Chapter 23 Vrok
VROK
Idon’t knock.
The door to Roxy’s quarters hisses shut behind me with a finality that tastes like copper on my tongue.
My claws hover over the lock panel for a second too long, just breathing her in, then I jab the override and seal us in—every bolt sliding into place like a promise I don’t have time to keep.
The room’s dark, just the faint amber wash of emergency lighting along the floor giving me enough to see her shape curled under thin blankets.
It smells like her—warm skin, old soap, faint sparks of citrus from whatever she wore earlier. I breathe it in so deep it hurts.
I’m across the room before I know it. Boots still on. Blood still hot from too many nights holding back.
She stirs as I approach, lashes fluttering. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. Just blinks those wide eyes at me like she already knows what I came for.
“Vrok?” her voice rasps.
I don’t answer with words.
My hand’s already in her hair, thumb at her temple, mouth crashing down on hers before she can finish another thought. She gasps into it, soft and startled, but she opens for me—mouth parting, body arching—and I lose the last thread of restraint I was clinging to.
I taste heat. Salt. Her.
I press her down into the mattress, crawling up over her like I belong there, like the stars spun their maps wrong and I’m here to rewrite them one kiss at a time.
Her legs part instinctively, a soft whimper caught between us when my thigh slides between hers.
She’s soft under me, pliant and already burning through my armor.
“You could’ve knocked,” she murmurs against my mouth.
“Didn’t want to give you the chance to say no.”
She huffs a laugh, breath shaky. “Like I would.”
I pull back just enough to look at her. “This isn’t careful, Roxy.”
She searches my face. “Do I look like I want careful?”
I bare my teeth. “You look like mine.”
And then I devour her.
Clothes don’t come off—they vanish. My claws make short work of her top, dragging the fabric away from heat I’m already tasting, already claiming with mouth and teeth and tongue.
She gasps when I take her nipple into my mouth, arching hard into me, and I growl low in my throat, the sound vibrating against her skin.
Her hands are everywhere—clutching at my shoulders, raking down my back, sliding around to grip my horns like she knows what it does to me. I nearly black out.
“Roxy—” I snarl it against her breastbone. “You don’t know—”
“Then show me,” she breathes, pulling my mouth back to hers.
She kisses like it’s the last air on the ship, and I kiss her back like I intend to die breathing it.
I slide my hand between her thighs and curse in Vakutan when I find her already soaked for me.
She writhes under my touch, breath catching, hips chasing every stroke of my fingers.
I work her open slowly, teasing the tight heat of her, mapping every gasp and hitch in her breath like I’m writing coordinates into bone.
“Please,” she whispers.
“Please what?”
She bites her lip. “You know.”
I push two fingers inside her and watch her shatter.
Her back bows. She clutches at me, head thrown back, mouth open on a silent cry. My cock is so hard it hurts, pressed tight against my trousers, but I don’t rush. Not yet. I need to see this. Need to etch the way she falls apart into the backs of my eyes so I can take it with me if—
No. Not if.
When.
I strip the last of my gear off with shaking hands. Her eyes widen when I settle between her thighs, hard and heavy and lined with spurs, but she doesn’t flinch. She cups my face in both hands.
“I trust you.”
I don’t deserve it. I take it anyway.
I press into her slowly, inch by inch, her body stretching to take me, trembling around every ridge. She makes a sound I’ll never forget—half sob, half moan—and I bury my face against her neck, holding myself still while she adjusts.
“Stars,” she pants. “You—you weren’t kidding.”
“You okay?”
She laughs, breathless. “Better than okay. Move.”
And I do.
I fuck her like I’m running out of time.
There’s no rhythm, no restraint—just need. White-hot and blinding. Every thrust punches a groan out of my chest, every whimper she makes ratchets my control closer to the edge. Her nails dig into my back, legs wrapping around me, dragging me deeper.
She kisses me between gasps. “Harder—”
I oblige.
The bed creaks. The walls echo. My name is a chant in her mouth, a prayer, a command, a plea. I want to give her everything. Want to brand her from the inside out with the shape of me, the sound of me, the weight of what I haven’t said.
“Roxy,” I growl, dragging my lips along her jaw. “I love you.”
She gasps, goes still for half a beat.
I don’t let her speak.
“It’s not a question. Not a confession. It’s just true. You don’t get to argue.”
Her eyes shine, wide and wet and stunned. I kiss the breath from her again before she can say a word.
The bond hits like gravity reversing.
I see stars. I smell ozone. My vision whites out for a second and I think I forget my own name. All I know is her. Her skin, her voice, the tremble in her thighs when she starts to come again, the way she says my name like it’s the only word that’s ever mattered.