16. Leah
LEAH
He wakes me with his mouth.
Not with words. Not with hands.
Just heat, breath, and a tongue so slow and deliberate it feels like worship.
I’m barely conscious, still floating in some soft dream where nothing hurts and nothing’s broken, when I feel him shift between my legs—shoulders wide and solid against my thighs, hands pressing them open, parting me like a gift.
“Mm,” I murmur, eyes fluttering. “Kalev?”
“Morning,” he rumbles, voice rough as smoke and sex. “Don’t move.”
My breath catches.
Then he licks.
Long, slow, devastating. The kind of stroke that turns bones to sand and thought to static.
“Fuck,” I whisper, hips twitching.
“Language,” he mutters, mouth pressed to me.
I let out a wrecked little laugh, then lose it completely when he sucks my clit into his mouth.
I can’t think. Can’t breathe.
It’s not just good. It’s surgical. He knows my body now—where I gasp, where I hold tension, where I unravel. He alternates slow circles and fast flicks until I’m gripping the sheets and begging under my breath.
He presses a thick finger inside me and I arch hard off the bed.
“Come for me, Leah,” he says, voice velvet-dark. “Now.”
I do.
With a cry that feels like surrender. My thighs clamp around his head and he groans into me like he likes being smothered there. Like my pleasure is the only thing that matters.
When I finally open my eyes, he’s already above me, sliding inside with a low curse.
It’s slow this time.
So slow.
His forehead pressed to mine. His chest on mine. Every thrust is deep, measured, intimate.
He doesn’t fuck me.
He loves me with his body.
Even if neither of us will say it.
When I come again, he follows, holding me tight like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
The cot’s still warm when the encrypted alert chimes through the wall unit.
I blink awake, disoriented. Kalev’s gear is gone. So is he.
I tap the console, fingers clumsy.
ALERT: OPERATOR 7A3 PULLED — OFF-WORLD BLACK-OPS DEPLOYMENT. ETA UNKNOWN. CLASSIFIED.
That’s it.
No goodbye. No explanation.
Just gone.
I sit there in the silence, heart thudding like something’s about to break.
The air tastes stale. Metallic.
Eventually, the comm flickers again.
Alliance Command: Surveillance Op now under Lt. Leah Monroe’s authority. Confirm readiness.
I swallow.
Flex my fingers.
Then I type:
Confirmed.
I bury myself in the work.
Recalibrate the sensor sweep grid. Rotate the drone feeds. Rewire the dampener coupling that was starting to glitch.
I don’t think about how he looked at me last night.
I don’t think about how his hand trembled slightly after he came, when he brushed hair off my cheek.
A shrill ALERT rips through the bunker.
I lurch to the console. Red strobes flash across the perimeter array.
“East corridor tripwire triggered,” the system chirps.
The screen lights up with motion scatter—heat sig, but erratic.
Small. Fast. Low center of mass.
Could be a decoy.
Could be a drone.
Could be something worse.
My hands move on instinct. I isolate the quadrant, run the thermal against known profiles, activate the IR pulse.
“Leah, status update,” Command pings through.
“Possible intrusion, quadrant 4D. Investigating.”
I toggle audio.
No footsteps. No hum. No mech noise.
Still—can’t risk it.
I shut down the power choke to that corridor. Black it out completely.
I wait.
Silence.
Then the feed resolves—a glitch.
No lifeform. Just a cam echo. Sensor lag from the atmosphere vent cycle.
I key into Command.
“False alarm. Thermal misfire during vent oscillation. No breach.”
A pause.
“Copy that. Efficient resolution. Logs reviewed. Authority retained.”
I exhale.
Hard.
I realize my hands are shaking.
But I handled it.
Alone.
The rest of the shift passes in a blur of routine—rechecking sensors, updating logs, resetting passwords.
But the silence feels different now.
Not empty.
Just missing something.
Someone.
I sit at the edge of the cot he left, staring at the dent where his weight used to be. My fingers ghost over the place he kissed last.
I close my eyes.
Try not to hope.
Because hope’s dangerous.
He could be gone a week. A month. Forever.
I never asked what came before this.
He never told me what comes after.
So I wait.
Not because I believe in promises.
But because when he was here?—
Even for a breath?—
It felt like something worth waiting for.