Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Amoan shuddered from him to her and back again until Wynn didn’t know who had started it. Her head filled with the scent of him, the taste of him, and the feel of his skin beneath her palms. A pleasurable fire encompassed her entire body, her insides sighing at last as her dry lips drank him in.
The flesh of her cheek tingled where he touched her, electricity traveling across her face and scalp. Heat filled her chest and scorched its way to her fingertips and between her legs.
It was addictive, this feeling that she’d never experienced with anyone else. From the beginning, it made little sense that her skin shivered on contact, that her breath froze in her lungs, that when his face filled her vision, everything else faded into background noise.
Why did she burn for him, and only him?
She broke the kiss and blinked away the lust-filled fog that shrouded her vision.
Iax’s glinting eyes came into focus. The disquiet she used to get from the unique trait had all but disappeared.
Somewhere along the line, she’d grown accustomed to the oddity, thought it beautiful—just another shade of eye color.
And she found him more expressive and wasn’t sure if it was because she knew him better, or if he was showing more emotion.
“Are we safe here?” She jerked her head toward the stars without looking at them. “In this place?”
There was a moment of stillness in his body, then the ship powered up and accelerated without him moving a muscle.
“We are too far away for anyone on the Corvus to catch up,” he assured her with an even tone.
“But what of others?”
He blinked. “We are alone out here, but I will continue to monitor our surroundings.”
Without touching a single control. Even not understanding that eerie oddity, she trusted him.
How could she not when he’d arrived in that lab like an avenging angel, fury coursing through his body.
When he’d wrapped his arms around her, it had felt like she was coming home for the first time in her life.
Wynn dove back into the kiss. The smooth skin of his cheek melded against her palm, and she dug in her fingernails just a little. Her other hand gripped his scalp, holding him to her.
A groan vibrated through his chest. The deep sound made her insides squirm. His arms wrapped around her tight, grounding her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. She reached for more, pulling him against her and shifting in his lap. He shivered, his hands flexing against her skin.
She ripped her mouth from his and gasped a deep breath. “Would it be like this with any Calypson?” Her fingers clenched against his skin. “Are you doing something to make me feel this way?”
Did she still carry his essence on her body? On her skin or clothes? The thought of carrying a piece of him didn’t disturb her like it should, but was it altering her? Had he from the beginning?
“No,” he stated with an emphatic shake of his head. “This is not the same.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “You are important to me.” He kissed her roughly, then retreated. “You make me feel.” He recaptured her mouth, robbing her ability to speak.
His words were stilted and jerky, but she felt them all the way to her toes. So sweet. Emotion welled up in her eyes. Her earlier, panicked, tears turned into something more poignant: relief and affection. He made her feel too. Had she ever experienced life with this kind of sharp clarity?
A frantic need built inside her. His hardness pressed into the side of her thigh, and she shifted against the bulk, restless.
“I need you, Iax,” she said against his lips.
An exposed sensation erupted over her skin at the declaration. She’d never said those words to anyone before, had never felt them before. But with him, she felt everything.
“I need all of you.” To forget what could have happened and just focus on them.
But would he even understand what she meant? Reaching between them, she grabbed as much of his cock as she could through his flight-suit. “I need this.” She squeezed. “Inside me.” She thrust against him. “Now.”
A moment of nerves almost overtook her at her declaration, but then another groan ripped through him, erasing her misgivings. He stood, cradling her body with one arm beneath her shoulders, and the other under her knees. Her medical garb crinkled at the movement.
Wynn linked her arms around his neck as his long strides carried them through the cruiser.
A slender door opened when he approached, revealing a bed at its center, its covers black.
Many wall compartments lined the bulkheads.
He turned sideways so they could both get through without her banging her head.
Then she was floating, flying, landing in the middle of the bed with a soft whoosh of air.
Iax followed her down, covering her body with his and sealing her lips in another kiss.
She drank him in, her legs wrapping around his waist automatically.
With a flex of her heels into his back, she pulled him closer.
His bulge rubbed exactly where she needed him, fanning the flames licking up from the lower half of her body.
Her lips pulled at his, thirsty. This need came from deep inside her, and she embraced it, wanting to devour and be devoured.
He leaned back, and his eyes burned with a desire that echoed her own. There was something else there too, a tenderness that she’d only started to see at her outpost before everything went to shit. The visible affection made her lungs strain as she tried to catch her breath.
Iax reached forward, grabbed hold of the papery material of the medical garb, and tore it away from her body. A shredding sound bounced off the wall compartments.
Bared before him, cool air kissed her flesh. He paused, his eyes roving over her, lingering over the marks on her arm. A wave of nerves assaulted her as her nipples hardened beneath his thorough gaze.
Reverently, he skimmed his fingers up her ribs, across her collarbone, then downward over the swell of her breasts. Her breath hitched.
“So soft,” he murmured. “I have gazed upon galaxies and nebulae, and none are more breathtaking than you.”
A startled laugh stalled in her throat at his earnest words, erasing most of her anxiety.
If he had been anyone else, she would have chalked those words up to empty praise.
But in the brief time she’d known Iax, he had never embellished or exaggerated anything.
He spoke plainly without figurative meaning, and he’d certainly never been poetic.
A hot emotion shifted in her chest. If he said these words to her, she trusted he meant them.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” The words felt tight in her throat.
After everything she’d seen him do aboard the Corvus, his cold resolve at commandeering an entire warship and changing the entire crew, it didn’t seem like this level of sweetness could exist within him.
“To see this softness on your face,” he murmured, “I will speak more of these truths.”
The earnestness of his expression and the sincerity in his words melted her heart. Warmth spread over her skin. She wanted to be closer. As close as possible.
Her fingers flexed on his arms as she pulled him toward her, and the material of his flight-suit squeaked slightly. Her legs tightened around his hips. His face lowered, eyes glinting with hunger.
She paused when his lips were only a centimeter away from hers.
“I’ve never done this before.” Embarrassment squeezed her throat, the words scratchy.
“This,” he repeated, his brow furrowing.
She swallowed, her fingers twitching against his biceps. “Been with a man.” Her cheeks scorched with heat.
When his expression did not clear, she added, “Like, sexually. Coupling. Intercourse. Whatever you want to call it.”
His brow smoothed. “I also have not been with another.”
She jerked in his arms. “You haven’t?” She didn’t know why it shocked her so much, but it did.
Maybe because everyone she knew, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, had been having sex since they were teens.
It was mostly transactional, a way to satisfy a mutual need.
Even Foster had put it on the table as an option because they were in such a remote location, which she’d refused.
He’d taken quick trips elsewhere to tend bodily cravings.
Iax leaned forward and rubbed his cheek against hers. “No one has called to me the way you do.” He inhaled deeply, causing goosebumps to erupt across her flesh.
Called. It was a good way of putting it. No one’s body, or mind, had called to her in this way either.
“I’m nervous,” she said when he pulled back and met her gaze again. Despite trusting him, anxiety swirled and mixed with the passion in her stomach.
“We only continue if we both want what is happening between us.”
She nodded frantically. “I want that.” Her hips thrust upward. “I want it all.”
His eyes crinkled with what could only be called pleasure. “Then we will explore each other. New territory for both of us.”
Yes. Equal footing. It hadn’t felt like that in the beginning, but they were equals now. No matter how different they were biologically.
“Are you going to leave me, Iax? Take what you want and leave me to my fate?”
“No,” he asserted with a shake of his head. “Never.”
She believed him. She might be a fool, but she believed every word he spoke and trusted him with her life. Her throat tightened with emotion and need.
Consumed by it, she found the closure of his flight-suit. She ripped it downward, revealing the black shirt beneath. The flight-suit gaped, and she flexed forward to press it off his shoulders until the bulk of it settled around his hips.
Then she yanked at the hem of his shirt to find the skin beneath. “Need this off you.”
He shifted, then lifted his weight, tearing the garment over his head to throw it aside.