Chapter 15
MARA
We find shelter in a forgotten pocket of the station—buried deep beneath the administrative wing, tucked behind layers of security no one’s bothered to update since before I was old enough to hack my first lock.
A cultural sim chamber.
Used, once, for diplomatic morale programming. Designed to help soldiers acclimate to foreign environments. They called it cultural empathy back then.
Now, it’s nothing but dust and silence and a projection system clinging to half-life.
The doors seal behind us with a heavy groan. The lights stutter—and then the space transforms.
Not all at once.
It flickers into being, piece by fractured piece.
A garden.
Or some strange, impossible approximation of one.
Tall stalks of glowing flora curl around artificial stone, their translucent leaves shifting color with every faint change in temperature.
The walls stretch into a dome of flickering stars—too many to count, constellations unfamiliar and perfect.
The ground is soft beneath my boots, covered in moss that isn’t real but still smells like earth after rain.
Tatek steps in behind me, and even he pauses.
“This is a Vakutan temple garden,” he says quietly.
I glance at him. “You’ve seen one?”
He nods, just once. “When I was young.”
I let the silence sit between us, let the weight of it hum like electricity under my skin.
I don’t ask what it meant to him.
I don’t need to.
Because something about this room—this whole place—feels like it was waiting for us.
Not fate. Not destiny. Just… timing.
The kind that breaks you open.
He crosses the space first, testing the perimeter, checking the corners like always. I drop my bag near one of the false trees, fingers dragging over the synthetic bark. It’s warm. Faintly pulsing with stored light.
It shouldn’t feel comforting.
But it does.
“I used to think I’d die in a place like this,” I say.
He looks back at me. “A garden?”
“No. A lie.”
I gesture to the projection—the soft light, the starlit ceiling, the careful illusion of safety. “Places like this are designed to trick you into thinking you’re safe. Calm. Connected. They lull you into vulnerability. I used to hate that.”
“And now?”
I breathe deep.
Let it fill my lungs.
“Now I think maybe vulnerability isn’t the enemy.”
He watches me for a long time.
And then—he starts removing his gear.
It’s not slow.
Not hesitant.
Just methodical.
Plate by plate. Layer by layer. Until he’s standing there in nothing but the dark undershirt and the tension in his spine.
I don’t move.
But my heart does something sharp and soft all at once.
He crosses to me—quiet, like a shadow—but he doesn’t touch me. Not yet. Just stands close enough that I feel the heat coming off his skin.
“If you want space,” he says, voice low, “say the word.”
I turn toward him.
He’s so close now I can see the faint rise and fall of his chest. The bruising along his collarbone. The ghost of fear behind his control.
I step closer.
“I don’t want space,” I whisper. “I want you.”
And then I kiss him.
It’s not like the first time.
That kiss was hunger, urgency, desperation coiled into breathless heat. This one is slower. Deeper. Like diving into something we know might drown us and choosing it anyway.
His hands find my waist.
Mine press flat to his chest.
We don’t rush.
The garden hums around us, soft and pulsing.
And for the first time in cycles, I feel safe.
Not because the station isn’t hunting us.
Not because the future is clear.
But because this—this moment, this choice—is real.
He kisses like he’s memorizing me.
When we kiss again, it’s different.
Not rushed.
Not frantic.
Not driven by fear or adrenaline or the knowledge that we might die before morning.
This one is slow.
Intentional.
His mouth is warm and unhurried against mine, lips parting just enough to invite me in, like he’s giving me permission instead of taking anything. I slide my tongue along his lower lip, testing, teasing, and the sound he makes—low, involuntary—goes straight through me.
I smile into the kiss.
“Relax,” I murmur. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His hands tighten at my waist like the idea terrifies him.
“I know,” he says.
But his voice says he doesn’t.
I tug gently at the hem of his undershirt. “Then let me see you.”
He hesitates—just a breath, just a flicker of old instinct—and then he nods.
I peel the fabric up and over his head, slow enough that my knuckles drag across his ribs, feeling muscle shift under skin.
He shivers. Actually shivers. And something about that—about this warrior who faces patrols and grav-fields and soul-bonds without blinking reacting like that to my hands—makes heat pool low and heavy between my thighs.
“Stars,” I whisper.
He lets out a quiet huff. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Unlikely,” I say, pushing him gently backward toward the soft projection moss. “I’m far too fond of you for that.”
He laughs under his breath, but he goes, letting himself be guided down, propping himself up on one elbow while I look at him properly for the first time.
Gods.
The scars.
They cross his chest and shoulders in pale silver lines, some thin and neat, others jagged and ugly, each one a history I don’t know but somehow already respect. I trace one that runs diagonally across his collarbone.
He inhales sharply.
“That one’s from a blade,” he says quietly.
“Did you win?”
His mouth curves. “Eventually.”
I lean down and kiss the scar.
Then another.
Then the edge of his jaw.
His breath starts to come uneven, chest rising faster under my palms, and I love that I’m doing this to him—not with strength, not with danger, but with nothing but my mouth and my hands.
He reaches for me, fingers catching in my jacket, pulling me closer into another kiss that’s deeper now, hungrier. I climb into his lap without thinking, straddling him, and the moment my hips settle over the hard length of him through our clothes, he groans outright.
“Mara,” he breathes, like it’s a warning.
“Shh,” I whisper, rocking my hips just enough to make him suck in a sharp breath. “I’ve been wanting this since you said my name like you were afraid of it.”
That earns me a helpless, wrecked sound from the back of his throat.
“Cruel,” he mutters.
“Just honest.”
I reach down between us and unfasten him slowly, deliberately, watching his jaw tighten, watching the way his eyes darken as I free him. When I finally slide my hand around him, he curses in Vakutan—something low and reverent and probably obscene.
“You like that?” I tease softly.
“Yes,” he says immediately. “Gods, yes.”
I stroke him slow, just enough to make him lose control of his breathing, leaning down to kiss him again while I do it, loving the way his hips twitch helplessly into my hand.
He finally catches my wrist.
Not stopping me.
Just grounding himself.
“Mara,” he says quietly. “Look at me.”
I do.
There’s something naked in his eyes that has nothing to do with being undressed.
“This… this isn’t a distraction,” he says. “This is a choice.”
“I know,” I whisper. “That’s why I’m here.”
Something in his chest seems to loosen.
He sits up then, reversing us smoothly so I’m the one sinking back into the moss, stars flickering overhead. He strips me with the same care I gave him, sliding fabric away inch by inch, hands reverent, mouth following every newly bared patch of skin.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
I laugh softly. “You say that like you’re surprised.”
“I am,” he admits. “Every time.”
When I’m bare beneath him, he just… looks.
Like he’s memorizing me.
Like he’s afraid this might be the last time.
I hook a finger under his chin and make him look at my face instead.
“Hey,” I say gently. “I’m still here.”
He nods, throat working. “I know.”
Then he lowers himself between my thighs.
Oh.
Oh, stars.
The first touch of his mouth makes my whole body jolt. He kisses the inside of my knee, slow and lingering, then trails upward with deliberate cruelty, lips and tongue mapping sensitive skin until I’m already squirming.
“Tatek,” I gasp.
He hums against me, pleased, and then his mouth is on me properly—hot, wet, devastating.
I cry out, hands flying into his hair as his tongue slides over me with slow, expert precision. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t chase the end.
He takes his time learning me.
Learning what makes me arch.
What makes me whimper.
What makes my hips start moving on their own.
“Just like that,” I breathe. “Please—don’t stop—”
“I won’t,” he promises softly, and proves it.
By the time I’m shaking apart under his mouth, coming hard with his name breaking out of me like a prayer, I’m already wrecked.
He comes back up, eyes dark, mouth slick, and kisses me deep while I’m still trembling.
“Your turn,” I whisper.
He doesn’t argue.
When he finally pushes into me, slow and careful and impossibly deep, I sob outright, clutching at his shoulders.
“Too much?” he asks, breath ragged.
“Perfect,” I say, without hesitation.
We move together like we’ve always known how.
Slow at first.
Deep.
Every thrust deliberate, intimate, claiming.
I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer, needing more, and he groans like he’s barely holding on.
“You feel—” he breaks off, shaking his head. “Stars, Mara.”
“Don’t stop,” I beg.
He doesn’t.
The world narrows to heat and skin and breath and the sound of us together in the starlit garden. I come again with his name in my mouth, and when he follows, burying himself deep and groaning into my neck, it feels less like an ending and more like a vow finally spoken.
After, we collapse together, glistening and damp and breathless.
I curl half atop him, head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow.
His arm wraps around me without thinking.
The stars flicker overhead.
And just before sleep takes me, I hear him murmur, so quietly he probably doesn’t know he said it aloud:
“Mine. In every star.”