Chapter 10 #3
"Badly. Until recently." I touched his face, traced the scar along his jaw. "But then someone told me that living fully honors the dead better than slow self-destruction. That survival isn't something to feel guilty about. It's something to honor by actually living."
"Someone wise said that?"
"Someone I'm falling for said that." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Someone who makes me want to try. Want to believe I deserve happiness instead of just existence."
Vaxon kissed me again, softer this time. Tender. The kiss of someone learning what made me sigh, what made me press closer, what made my fingers tighten in his shirt.
His hands moved to my waist, careful and questioning. I answered by pressing closer, by showing him I trusted this. Trusted him. Trusted that whatever happened next, we'd figure it out together.
"Talk to me," he murmured against my mouth. "Tell me what you want. What feels good. What doesn't."
"I want this." My hands found the fastenings of his shirt, fingers trembling slightly. "I want you. I'm just nervous about the logistics."
"Then we go slow." His hands helped mine with the fastenings, patient and unhurried. "We communicate. We stop if anything doesn't feel right." He pulled back to look at me, expression serious. "Your comfort matters more than anything else. Understand?"
I nodded, throat too tight for words.
Vaxon took his time. Stripped away clothing with reverent care, his massive hands learning my body with the same precision he brought to weapons maintenance. Every touch was deliberate. Gentle. Designed to make me gasp or sigh or forget why I'd been nervous in the first place.
His charcoal-black skin was warm beneath my palms, the electric-blue markings that traced his shoulders and chest glowing brighter as his arousal built. I traced them with fascinated fingers, watching them pulse and brighten under my touch like living circuitry responding to my exploration.
"You're beautiful," he murmured against my skin, his breath hot against my collarbone. "Every impossible inch of you."
"I'm short."
"You're perfect." His mouth traced a path along my collarbone, down to the curve of my breast. "Compact. Powerful. Exactly right."
His hands, enormous compared to my smaller frame, cupped my breasts with such careful reverence it made my breath catch.
His thumbs brushed over sensitive peaks, and I arched into the touch, my body responding with an intensity that surprised me.
When his mouth followed where his hands had been, I stopped thinking entirely.
"Vaxon—" His name came out breathless, desperate.
"Tell me what you need." His voice was rough now, control fraying at the edges as his markings blazed brighter across his skin. "What feels good. What doesn't."
"Everything feels good." My hands explored the planes of his chest, the ridged muscle of his abdomen. So different from human anatomy, harder, more defined, with those glowing markings that seemed to respond to every touch I gave him. "You feel good."
His hands moved lower, learning the curves of my waist, my hips, the softness of my thighs. When his fingers found the heat between my legs, I gasped, my hips lifting involuntarily into his touch.
"So responsive," he murmured, his cobalt eyes dark with want as he watched my face. "So perfect."
He explored me with patient thoroughness, his large fingers surprisingly gentle as they learned what made me whimper, what made my nails dig into his shoulders.
When he slipped one finger inside me, then another, stretching me carefully while his thumb found the bundle of nerves that made me cry out, I thought I might shatter from the pleasure of it.
"I need—" I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't find words when his fingers were doing that, moving in a rhythm that had my body climbing toward something inevitable and desperate.
"I know what you need." He withdrew his hand, and I almost sobbed at the loss until I felt him positioning himself between my thighs. "Look at me, Elena. Stay with me."
I met his eyes as he pressed forward, the broad head of him pushing against my entrance. The size difference was immediately apparent, he was significantly larger than any human man, thick and hard and impossibly hot against my skin.
"Breathe," he commanded softly, one hand bracing himself above me while the other supported my hip. "We go slow. Tell me if it's too much."
He pushed forward with aching slowness, giving my body time to adjust to the intrusion.
The stretch was intense, bordering on too much, but not painful.
Not when he was watching my face so carefully, reading every micro-expression, adjusting his angle when I winced, stopping completely when my breath hitched.
"Okay?" he asked, voice strained with the effort of holding still when only the first few inches were inside me.
"More than okay." I wrapped my legs around his waist as much as I could given the size difference, urging him deeper. "Don't you dare stop."
His laugh was breathless. "Demanding."
"You like it."
"I love it." He pushed deeper, careful and controlled, watching my face the entire time. "You're taking me so well. So perfect."
The fullness was overwhelming. Every nerve ending sparked with sensation as he filled me completely, the size of him stretching me in ways I'd never experienced. When he was fully seated inside me, we both stilled, breathing hard, adjusting to the sensation of being joined so completely.
His markings were blazing now, electric-blue light pulsing across his skin in patterns that matched his heartbeat. I realized with fascination that I could feel the warmth of them where our bodies touched, a pleasant heat that added to the sensation.
"You're glowing," I managed.
"Zandovian response to arousal." His voice was strained. "The markings react. Can't control it when I'm inside you."
"I like it." I clenched around him experimentally, watching his eyes darken and his markings flare brighter. "I like seeing what I do to you."
He groaned, the sound rumbling through his chest. "If you keep doing that, this will be over embarrassingly fast."
"Then move." I rolled my hips, testing the angle. "Show me what we can do together."
He moved then, withdrawing almost completely before pushing back in with controlled power. The angle was different than I'd expected, his size meant he hit places inside me I didn't know could feel like this, each thrust sending sparks of pleasure through my entire body.
It wasn't perfect. There were awkward moments when angles didn't quite work, when the size difference meant we had to shift position, when I had to guide his hand to support my lower back because the natural curve of my spine didn't align with his thrusts.
But every adjustment, every moment of figuring it out together, somehow made it more intimate. More real.
"There," I gasped when he changed angle slightly, hitting something inside me that made stars burst behind my eyelids. "Right there—don't stop—"
"Never stopping." His control was fracturing now, his thrusts becoming less measured, more desperate. "You feel incredible. So tight. So perfect around me."
His markings were pulsing in time with his thrusts now, the blue light bright enough to illuminate our joined bodies in the dimmed quarters. I watched, fascinated, as the patterns shifted and flowed across his skin, racing faster as his pleasure built.
When his hand slipped between our bodies to find that sensitive bundle of nerves again, I shattered. The orgasm hit me like an electrical surge, pleasure arcing through every nerve ending, my body clenching around him so tightly he groaned.
"Elena—" My name was a prayer and a curse as he followed me over the edge, his body going rigid as he found his release.
His markings blazed brilliant blue, so bright I had to close my eyes against the intensity of it, and I felt the heat of him spilling inside me, the pulse of it matching the rhythm of his racing heartbeat.
When it was over, when we were both breathless and tangled together and my body felt like it had been rewired with new electrical pathways, Vaxon held me against his chest with infinite care.
"You're crying," he said softly, his markings dimming back to their normal glow.
I touched my face, surprised to find it wet. "Happy crying. That's a thing, right?"
"Apparently." He wiped my tears with his thumb, his massive hand infinitely gentle against my face. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you? Was it too much—"
"It was perfect." I pressed my face against his chest, feeling the rapid thrum of his dual heartbeats beneath my ear, inhaling his scent, metallic and warm and safe. "You were perfect. This was perfect." My voice dropped to a whisper. "I've never felt this safe with anyone."
His arms tightened around me, careful of my smaller frame even now. "Good. Because you are safe. With me. Always."
We lay in comfortable silence, Vaxon's heartbeat steady beneath my ear, his hands tracing idle patterns across my skin. The lighting had cycled to night mode, leaving us in gentle darkness broken only by the faint glow of his markings.
"What are you thinking?" I asked eventually.
"That I want this every night." His voice rumbled through his chest. "Want to fall asleep with you in my arms. Wake up with your chaos invading my carefully organized space. Listen to you explain circuit theory at 0600 hours while I'm still trying to achieve consciousness."
"That sounds terrible."
"It sounds perfect." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "You're the best kind of terrible."
I laughed, the sound muffled against his chest. "What about your quarters? All your tactical equipment?"
"Can be moved. Or we find larger quarters that accommodate both your projects and my equipment." His hand found mine, fingers intertwining. "I don't care about logistics as long as you're there."
"Dana's going to have opinions about this. Jalina will want to redesign our shared quarters for optimal functionality. Bea will probably schedule couples therapy sessions—"
"And we'll handle all of it together." He tilted my face up, those cobalt eyes holding mine. "Because that's what partners do. We face complications and logistics and well-meaning friends together."
Partners. The word settled into my chest, warm and terrifying and absolutely right.
"Okay," I said. "Partners. Together. Figuring out the impossible one disaster at a time."
"Starting tomorrow." He pulled the blanket over us both. "Tonight, we just sleep. Just exist together. Just be."
I curled against him, feeling his body relax around mine, his breathing evening out as exhaustion caught up with us both. For the first time in eight months, I didn't dream about wormholes or burning ships or everyone I couldn't save.
I dreamed about electrical systems and tactical assessments and a future where chaos and control learned to coexist. Where disasters became something you faced together instead of alone.
Where home wasn't a planet or a ship but the steady heartbeat beneath my ear and the arms that held me through the dark.
When I woke, pale light filtered through the viewport—Mothership's artificial dawn marking a new cycle. Vaxon was already awake, watching me with an expression that made my heart stutter.
"Good morning," he said.
"Morning." I stretched carefully, wincing slightly at muscles that weren't accustomed to last night's activities. "You're staring."
"I'm memorizing." His hand traced my face. "In case this is a dream and I wake up alone in medical again."
"Not a dream." I pressed my palm over his heart. "Real. This is real."
"Good." He pulled me closer, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "Because I have no intention of letting you leave."
"I have to work eventually. The weapons systems need—"
"The weapons systems can wait." His arms tightened around me. "Right now, you're exactly where you need to be."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to point out the maintenance schedules and diagnostic reports waiting for my attention. But lying here in Vaxon's arms, feeling safer than I'd felt in months, the work could wait.
Everything could wait.
For now, I was just Elena. Not an engineer or a survivor or someone punishing herself for living. Just a woman choosing to believe in something good. Choosing to trust that maybe, impossibly, this could work.
Choosing to live instead of just survive.
And that felt like the most revolutionary thing I'd ever done.