Chapter 18 #3
She kissed him. Not the gentle, tentative kisses of their early explorations, but something deeper. Desperate. A claiming that went both ways.
He responded in kind.
They didn’t make it to the bunk.
The station’s floor was hard and cold, but she barely noticed.
His wings spread beneath them like a living blanket, his scales smooth against her skin as she stripped away layers of thermal clothing with frantic hands.
There was nothing gentle about this—it was survival sex, the kind of coupling that happened when two people had stared death in the face and found life instead.
“Mine,” he growled against her throat, and the word sent electricity sparking down her spine.
“Yours,” she agreed, arching into his touch. “Always.”
His body covered hers, pressing her down into the cushion of his wings. The first joining was almost too intense and she gasped, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her legs wrapping around him to pull him deeper. He shuddered above her, his eyes blazing with something that went beyond desire.
They moved together in the dim light of the ranger station, two survivors finding solace in each other’s flesh. She lost track of time, lost track of everything except the sensation of being filled, being held, being wanted with an intensity that left no room for doubt.
When the first wave crested, it took her by surprise—a climax that rolled through her body like thunder, leaving her shaking and breathless. He followed moments later, his release marked by a roar that echoed through the station.
But he wasn’t done.
He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him and lifting her over him like she weighed nothing at all. His hands guided her hips, encouraging her to set her own pace, to take what she needed.
“Again,” he said. “Let me feel you again.”
She obliged, riding him with her eyes closed, her hands braced on his chest, every nerve ending alive with sensation. His claws traced careful patterns on her thighs, driving her excitement higher, while his tail wrapped around her ankle like an anchor.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and she opened her eyes.
His face was transformed by pleasure—fierce and vulnerable all at once, the harsh angles softened by wonder. This ancient being, this impossibility made flesh, was looking at her like she was the miracle.
“My mate,” he said, the words rough with emotion. “My heart. My home.”
The third climax built slowly, inexorably, fed by the intensity of his gaze and the rhythm of their joined bodies. When it broke, she cried out—a sound she barely recognized as her own—and felt his answering release pulse inside her.
They lay locked together in the aftermath, neither willing to break the connection.
His wings wrapped around them both, forming a sanctuary against the cold and the fear and the uncertain future.
His hand stroked lazy patterns on her back, tracing the line of her spine, learning the landscape of her body through touch.
“I love you,” she said quietly.
The words surprised her even as she spoke them. She hadn’t meant to say it now, but the truth of it was undeniable. Somewhere between terror and tenderness, she had fallen completely.
He went very still beneath her.
“I love you too,” he said. “I understand the word, in the way I understand many things about your language. But I do not know if I feel it correctly.”
“What do you feel?”
A long pause. His hand continued its gentle exploration of her back, but his voice was distant, searching.
“That I would die for you without hesitation. That your happiness has become more important than my own survival. That when I look at you, something in my chest expands, as if it was always too small before, and only your presence has shown me its true size.”
He pulled back slightly, meeting her eyes.
“I feel that in all the memories I do not have, across all the years I cannot remember, there has never been anyone like you. And there will never be anyone after. You are my beginning and my end, Jaz Kour. That is what I mean by love. And I love you with everything that I am and everything I do not yet understand about myself.”
Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back, but some escaped anyway, sliding down her cheeks to fall on his silver-scaled chest.
“That’s love,” she whispered. “That’s definitely love.”
He pulled her close again, tucking her head beneath his chin, his arms and wings creating a fortress of warmth and safety.
Outside, the polar night was falling, the temperature dropping towards extremes that would kill an unprotected human in minutes.
Inside, wrapped in the embrace of an ancient dragon, she had never felt more secure.
“Sleep,” he murmured. “I will watch over you.”
“The ranger—”
“I will wake you when he approaches. Sleep, my mate. You have earned it.”
She wanted to argue, to insist on keeping watch together, to maintain some semblance of her famous independence. But exhaustion was dragging at her limbs, and his heartbeat was steady beneath her ear, and the warmth of his body was melting away the last of her resistance.
She slept.