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THEY’D BOTH TAKEN A minute to splash cold water on themselves and change into clothes. Was the computer going to mark them down for that? Lena didn’t care. The water hadn’t done much and the adrenaline surging in her blood was only making her desire worse. Hopefully it would go away. Or this would be a quick mission and they’d be back in bed in no time.
She couldn’t look too closely at Solan or she might jump him, and that would definitely be an automatic failure.
They were wearing bulky life support suits that would have weighed them down if they weren’t in the decreased gravity field of a dying space ship. The mission was simple: get in and quickly retrieve a sample from the ship’s lab before the ship destructed while avoiding getting killed by the security robots. No living people to worry about.
But the ship was falling apart. A giant breach in another part of the ship made it unrepairable. The self-destruct sequence hadn’t been activated, but the breach could turn into a bigger rupture at any moment. Their suits would protect them for long enough to get back to their own ship so long as they didn’t get damaged by debris or robots.
Easy.
After their last mission and the night spent together, Lena was feeling confident. They were going to get this done quickly and perfectly. She wasn’t going to screw up.
Of course, she’d feel more confident if her suit was equipped with a blaster, but none had been provided when they’d stepped into the simulator.
“Why no blaster?” She kept tracing her palm over her hip, looking for the weight that wasn’t there.
“One wrong shot and you could damage the system to the point of failure,” Solan explained.
“And my wings can’t?” Had he seen her try and aim with those things? She was far from accurate.
“Once you have control you’ll be more precise than a blaster ever could be.” He said it like he believed she’d get there one day soon. Lena wanted to trust him.
They entered through the air lock near the storage compartment and kept close together. With the ship at risk of falling apart, they couldn’t get separated. And Lena was relieved. Splitting up had led to disaster last time, even if it had been her idea. She didn’t want to ruin things again.
A whir, sort of like a power drill, was their only warning before a security robot shot a beam of light their way, tearing through the floor. Solan’s wings flared out and he sent a blast of his spark at it. It popped and fizzed and stopped moving. Dead.
“Is that going to notify the other robots that we’re here?” Their intel didn’t say whether or not the machines were networked, only that there were potentially dozens of them. If they weren’t careful, they’d be overwhelmed.
“I guess we’ll find out.” He wasn’t concerned. And Lena supposed it hadn’t been that difficult to kill one. They could handle more.
But they still moved carefully, because of the fragile state of the ship and to avoid alerting the robots. The gravity was unstable and they both kept their wings out to improve balance. It only took Lena two tries to pull out her wings and she was calling that a win.
To get to the lab they had to walk across a long catwalk, and the damage had severed some of the planks, leaving a gap of about twenty feet. Too far to jump. Well, too far if the gravity was right and they didn’t have wings. Lena looked down. It was a long way to fall, and she wasn’t sure how she’d get back up.
“If you miss, use your wings to guide you down,” Solan said gently. “I’ll follow after. We’ll find another way around. But I think you can make this jump.”
Lena took a deep breath and gave herself as much of a running start as she could. Height was important here and she launched, pumping her wings as hard as she could to rise a couple of feet. They couldn’t do much more than that, but it was enough. Then she spread them wide and glided down gently, clearing the gap with two feet to spare.
Solan landed after her a minute later.
She heard the whir of a robot powering up and lashed out with her spark before she could over think it, her power tearing it in two.
“Ha! Take that!” She pumped her fist in triumph and grinned at Solan.
His own smile was proud, even if his eyes were warning her to keep quiet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She knew.
The lab was just around the corner and there were no other robots lurking. Solan watched her back while Lena transferred the sample from where it was stored to the container she was carrying. Once it was all ready, she stood and squared her shoulders.
“You know this thing is about to go all wrong, right?” Two robots and one jumpable gap were no challenge at all, and Lena was beginning to think the computer lady running their lives was bit of a sadist.
“You think?” He took a second to squeeze her arm, and Lena would have kissed him if not for the survival suits.
“Yeah. I really do.” She normally loved to be right, but when they spotted three robots lurking right outside the lab door, she could have cursed her instincts. “See?”
“Not the time to gloat,” he warned, letting his wings flare out.
“The computer lady isn’t as smart as she thinks she is.” Lena hoped she was listening, then realized that taunting the computer in charge of their life and death was probably not the best idea.
“Not the time,” he repeated. “I’ve got the one on the far left and center. Take out the one on the right.”
She had retracted her wings when they made it to the lab and regretted that when they misfired, flaring out for a second before disappearing. What was the fucking trick? In the time it took her to get her wings out and stable, another security bot joined the fight, whirring up in warring.
“Fuck. How many robots are there total?” This was an easy place for the robots to overwhelm them, but she wasn’t going down. They were going to win this damn mission.
“Intel doesn’t say.” Solan was calm as could be and Lena wanted to emulate that. “You start from the right. I’ll start from the left. You can do this.”
She appreciated his faith, even if nothing to this point said she deserved it. She was going to live up to his expectations. They blasted through the doors, which the robots didn’t seem to expect. Lena took out her first one with one shot, and sent a second blast towards her other target, but that robot had enough time to figure out what was going on and shoot her. The blast hit her in the arm, but her suit absorbed most of the damage.
Still, it was enough to knock her off her game and her wings disappeared. She cursed and scrambled out of the way of another blast, and by the time she got her wings back under control Solan had shot his spark and taken the robot out.
“You only get half credit for that one,” she muttered, “I killed it most of the way.”
“Sure you did,” he agreed, placating her. He helped her to her feet, and then they were on a mad dash back to their entry point. Lena’s wings came out when she summoned them and she successfully took out a robot before it could even whir up to hit them. She barely noticed the gap in the catwalk, and in under two minutes they were back in the main storage bay and exiting through the airlock.
The simulation dissolved around them and the computer lady’s voice came over the speakers. “Mission completed successfully.”
Lena took off her helmet and couldn’t hide her smile if she tried. “Two successes. Maybe we’re doing something right.”
“Yeah.” Solan smiled back. He took off his own helmet and let it fall to the floor.
Their gazes caught, and all that lust from before came flooding back as if it had never gone away. Lena wasn’t sure who made the first move, but in a flash her legs were around Solan’s waist and their lips locked together in a desperate kiss.
***
SOLAN’S WHOLE BODY was attuned to Lena and he couldn’t stop kissing her. All that existed in the world was her body pressed close to him, and if he didn’t get inside her soon he was going to die. He’d never been driven by desire like this before, but now he could not imagine giving it up. Lena was his in a way he’d never imagined. He didn’t want to go back.
But he needed to move forward. His cock was hard enough to burst out of his pants and he feared he’d come at the slightest pressure. But it didn’t make him stop. Not when she was kissing him back just as furiously as he kissed her.
They weren’t gentle right now, not riding high on a successful mission, the danger and destruction still heating their blood. He could give her slow and kind some other time.
They ripped off their clothes in a mad rush until they were strewn across the floor without a care.
Lena tore herself away and Solan clutched her tight, only letting go when she tried to sink to her knees. She licked her lips and flicked her eyes up at him. “I’ve been wanting to taste this since I first saw you.”
“Braz.” The curse tore out of him, and somehow his cock got even harder. She was a temptress sent from the bowels of Brazon to lead him to perdition. And he followed willingly.
Seeing her kneeling before him made him feel like some dark god, but she was the one he wanted to worship. And when her lips touched his cock, he saw stars and galaxies. She teased the head and wrapped her fingers tight around him, her grip sure.
Her tongue did devious things to him, and she glanced up with the sure knowledge in her eyes that he was completely under her spell. She owned him completely. And if she kept doing that he’d spend far too soon. He tugged her away reluctantly and watched with rapt fascination as his cock slid out of her mouth.
She licked her lips and he groaned.
He hauled her up and crushed his mouth against hers. Her naked body was a temptation he couldn’t resist, and his hands roved over her, finding the wet heat of her core. “You did like that.” It came out a primal growl. He barely recognized his own voice.
He needed her. Now.
He spun her around and gripped her hips when she braced her hands against the wall. “Like this,” he rasped into her ear.
“Fuck. Yes,” she moaned back, arching against him.
Her entrance was wet and ready for him and he slid inside, coming home as her tight heat enveloped him. A frenzy of lust overtook him, and he buried himself to the hilt before pumping in and out of her, hard and fast. She was cursing and moaning and demanding more with every thrust.
The sensation was almost too much. She’d already given so much, and he couldn’t hold back until he had her crying out in pleasure, but with her scent all around him and her heat hot enough to scorch he knew he was close.
This was what Matching and bonding was about. He’d been a fool to resist. What did he have to fear from the depth of his connection with Lena? He could feel her spark deep within him and sent a jolt of power her way.
She moaned and jumped and sent her own power back.
It almost tipped him over. But he wasn’t done yet.
He reached around and ran his fingers over the apex of her thighs until she started to shake, her hips jerking quickly, demanding release. They’d wasted weeks, he’d wasted weeks, where they weren’t fucking, weren’t giving each other these exhilarating sensations. He was going to fuck her a million times to make up for it. And then a million more because he could. He’d never tire of her.
His fangs scraped against the top of her shoulder, enough to barely break the skin. It was all she needed. Lena cried out and her body rippled around him in orgasm. And with a final thrust, he emptied himself inside of her, completely spent.
They breathed heavily, her leaning against the wall, him leaning on her, and both sank down to the floor after a long moment. He couldn’t let go of her, even if his cock did slide from her body. She looked sated and self-satisfied. And his. Completely his.
She gave him a lust-drunk smile. “I’m just going to rest for a second. Don’t think I can walk.”
“I can carry you,” he offered. Already the chill of the basement was starting to get to him, and he didn’t want his Match to be cold. Their clothes were too far for him to reach, and he wasn’t quite ready to move either.
And she knew it. “You don’t look so steady yourself,” she teased.
He considered it. She was slumped over him and content. Did he really want to interrupt that? No. Not one bit. “Perhaps you have a point.”
She nuzzled against his neck. “Computer lady isn’t going to give us a third mission today. Right?”
He smiled at her name for the AI in charge of the facility and her penchant for giving it a personality. It was a program, it had no emotions, and it didn’t care what they were doing. Its job was to get them trained, nothing more. “Would you place that bet?”
She groaned. “Fuck. Okay. One more minute.”
It took more than one minute, especially when Lena started tracing his tattoo with her tongue. His cock started to plump up again and he grew hopeful for another round.
“We have the bed upstairs,” he reminded her.
“Yes.” And that was enough to motivate her to stand. “Race you.” She took off without giving him a chance to agree. A laugh burst out of him, and in that moment Solan was sure that things between them would turn out right.
