Page 91 of Tracked and Taken

She stirs against me.

Her dark eyes open, waking up in an arrangement that is new. Sore. Marked. Mine for now.

“We have to go.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know.”

A silence.

Then she lifts her face. Her mouth finds mine. Slow. The kiss of a female who has been made love to for the better part of two hours and is kissing her male one more time because she is not ready to stop kissing him. I can still taste her on my own tongue. She can taste herself too. Neither of us comments.

I kiss her back.

Both my hands at her face. The thumbs at her jaw. My mouth open for her. The purr at the ambient register. Her hand at the back of my neck.

She pulls back an inch.

Her forehead on mine.

“Let’s go find Torek.”

“Copy, sweetheart.”

One more kiss. Softer. Quick.

Then she sits up.

15

The Facility

Natalie

I catalog before I move.

Hip: bruise. Thumb-shaped. Left side. Scalp: residual ache where his fist was. Inner thigh: a mark I will not inspect in this lighting. Throat: two points of pressure that will show above a collar if I am careless. Between my legs: the specific, persistent reminder that a Draelith male spent two hours proving a species briefing was insufficient.

I lie still and let the inventory finish.

It does not finish.

The inventory wants to become a replay. His mouth. The ridges. The word he said into my skin. The way he looked at me when I told him to let me see. I shut it down the way I shut down a non-priority alert.

It comes back.

I want it again.

I want him again. Not in the abstract. Specifically. His hands. His tail. His voice at the bottom of his register telling me to ask. I want the bunk and the hour we do not have and the version of this morning where the breach is delayed because I pulled him back down by the back of his neck.

I sit up.

The tactical kit is going to rub every place he put his mouth. I put it on anyway. The silk underneath — the dark silk, because the lace did not survive last night and regulation underwear felt like conceding the point — is a decision I am also not putting in a report.

Mate.