Chapter 5 Into the Storm #3
“Fiona,” he says, and there’s something different in his voice. Softer, more vulnerable. “May I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“When you learned the truth about my watching, you said it was either the most romantic thing anyone had done for you, or the most terrifying.” His hand continues its gentle movement on my back. “Have you decided which?”
The question hangs between us, heavy with three years of longing and the weight of choices I’m not sure I’m ready to make. In his arms, warm and safe while danger lurks just outside, the answer feels surprisingly clear.
“Both,” I admit quietly. “It’s both.”
His arms tighten around me, and I feel him press a soft kiss to the top of my head. The gesture is so gentle, so full of carefully controlled affection, that it makes my chest ache.
“I can accept both,” he says. “If it means you will give me the chance to prove the romantic outweighs the terrifying.”
I tilt my head back to look at him, taking in the sharp angles of his alien features, the winter-blue eyes that hold three years of patient longing. This close, I can see the faint patterns in his skin, the way they pulse slightly with what might be increased heart rate.
“You realize this is crazy,” I tell him. “All of it. Alien couriers and fated mates and Christmas Day spaceship repair.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Completely insane.”
“And you’re asking me to trust someone who’s been essentially stalking me for three years.”
“Yes.”
“Someone who could probably snap me in half without breaking a sweat.”
“I would never—”
“I know.” And I do know, somehow. “That’s what makes this so dangerous.”
His eyes search mine. “Dangerous how?”
“Because despite everything rational telling me to run, I want to stay.” The admission comes out in a whisper. “I want to see what happens if I stop fighting this.”
Something shifts in his expression—hope, hunger, carefully controlled desire. “Fiona...”
“But I need time,” I continue quickly, before the heat in his eyes makes me lose my train of thought completely. “Time to process, to understand what this means. What you mean.”
“You will have all the time you need,” he promises. “I have waited three years. I can wait longer.”
“Even if it means keeping your hands to yourself while we’re pressed together like this?”
His jaw tightens, and I feel his arms flex around me. “That will be... challenging.”
“Good,” I say, surprising myself with the admission. “I’d hate to think I was the only one struggling with self-control.”
The confession slips out before I can stop it, and his reaction is immediate. His pupils dilate, his breathing changes, and I can feel the sudden tension in his body.
“Fiona,” he says, voice rough with want. “You cannot say things like that and expect me to maintain proper distance.”
“Who said anything about proper distance?” I shift against him, ostensibly to get more comfortable, but really because I want to see what happens when I press closer to all that carefully controlled alien masculinity.
His response is a low growl that I feel more than hear, vibrating through his chest where I’m pressed against him. The sound is definitely not human, and it does things to my body that should probably be illegal.
“You are testing my control,” he warns.
“Maybe a little.” I look up at him through my lashes, feeling bold and reckless and alive in ways I haven’t in years. “Is that a problem?”
“Only if you are not prepared for the consequences.”
The threat, delivered in that deep, careful voice, makes heat coil tight in my stomach. “What kind of consequences?”
Instead of answering with words, he shifts position, one hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. The touch is possessive, claiming, and it makes my breath catch.
“The kind that change everything,” he says, eyes holding mine. “The kind that make it impossible to go back to the way things were.”
I should be intimidated. Should remember all the reasons this is complicated and probably stupid.
But looking into those winter-blue eyes, feeling the careful strength in his hands, breathing in his scent in the warm cocoon of his arms, I find myself thinking that maybe some changes are worth the risk.
“Ja’war,” I whisper.
“Yes?”
But before I can figure out what I was going to say, the ship’s communication system crackles to life with an urgent message in a language I don’t recognize. The spell breaks as reality crashes back in.
He listens for a moment, his expression growing increasingly grim.
“What is it?” I ask.
“OOPS emergency frequency,” he says, gently moving me aside as he stands to respond. “The research colony. They are reporting accelerated plague progression.”
The warmth of his arms is replaced by cold air and crushing responsibility. Right. People are dying while I’m having romantic epiphanies in an alien’s lap.
“How much time do we have?” I ask, standing and brushing off my clothes, trying to shift back into practical problem-solving mode.
“Days instead of weeks,” he says grimly, studying readouts that mean nothing to me. “The medications are needed immediately.”
“Then we better get to work.” I turn back to the damaged engine systems, my mind already cataloguing problems and potential solutions. “Show me how this works. All of it. If we’re going to save lives, I need to understand everything.”
As he begins explaining alien technology with the patient precision of someone who’s spent years learning to communicate across species barriers, I try to ignore the way his voice makes my skin feel too tight, the way his proximity makes it hard to concentrate on technical details.
We have work to do. Lives to save. A ship to repair before the military finds us.
But underneath the professional focus, awareness simmers between us. Every accidental brush of hands, every moment when he leans close to point out a component, every time his breath warms my ear as he explains something—it all feeds the tension that has nothing to do with spaceship repair.
Christmas Day in an alien spaceship, falling for my stalker. Definitely not what I had planned.
But maybe some Christmas miracles are worth the complications.