Chapter 10 Biological Maintenance #2
Yet as my hand moves lower, tracing the path of feint blue patterns across my torso, I find I cannot summon the willpower to resist.
The sensation is... overwhelming. More intense than any previous experience, as if Dominique’s proximity has somehow amplified every nerve ending in my body.
The careful, clinical approach I typically employ for biological maintenance proves inadequate for the waves of pleasure that course through my system.
I hear my own breathing become ragged, a loss of composure that would mortify me under any other circumstances. But there are no witnesses to my breakdown in discipline except my own conscience, and even that seems to have been overwhelmed by more primitive responses.
The images that flood my consciousness are vivid beyond anything I have previously experienced: Dominique’s skin warm beneath my hands, softer than anything in my ordered world yet somehow more responsive than I ever imagined possible.
Her voice saying my name in that breathless way humans do when overwhelmed—so different from the controlled vocalizations of my species, so much more honest in its desperate need.
I imagine what might have happened if I had not pulled away in the medical bay.
What it would feel like to trail my lips along the elegant line of her throat while she arches beneath me, to taste the salt of her skin that carries that uniquely addictive sweetness my enhanced senses crave.
The way her pulse would flutter against my tongue, rapid and desperate in the human way that speaks of complete surrender to sensation.
My control fractures completely as I imagine her hands mapping the patterns across my chest, her fingers tracing the silver lines that pulse with my heartbeat.
How her eyes would darken with want when she realizes the patterns flare brighter with arousal, how she would look at me not as a diplomatic courier but as a male who could make her forget everything else.
My hand moves with desperate urgency, every fantasy centered on her—only her.
The memory of her body pressed against mine in the tunnel, the trust in her eyes when she let me treat her injury, the way she challenged every wall I’ve built around myself.
My breathing grows harsh in the silence of my quarters, the sound mixing with the subtle shift of fabric against fevered skin.
I can almost feel her responding to my touch, can almost hear the soft sounds she would make—not the controlled responses my species might offer, but those breathless human gasps that speak of complete abandonment.
Would she whisper my name the way she did when the neural disruptor pain spiked?
Would she look at me with that same fierce trust, but now mixed with desire that burns as hot as my own?
The fantasy shifts, becomes more vivid. Her hands in my hair, pulling with that delicious human lack of restraint.
The way she would taste—warm and alive and utterly intoxicating.
How her smaller frame would feel beneath my larger one, how her human warmth would feel against my naturally higher body temperature, creating a perfect thermal harmony that neither of us has ever experienced.
My movements become desperate, uncontrolled.
The quiet of my quarters fills with the sound of my ragged breathing, the slick rhythm of desperate need, the subtle shift of fabric against skin.
Every sense heightened by arousal focuses on memories of her—the warmth of her hand in mine, the way she smelled like freedom and defiance and something uniquely her that no diplomatic protocol could ever catalog.
The thought of her choosing me—not because of some archaic law but because she wants me—makes my grip tighten with desperate need.
Of being the one to make her gasp, to watch her surrender completely to pleasure I could give her.
The fantasy of her choosing me, truly choosing me over duty and safety and everything logical, strips away the last of my legendary control.
I imagine her body responding to mine, the way she would move beneath me, around me.
The sounds she would make when she discovered exactly how thoroughly a Gluxian male could worship his chosen mate.
How her voice would break as she called my name, how her body would tremble with the intensity that human physiology allows—so much more dramatic than what I’ve known, so much more affecting to witness.
When release finally crashes over me, it’s with her name torn from my throat—raw, desperate, a claiming call that echoes through my empty quarters.
“Dominique!” The sound is primal, possessive, everything I’ve been trying to suppress.
The patterns across my skin flare brilliant silver—chest, arms, throat—painting the walls with pulsing light as my body surrenders completely to fantasies of claiming her, of being claimed in return.
Wave after wave of sensation crashes through me, each one accompanied by her imagined cries of pleasure, the fantasy of her body welcoming mine, the thought of showing her exactly what it means to be chosen by someone who has never chosen anything for himself before.
My breathing slowly returns to regular patterns as the tension that has plagued me for days finally begins to dissipate, but the images linger: Dominique’s imagined surrender, the fantasy of her body responding to mine, the dream of hearing her say my name not in protocol but in passion.
The luminescent patterns gradually fade to their normal subdued glow, but the need—the desperate, overwhelming need for her—remains.
In the aftermath, breathing ragged in the dimness, one truth burns crystal clear through my consciousness: professional distance is no longer possible.
Whatever protocols I’m violating, whatever lines I’m crossing, whatever rules I’m destroying—none of it matters compared to the need burning through me like liquid fire.
She has become my choice. My only choice.