system. In the bond itself.
I glance at his reflection in the dark navigation console. His eyes are glowing—actual amber luminescence bleeding through the vertical pupils. His hands grip the armrests hard enough that I can see the golden scales along his knuckles flexing with restraint.
“Status report,” I manage, though my voice comes out breathless and tight.
“Three hours behind.” His words are ground glass and gravel. “Field’s slowing him. But I can’t—fuck.”
The curse coincides with another phantom throb, and this time I feel the exact shape of him—thick, ridged along the underside in a way that’s distinctly not human. The texture. The heat. The slight curve that would hit—
I bank hard to starboard, missing debris by meters. The G-forces slam me back, and I feel his surge of arousal as my body presses against restraints. He makes a sound like a wounded animal.
“Your situation?” I force the words out past the tightness in my throat.
“Critical.” The single word carries so much strained control I can taste his desperation through the bond. “Atmospheric contamination reaching toxic—”
“Then we handle it. Operationally.”
Through the bond, I feel his hope and panic spike in equal measure.
“Refresher’s twelve feet from pilot seat.
Bond threshold is eight feet. Solo resolution is impossible.
” My fingers dance across sensors while trying to ignore how each breath tastes like vanilla lightning—his scent flooding the air between us, making my mouth water and my core clench around nothing.
A strangled sound tears from his throat. “You’re analyzing this like a safety inspection.”
“It is a safety inspection.” Another turn, navigation requiring split-second timing that’s becoming impossible as waves of phantom penetration crash through me. “Your biological state is compromising ship operations. We address the malfunction before system failure.”
“I’m not malfunctioning—”
“Enhanced biological function responding to optimal stimulus,” I correct. I pull up autopilot with shaking hands, lock controls for ninety seconds. “Stand up. Behind me. Close for the bond.”
He moves with liquid predatory grace, positioning himself between my seat and the console. Close enough that his heat radiates against my spine like standing near a fusion reactor.
The contact sends electric shock through both of us. I feel his desperate need to touch me properly warring with his determination not to take without permission.
“Hands on my hips.” Command authority makes his arousal spike dangerously through the bond. “I need to feel where you are for navigation assist.”
His hands settle with careful control, and immediately I sense the asteroid field through his enhanced perception—mass and velocity and gravitational eddies painted across my consciousness in colors I don’t have names for.
“Proximity alert,” KiKi announces. “Course correction in fifteen seconds.”
I adjust our angle, threading between rotating asteroids with centimeters to spare. My enhanced awareness through the bond shows me the trajectory before my scanners can confirm it.
The maneuver requires a sharp bank that presses my ass against the hard ridge of his erection. Electric. Devastating. His hands tighten hard enough to bruise, and I feel his control fracture through our connection—a hairline crack in a dam under too much pressure.
“Zola.” My name against my ear, vibration traveling down my spine and pooling liquid heat between my thighs. “I can smell how wet you are. Taste it on my tongue even though I haven’t touched you. I want—I need—”
“Operational efficiency requires direct intervention.” Clinical terminology like armor against the wave of need threatening to drown me. “Subject demonstrates elevated biochemical distress. Lubrication indicates readiness for manual assessment. Proceed with direct stimulation protocol.”
His fingers find my flight suit fasteners with unerring accuracy despite shaking hands. The sound of my zipper seems obscenely loud in the cockpit’s enclosed space.
“Tell me to stop—”
“Apply direct manual stimulation. Do not stop until system release achieved.”
The zipper makes an obscene sound as he pushes fabric aside. Cool air hits overheated skin, and I feel him shudder against my back—his enhanced senses cataloging every detail of my arousal.
His hands slide up my ribcage with devastating slowness.
When his thumbs brush the underside of my breasts, we both make sounds that have no place in tactical situations.
The texture of his hands is different from human—scales that feel like silk over steel creating friction that sets every nerve ending on fire.
“More. Continue assessment.”
“You want me to assess how responsive you are?” Something darkly amused bleeds into his strained voice. “Document the exact pressure points that make you wet?”
Lower still. When he reaches my waistband, he pauses—giving me one last chance to abort this insanity.
“Thirty seconds until manual override required,” KiKi announces, oblivious to the sexual tension thick enough to cut with a blade.
I unfasten my pants myself, guide his hand inside with deliberate pressure. “Proceed. Thoroughly.”
The first touch against my slick heat makes us both gasp. The reality is so much more intense than the phantom sensations it borders on painful—like touching a live wire while every nerve ending screams for more.
His fingers aren’t human. The texture alone threatens to undo me—scales that feel like silk over steel, raised ridges that drag against sensitive flesh with devastating friction. When one thick finger slides inside with careful pressure, my knees nearly buckle.
“Fuck.” Pure reverence in his voice. “You’re so hot. So wet. So perfectly responsive.”
“Twenty seconds to manual override,” KiKi chirps.
He finds my clit with his thumb—the pad textured in ways human skin could never replicate. Micro-ridges that catch and drag with every circular pass, creating sensations that make stars explode behind my eyelids. Circles once. Twice.
“Subject responding optimally to direct contact,” I hear myself report, even as my hips rock shamelessly into his touch. “Recommend increased pressure and—oh fuck—”
The second finger joins the first, stretching me wider, working me open with devastating efficiency. The dual sensation of his hand between my thighs while his cock pulses hot and hard against my ass through the bond threatens to short-circuit my brain entirely.
My hand shoots out, gripping the manual override. “Autopilot disengaging.”
“Zola—”
“Barrier removal required for full integration,” I manage, reaching for the fasteners of my pants with shaking hands.
“Recommend immediate positioning adjustment for optimal—” The clinical words fracture as he adds a third finger, stretching me wider, scissoring deliberately. “For penetration and claiming.”
His laugh against my neck is dark and possessive. “You want me to fuck you while you fly through an asteroid field.”
“Affirmative. Strategic advantage confirmed through bond synchronization. Enhanced reflexes. Shared sensory input.” My voice has gone breathy and desperate despite my best efforts. “Optimal conditions for complex navigation requiring—”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m practical.” I shove my pants down to my knees—trapped, vulnerable, completely at his mercy. “And if you don’t get inside me in the next thirty seconds, I’m writing you up for seventeen additional safety violations.”
His fingers slide free, leaving me empty and aching. I hear the rustle of fabric, feel the heat of him pressing against my entrance—scalding and thick and ridged in ways my body has never accommodated before.
“There’s a window,” I tell him, pulling up the trajectory calculations with trembling hands. “Rotating asteroids creating a passage. Opens in three minutes. Stays open for fifteen seconds.”
“And if we miss it?”
“We die.” I lean forward over the console, presenting myself in a position that’s purely tactical and has nothing to do with how desperately I need him inside me. “But we won’t miss it.”
His hands grip my hips with bruising force. The head of his cock presses against my entrance—hot and heavy and shockingly wide, even after three fingers stretching me.
“Zola,” he warns, his voice ragged with barely controlled need, “I’m too big for this. You’re too tight. We should—”