Chapter 39
JILLIAN
Earth is offered first.
Clean. Familiar. Forgiving. The diplomats speak gently, like I’m a survivor of war, not a woman who started one. They promise me a lab at any university I want. Access to funding, prestige. A chance to be a voice in the new bioethics council.
Novaria comes next. Glass towers and mineral-blue skies.
“Your intellect deserves a world that matches it,” the representative says, with a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.
“You could be the lead on any planetary geology research facility. We’ve already allocated you an apartment near the sky gardens. ”
Then Mars. Red dirt and rigid order. IHC’s offer there is tactical—subtle penance wrapped in promotion. “We need you on the inside,” says the admiral who once looked ready to shoot Maug on sight. “We could use someone who knows what the hell happened.”
I thank them all. Politely. Even warmly. And then I say no.
Because I’ve already chosen.
Not safety. Not boardrooms or bureaucracies or planets with paved roads.
I want this.
Maug. The stars. A ship that rattles like a canteen in the wind and smells faintly of scorched engine coolant. I want a future that’s raw and unscripted, carved out of stardust and scars.
So we retrofit the old warbird.
The one he buried for exile.
Now reborn.
It’s barely spaceworthy. Ugly as sin. Scuffed hull, patchy thermal seals, an engine that growls like a wounded animal. But it flies. And it’s ours.
Maug reinforces the hull plating with scrap from Deep Space 12’s wreckage.
I set up a miniature geology lab in the back—just a corner of the cargo bay, really, with a gravity anchor, an old microscope, and a stack of salvaged mineral samplers.
He teases me for calling it a “lab,” but helps reinforce the storage racks anyway.
We name the ship Second Wind.
It’s the first thing we’ve ever named together.
Nights come differently in deep space.
Time loses its grip.
You measure your days in engine pulses and protein rations, in the static hum of long-range scanners and the way his hands find your waist when you walk past the nav console.
One night, we drift near a binary system. Two suns, dancing slow and steady around each other like tired gods. Their light floods the cockpit in gold and violet, casting everything in a warm, sleepy glow.
I curl my knees to my chest in the co-pilot’s chair, watching the light flicker against Maug’s horns.
He’s quiet, as always, but not distant.
Never distant.
Not anymore.
“Do you really believe we were fated?” I ask.
His head tilts slightly, eyes never leaving the twin stars. “I believe I would’ve crossed time to find you. Fate just made it faster.”
I smile.
Small. Stupid. Huge.
Then I’m out of my chair and in his lap, straddling him with my hands buried in his hair.
“I like that answer,” I whisper.
And I kiss him.
Not gentle.
Not desperate.
Just home.
Without preamble, he kisses me, and I melt into it.
His mouth opens under mine like a door kicked wide, and his hands—those massive, clawed hands—slide up my back, under my shirt.
He lifts it off with a careful tug, never breaking the kiss.
It flutters to the console beside us, forgotten like gravity.
I can feel his cock already, hard and heavy beneath me, even through the thin cargo pants he wears. I roll my hips instinctively, grinding down, and he grunts—a low, guttural sound that vibrates into my chest.
His hands go to my hips, then pause. “Tell me to stop,” he rasps.
I lean in, lips brushing his. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
That’s all it takes.
He surges forward and stands with me in his arms like I weigh nothing.
He doesn’t stumble. Doesn’t grunt from the effort.
Just moves with purpose across the cockpit, lowering me down onto the warm metal floor.
A throw blanket cushions my spine, soft against the faint chill that creeps between shield flares.
He kneels between my legs and stares.
Not like he’s undressing me with his eyes. He’s worshipping.
Like my body is a map he’s memorized and is still afraid to forget.
His fingers trace my ribs, my breasts, my stomach. He growls low when he sees the faint bruises from last time. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I breathe. “You claimed me.”
His eyes go gold-hot, and his mouth is on me before I can say anything else.
He kisses down my neck, slow and thorough. His tusks skim my skin without ever piercing, and that contrast—danger and control—makes my pulse spike.
I feel his tongue flick over my nipple, and I gasp, arching. He hums like he likes the sound, then sucks it into his mouth, tugging gently with lips and teeth until I’m moaning, twisting beneath him.
He moves to the other, giving it the same worship. His claws drag lightly down my hips, slipping into the waistband of my pants.
“I want to see you,” he says, voice like thunder behind glass.
“Then look,” I say, lifting my hips.
He peels my pants away, slow and reverent. When he sees my pussy—bare, slick, already throbbing—he freezes.
Then he groans, deep and almost pained. “Fuck, Jillian.”
He lowers his head between my thighs and I nearly scream when his tongue meets me. Wide and rough and hot, dragging over my clit with a precision that feels like a blade honed just for this.
He pins my thighs open with those enormous hands, claws digging slightly into the blanket. I squirm, panting, overwhelmed, but he doesn’t let me escape.
“Stay still,” he growls, licking me again. “Let me taste you.”
And gods, he does.
He licks every inch of me. Flicks over my clit, then sucks it into his mouth until I’m sobbing his name. My hands claw through the thick mane of black hair that falls over his shoulders, trying to pull him closer, or away—I can’t even tell anymore.
My orgasm hits like a wave, sudden and blinding, and he doesn’t stop. He holds me down and eats me through it, like I’m his entire religion.
By the time he pulls back, I’m shaking.
He moves up my body, kissing a line over my stomach, my chest, my throat, until we’re face to face again. His golden eyes are blown wide, pupils dark, barely breathing.
“I need you,” I whisper.
“I could break you,” he says, voice cracking.
“Then break me open. I want it.”
His mouth crashes to mine, all teeth and heat and hunger. His pants vanish—I barely register him kicking them aside—and his cock presses against my entrance, thick and hot and there.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs again, one last time.
“Fuck me, Maug.”
He pushes in.
My breath catches. My pussy stretches around him, taking him inch by inch. It burns and aches and fills, but I don’t stop him. I can’t.
“Jillian,” he moans, forehead pressed to mine. “You feel like… starlight. Fire.”
I laugh, breathless. “You feel like being found.”
He starts to move.
Slow thrusts at first, letting me adjust. Each push stretches me around him until I swear I can feel him in my throat. But the pain fades into pleasure, into fullness, into right.
His cock drags along every nerve inside me, perfectly angled to hit that spot that makes me see galaxies.
Our bodies fall into rhythm—his strength against my softness, his power wrapped in control. Every time he thrusts, he mutters something—my name, curses in his native tongue, promises I don’t understand but feel in my bones.
I wrap my legs around his waist, digging my heels into his back, urging him deeper.
Harder.
He groans, hips slamming against mine, cock driving into me with a force that should break bones—but I take it. I want it. I need it.
“More,” I pant. “Give me all of you.”
And he does.
He fucks me like I’m air. Like he’s been drowning his whole life and I’m the first breath he’s ever tasted.
“Mine,” he snarls. “You’re mine.”
“Yes,” I cry out. “Yours.”
The stars flicker outside the viewport. Shield flares pulse like a heartbeat. The universe narrows to this—his body above mine, inside me, surrounding me.
I come again, clenching around him, and that’s all it takes.
He roars as he follows, cock twitching deep in my pussy, spilling inside me with a ferocity that lights my nerves on fire.
Then everything goes quiet.
He stays inside me, arms shaking from the effort of not collapsing on top of me. Our foreheads touch, breath mixing. Sweat slicks our bodies, but neither of us move.
After what feels like a lifetime, he lays us gently on our sides, tangled together in a heap of warmth and breath.
We don’t do it because we’re broken or saved or needing to forget.
We do it because we can.
Because it’s real.
Because when he moved inside me—slow and deliberate, with reverence and hunger and growled promises against my throat—I felt like the universe was built around this exact moment.
Afterward, tangled in sheets we never bother to fold, he murmurs in that voice that still rattles the bones of my chest, “You’re not mine because I saved you.”
I press my lips to his jaw, eyes already fluttering shut.
“You’re not mine because I need redemption.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“You’re mine because we chose this.”
And I do.
Every day forward will be a shared one.
And that’s what makes it love.