Page 189 of Tracked and Taken

“Tael—“

“Ask.”

“Please let me come on you. Please. I’ve been good. I’ve held it. Please fuck me and let me come.”

“My good girl.”

I give her the last of it. Harder. The bunk complains. I put my canines on the mark without piercing and I say it into the wound.

“Come.”

She comes.

The bond detonates. I feel her lock around every ridge and I follow her with my eyes open, heat pumping into her, the whole of me delivered, the discs forgotten on the chair and the rest of my span narrowing to her throat and her cunt and her hands finally off the headboard and in my hair.

I stay inside her.

I stay until the shaking drops.

I kiss the mark.

I am satisfied.

Not finished. Satisfied.

After.

Her head at my shoulder. Her hand at my chest. The blanket at our hips. The mark at her throat warm. The mark at mine warm. The bonded purr at my chest at the after-register, slowing.

Her hand traces a slow circle at my sternum.

“Tael?”

“Mm.”

“You took the long route from the level six concourse.”

“I did.”

“You had an errand.”

“I had an errand.”

“At Master Velran’s stall.”

I do not answer. Instead I ask “How long have you known?”

“I did the math at the Tuesday session. Florence mentioned, in passing, that Master Velran had been on her cleared-contractor list for some weeks. I am, Vosk, the Head of Security on this station. The math was not hard.”

“Sweetheart.”

“You have been carrying something against your sternum for three months. The fabric of your shirt at the hollow of your throat sits a hairsbreadth differently than it sat the morning of day one. You are, by every operational instinct I have built in fifteen years, a male who has been waiting.”

“Mm.”

“Tonight you came at 1859 instead of 1830.”

“Yes.”