9. Stacy
STACY
T he first thing I notice is what doesn’t happen, because the absence of it presses in harder than anything else could have.
He doesn’t touch me right away, and that restraint sits between us like something alive, something waiting to be acknowledged instead of taken.
Every expectation I built tells me this moment should have already crossed a line, but it hasn’t, and that delay sharpens everything instead of diffusing it.
My hands rest against the surface in front of me, the faint texture beneath my fingertips grounding me as I set the tool down, slower than necessary, because I am suddenly aware that everything I do is being watched.
“You’re done?” he asks.
“For now,” I reply, keeping my voice even even though my pulse has shifted into something more deliberate.
“For now,” he repeats, and the way he says it feels less like a question and more like he’s testing whether I mean it.
I turn toward him fully, not stepping back, not creating distance, because distance would reframe this into something safer than it actually is.
His attention has changed, and I feel it before I fully understand it, the weight of it more focused, less observational, like he has stopped measuring and started deciding.
“You didn’t interrupt,” I say.
“I wanted to see where it went,” he replies.
“And?” I ask, holding his gaze.
His eyes flick briefly to what I made before returning to me, slower this time. “You don’t hesitate once you start,” he says.
“That’s the point.”
“Most people hesitate.”
“Most people aren’t translating something,” I reply.
The silence that follows tightens instead of fading, pulling us into it instead of letting it settle. I step around the table, not retreating, not circling away, but closing the space between us in a way that makes the intention impossible to ignore.
“It looks like I’m still choosing,” I say when he asks what this is now, and I let the words sit there without softening them.
“You’re pushing,” he says.
“I’m testing.”
“Same thing.”
“Not if I’m paying attention to the response,” I reply.
He steps closer then, and the shift in proximity changes the air immediately, heat settling between us in a way that makes every inch of space feel deliberate. I don’t move away, and that becomes its own answer before either of us says anything else.
“You think you understand this,” he says quietly.
“I think I understand enough to keep going,” I reply.
His hand lifts slowly, not abrupt, not careless, and when his fingers close around the collar at my throat, the contact is unmistakable. The pressure isn’t harsh, but it isn’t neutral either, and the awareness of it travels through me instantly, sharp and immediate.
“That’s a risk,” he says.
“So is stopping,” I reply.
His grip tightens just enough to define the boundary, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me exactly where I am and what this looks like from the outside.
“Everyone on this ship needs to understand what you are,” he says.
“I’m aware.”
“This makes it clear.”
I tilt my head slightly, just enough to feel the shift of his grip. “Does it?” I ask, letting the question carry more weight than the words themselves.
“You disagree?”
“I think it tells them what you want them to see,” I say.
“And what do you want them to see?”
I meet his gaze without hesitation. “That I choose who I belong to…and who I don’t.”
Something changes then, subtle but undeniable, and I feel it in the way his hold adjusts, not loosening, but shifting, like the meaning behind it has changed even if the action hasn’t.
“That’s not how they’ll read it,” he says. “They will see the absence of a collar as proof you are unclaimed. There will be battles, blood, chaos, as they all fight for the right to take you. But make no mistake. One of them will.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, hating myself for the thrill that shoots through me. I guess on some level, I’m the type of woman who likes the idea of men fighting to the death just for the right to tame me.
But just because I like the idea doesn’t mean I’m prepared for the reality of it. I choose my next words carefully as he locks gazes with me. Those damn scarlet eyes should be terrifying, and they are. Yet they blaze with the warmth of a hearth stoked high in the middle of winter.
“I’m not talking to them,” I reply.
The space between us disappears in increments after that, neither of us rushing it, each movement answering the last until there’s nothing left to negotiate. He steps closer, and I don’t step back, and that becomes the moment where tension turns into something else entirely.
His hand tightens again, drawing me closer, and the shift in proximity sharpens everything, the heat of him, the sound of his breathing, the awareness of exactly how close we are.
My own breath changes in response, not uneven, but deeper, more deliberate, like my body is adjusting to something my mind hasn’t fully categorized yet.
“You understand that you are mine, and mine alone?” he asks.
My voice sounds brittle when I speak. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I am for you, Captain Tyrok,” I reply, using the traditional, oft rehearsed Companion greeting.
He chuckles.
“You retreat to the familiar, because you are afraid,” he growls. “Not of me, no. But of what you think it means about you if you surrender yourself to me fully.”
“What do you want me to say?” I snap, my pulse thudding in my ears. I am keenly aware of him as a man, now. His scent, like gunpowder musk, envelops me. Muscles ripple beneath his jet black skin with every heavy breath he takes. It’s like a high tension wire about to snap.
“Nothing.” His voice is a velvet growl. He releases the grip on my collar and caresses my cheek. The unexpectedly tender touch is what nearly breaks me. Suddenly, I know he won’t hurt me…at least, not in ways I don’t want him to. “Not with words. Your body speaks truth of the highest purity.”
My mouth falls open. His thumb brushes my lower lip as he leans in closer. A tingle cascades from my clit all the way through my body.
Tyrok crushes my mouth with a fierce kiss.
My eyes widen before slowly closing. God help me, he tastes good .
Wicked and sweet like barbed wire glazed with rock candy.
His hand slides around behind my head, clawed fingers tangling in my hair.
He holds me firmly in place, his grip tightening.
Not that I want to get away, no matter how much my higher mammalian brain tells me that’s what I should want.
My hands unball from fists and plant themselves on his chest as of their own volition.
I’ve wanted to touch him so bad, and I haven’t even been aware of it until this moment.
His skin is warm, very warm, and not as rough as it looks.
I prick my finger on the crown of spurs jutting from his sternum but I don’t care.
His tongue explores my mouth, claiming the new territory and stealing away my breath. I moan into his mouth, hands sliding down his chest, fingers enthralled by the hard knots of muscle I find there.
Tyrok breaks the kiss, and my body screams in protest. But I get his warm, hungry mouth back a split second later, on my neck. Tyrok’s tongue glides over my skin, tasting my sweat, the softness of his lips in juxtaposition with his hard spurs and sharp teeth.
“Oh God,” I gasp as he bites me, just hard enough to feel it without breaking the skin. My body rears of its own accord as I clutch myself against him. One of his spurs tears through my blouse and draws a line of blood, but it doesn’t even slow me down.
“This is not my name,” he murmurs into my neck before taking another nibble.
“Tyrok!” I shriek, arms encircling his waist and pulling him tighter to me. His cock presses against his trousers, hard and insistent and ready.
“That is better,” he purrs like a jungle cat. Then his clawed hands find my shoulders. With one quick jerk, he shreds my garment and strips me to the waist. I gasp with the sudden exposure, and my legs turn to water as my pussy throbs for more.
Tyrok doesn’t stop there, savagely stripping away my clothing until I wear nothing but his collar and a sheen of sweat. His crimson gaze envelops me, running up and down my body like an aesthete admiring a great work of art.
“You are perfection,” he rumbles.
I yelp as he suddenly seizes me around the waist and throws me over his shoulder.
Tyrok carries me to a purloined sofa worth about a hundred thousand creds and plants me firmly upon it.
My hands go to his belt. He pauses, arching a brow ridge of spurs, but allows me to continue.
My companion training never prepared me for this, but I move with instinct.
His ebon cock springs into view, freed by my efforts.
My hands fall away and I stare in wide eyed wonder, and a little bit of fear.
His weapon resembles that of an earth man in many respects, but humans don’t have spurs of cartilage on the crown of their cocks.
Nor do they have the same along their shaft.
A bead of pearlescent moisture appears on the tip.
I reach toward him, but he catches my wrist. I look up in confusion. Isn’t this what he wanted?
“No,” he says as if answering my silent question. “I must taste you, Anastasia. I have yearned to do so since our eyes first met.”
He kneels before me, as if in reverse of our normal roles, but there’s no question who’s in charge when he puts his clawed hands on my thighs and shoves them apart. My pussy quivers, wide open and ready.
“Anastasia,” he breathes my name into the soft flesh of my inner thigh. I groan as he kisses and licks his way ever closer to my pussy. “You are mine.”
Tyrok extends his tongue, lapping between my swollen labia and tasting my moisture. My mouth flies open to release a sharp gasp. Tyrok’s tongue works its way upward, lavishing my clitoral mound with its full soft flatness.