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  “Come here.” She grinned as she pulled his face close with her free hand and stole another kiss. Why hadn’t they kissed earlier? She wanted to do this all day. All night. All the time. Self-sacrifice, or whatever she’d been playing at, was dumb, and now she was making up for lost time. They could have been doing this for the last week.

  The kiss took her over and Toran had her pressed up against another wall, and this time it was her hands on his ass making him groan. But Iris forced herself to pull away, and turned her head to one side. Toran took the opportunity to snake kisses over her jaw and down her neck, latching on and sucking like he was determined to leave a mark. She had to bite her lip as the thought crossed her mind. God, she was learning all sorts of new things about herself, about what she liked. And it was all because of him.

  “Through here.” It came out a moaned whisper and she doubted that it made much sense. She leaned towards the small door and Toran went with. Her hand triggered the sensor and they stumbled back through the door and into the semiprivate observation room of the hallway. She’d barely noticed it earlier when they were walking towards the party, but now she couldn’t be happier that it stood out in her mind.

  A dome of glass separated them from the harsh lunar surface. But it was the sky above them that was truly magical. Earth was spread out below them, a shockingly small blue marble that served as the perfect backdrop for this new beginning. The entire base was dotted with little observation decks like this. They offered a little bit of privacy and the ability to look at their home planet with new eyes. The room they were standing in could accommodate a dozen or so spectators, but at the moment Iris and Toran were the only people there. And at this time of night, they were the only ones likely to show up. But the door didn’t lock, and adrenaline spiked in her blood as she realized that they could get caught at any moment.

  “I’m not normally adventurous like this,” Iris confessed. They were both taking a minute to catch their breath, and her heartbeat was going so fast that she could feel the blood pulsing in her veins. Excitement was one thing, but she didn’t want to faint.

  Toran played with her fingers, kissing the pads of each of them, and doing nothing to help with that racing heart. “What are you normally like?”

  “Alone,” it came out in a burst of self-deprecating laughter, but it was true, “and behind a locked door.” She smiled. “But I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” He sucked one of her fingers into his mouth and Iris’s toes curled. His tongue didn’t feel exactly like humans’, she’d noticed strange ridges while they were kissing, and it was only more obvious as he played with her skin. Her body heated as she imagined his mouth between her legs.

  “We’ve only known each other a week.” And everything had changed since then. She didn’t feel like the same person she was when she walked into that small gym and spied Toran for the first time.

  “That doesn’t matter.” That magical mouth of his moved to lap at the pulse in her wrist and he grinned up at her as her pulse raced against his lips. Her heart did one of those strange little flips again, the one she was coming to associate with his smiles. And though she was aching, and ready, and desperate for him, she knew deep inside her that tonight was a lot more than simple sex. Even if he hadn’t told her about the denya bond. There was a world, a galaxy, of opportunity waiting for them, all she had to do was be brave enough to hold tight and close.

  Something he said made her stutter. “When you said waiting, you didn’t mean... You’ve... I’m not...”

  His grin turned into a warm chuckle. “This isn’t my first time. But everything I’ve learned in my past, it’s all been so I could give it to you.”

  Thank God. Someone might get off on introducing her partner to all the pleasures of the flesh, but Iris was in no mood to play teacher tonight.

  And then they were kissing again, and whatever had seemed desperate before had nothing on the way their lips were devouring one another. It almost felt like a contest, a battle, but however this ended, they were both winners. Wide chairs that seemed built to accommodate two or more people were set up in a neat row to look out at the sky. Iris and Toran sank down onto the nearest one, and as Iris slung a leg over Toran’s thighs and straddled him, leaning in close so their torsos were pressed together, the back of the chair gave way, reclining into something they could almost pretend was a bed.

  Thankfully the chair was padded, or her knees might not thank her in the morning, but Iris wasn’t really concerned about things like that at the moment. The only thing her body cared about was getting closer to Toran until they were connected on the most visceral level. Until she’d claimed him as her own.

  Pants had seemed like a great idea earlier in the night when she thought she had some reason to resist the connection between them. Now Iris was cursing her past self, and wishing she’d worn a skirt to make this whole thing a lot easier. The hard press of Toran’s cock was right there, teasing her under the thick material of his own pants. The only thing keeping her from howling out in frustration was that she could see that Toran was just as eager to be naked as she was.

  Her hands went to the clasp of his pants and fumbled them open. It wasn’t pretty or practiced, but it got the job done and freed him for her perusal. And peruse she did. There was no mistaking him for a human, not that there’d been any risk of that. She knew what Toran was and she wanted him just that way. But his penis was a reminder that though they were compatible, they weren’t the same. The same dark markings that covered his golden skin dotted his cock, and at first she thought they were making some optical illusion to make it appear almost textured. But the ridges and bumps were far more pronounced than any vein on a human dick, and her mouth watered to taste him. He was different, but he was hers. And he was so hard that when she ran a finger down his length, he let out a harsh cry and one of his hands tightened almost painfully on her hip.

  “Someone’s excited.” She grinned at him. She’d expected intimacy between the two of them to be a serious affair, all hot looks and scorching touches. And though she was about ten seconds away from exploding from the heat between them, her soul felt light. God, she was happy to be in Toran’s arms, touching him like this.

  She carefully wrapped her fingers around his shaft and slowly pumped up and down, savoring the enchanted look on Toran’s face. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair, cradling the back of her head and pulling her close until their lips met in another incinerating kiss.

  He pulled her hand off of his cock and laced their fingers together while they kissed. But after a moment he let go, and his own hands dove for the clasp of her pants. “If we didn’t need to cross the base to get back to our room, I’d use my claws to free you from these clothes.” It was a low rumble that went right to her core and sent a shiver down her spine. Oh yeah, they were doing that at some point.

  “Later,” she breathed. “Right now, let me.” His ruby eyes were twin jewels of impatience and Iris felt his absence as she had to lean back and pull her trousers off. They landed in a pile on the floor beside them, her shoes kicked haphazardly aside. When she crawled back onto Toran, she was completely open to him, vulnerable, and protected in his arms.

  He tipped her to the side, encouraging her to lie back on the chair. “Let me taste you,” he said, kissing her neck again.

  Like she was going to say no to that. He knelt between her thighs and looked at her like she was some sort of treasure. His fingers danced under the hem of her shirt, tickling her stomach, but he didn’t try to remove it. It was strange, from the waist up they were both fully clothed, but naked where it mattered. He bent his head and feathered kisses along her abdomen, heading lower until he found that place that made her arch up in the chair and bite back a loud moan. She didn’t know if the room was soundproof and she didn’t want them caught, not yet.

  Any doubts she had about her mate’s prowess were obliterated as he used his tongue
like an instrument and played a symphony against her sex. She was delirious from the pleasure, covered in sweat, her shirt sticking to her all over the place, and her legs clenching around him, trying to hold them close.

  And yet, when the orgasm came, it took her by surprise and she couldn’t help but yell out his name and dig her hands into the padding of the seat below her. Toran brought her down gently and it took a few minutes for her heart to stop racing so quickly, especially when he didn’t stop gently touching her and giving her those light kisses that were playing havoc on her heart.

  He stood up at the same moment that Iris managed to sit, and that put his beautiful, impossibly hard cock at exactly the right level. “My turn.” She rolled her eyes up to his and grinned.

  Toran hissed as she took his cock in hand and slowly swirled her tongue around the tip. He was big, and though that sparked all sorts of possibilities in her mind, for the moment she had to take it slow, swallowing him centimeter by centimeter and tasting him all the way down.

  As she got going, his hips twitched, and Iris reveled in the power that she had over him. He let out little groans and curses and she could feel him holding himself back when his fingers lightly curled in her hair. He didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to force her, and that consideration made her love him a little bit. But she was too busy at the moment to focus on that revelation.

  He panted out a warning that he was close, and Iris kept going until Toran groaned out his pleasure and collapsed limp beside her.

  She fell back into the chair and let his muscular chest act as her pillow. She wasn’t sure if she could walk yet, and he didn’t seem to be in better shape. “We’re going to do that again sometime.”

  The breath that Toran let out might have been a laugh. “Yes, denya. Yes, absolutely.”

  Chapter Ten

  ANTICIPATION SANG IN Sierra Alvarez’s blood as she waited beside her mate for the final security bot to pass. For a man suspected of engaging in interstellar conspiracies involving planetary destruction, Yormas of Wreet did not have the best security on his house. It was adequate, of course. But it had only taken her a day to determine the best way to get in and out without being seen. And the best part was she could afford to take Raze with her.

  She’d missed this. Sure, it hadn’t been long since her last mission, but chances of being reinstated to the SIA were slim. She’d gone against her orders in rescuing those women from Fenryr 1 and had lost an expensive military vehicle in the process. Maybe if she’d apologized for her actions things wouldn’t be so dire. But there was very little about that mission that she regretted. And the main reason for that was standing beside her, a silent sentinel.

  Toran and Iris had been gone to the moon base for nearly a day, and before they left the plan had been for Sierra and Raze to infiltrate Yormas’s house and see if there was anything interesting once the coast was clear. And now it was.

  “Now,” she said, her volume barely above a whisper. And then they were moving, crossing the street and dodging through an overgrown hedge which had a gap just wide enough for a person to fit through if they were willing to endure a few scratches. “Thirty seconds.” It was a warning to stay still. She wanted to reach out and hold Raze in place, not because she didn’t trust him, but because she’d found that she really liked to touch him. But today neither of them could afford to get distracted.

  The seconds passed and every security measure was invisible to the human eye. As the clock ticked down in her head, Sierra had to be confident in her research and her skills and when the time was up, she took off running, Raze keeping pace behind her before she made it to the back door. She placed a small device beside the security pad and tried not to tap her fingers in impatience as it hacked the code and the bio lock and disengaged the door’s security.

  Once inside, disabling the security system was child’s play for someone who’d been a spy for years. “We’re good now, you can turn on your flashlight.” She did the same and she and Raze headed towards the upper story of the house, where Yormas kept his home office. If he kept anything incriminating, it was far more likely to be located here rather than at the embassy. As far as they knew, he was acting alone, or in concert with other shady individuals. He had just as much reason to hide from his own people as he did from Earth’s governments.

  The beam of Raze’s flashlight kissed her own as he came up behind her on the stairs and trailed his fingers down her spine. He caught up to her and placed a kiss on her pulse before falling back a step. “I like to see you work,” he said.

  Sierra threw a grin over her shoulder, her heart light and soul happy even as they had to be cautious on this mission. “I like working with you.” The denya bond sang between them, a connection stronger than the strongest steel and hotter than the surface of the sun. She wanted to kiss her mate all night, but that had to wait until they were done working. Once they were home, all bets were off. She’d never felt this way before, and she didn’t know how she’d managed before she met Raze on that fateful night back on Fenryr 1. She would have never imagined that a cheap shot from his blaster that ended with her knocked out on the mossy surface of that desolate planet would lead them to this moment. But they were here now, and though the future was still uncertain, wherever they were going, they were going together. She’d never been more sure of something in her life.

  They found the office easily, and Sierra wished they could afford to turn on the light. But enough people knew that the ambassador was allegedly on vacation that they couldn’t risk someone seeing it from the street. Chances were low, but enough.

  “I’ll get to work on his computer,” she told Raze. “Check out any papers he has lying around.”

  Sierra used another tool from her bag of tricks to hack into the computer, but was frustrated to find that most of his files were protected by an encryption that they didn’t have long enough to try to crack. Still, she had access to his calendar, which gave them more information than they had.

  “It says here that he has plans to meet with an Oscavian while on Gamma Base. I don’t recognize the name, but I’m not that familiar with the Empire.” She could name the major houses, and the important royalty, but outside of a mission she didn’t need to know all of that. She made note of the name to do research once they were back home.

  “I wonder if it’s the same person who led the attack back at HQ,” Raze mused.

  “No way to know.” They still didn’t know who had attacked them, or who had tried to buy the women. They didn’t know if Detyen HQ had survived the attack, and Sierra knew that it weighed heavily on Raze and his men.

  “That would be—I think I found something.” Raze cut himself off and snatched a paper from inside the binder he’d been paging through. “It references ‘live testing.’ I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Sierra’s stomach clenched. She didn’t like the sound of that either. They’d assumed that the women on Fenryr 1 were being sold into sex slavery, but it was completely possible that they’d been collected for other nefarious means if there was some connection between Yormas and the Oscavian who tried to buy them.

  “This is strange,” Raze muttered.

  Sierra made a copy of the calendar and shut down the computer, covering her tracks. She met him on the other side of the office and stood next to him to look at the page he was viewing. The header of the report was labeled ‘Chemical Concentration in the Sol System.’ A small note was affixed to it which simply read ‘Detyen levels’.

  “That is something. Let’s get copies and get out.” Her mind was trying to make the connections between what they found in Yormas’s office and what they suspected him of. But she locked that away. Jumping to conclusions and skipping over evidence was one sure way to make a mistake.

  Getting out of the house was just as easy as getting in, and in a matter of minutes they were back in their vehicle and heading towards home. Sierra drove and Raze laced their fingers together, gently drawing circles on her palm wit
h his thumb. “We’re getting somewhere, I can feel it.”

  She wanted to pull over and kiss her mate, but home wasn’t far away, and once they were there, she could do a lot more than kissing. “Once Toran and Iris are back safely we’ll have a lot to go over. I hope things are working out for them.” In more ways than one. When Toran had revealed that Iris was his mate, Sierra was worried for him. After all, Iris held his fate in her hands when it came to his status on the planet. But seeing the two of them together, even though Iris was clearly still confused about what was going on between them, had assuaged that fear. She’d dove right into helping them as soon as she had all the information. She would be good for Toran, as long as they could communicate.

  Sierra lifted up her and Raze’s joined fingers and kissed his hand. “There is no place I would rather be than beside you.” She hadn’t been one for emotional declarations. But the more she made them, the easier they came.

  Raze tugged their hands toward him and mirrored her kiss. “Nor I you, Denya.”

  THERE WAS A HEAVY ARM wrapped around Iris’s chest, and an inferno of a body at her back. Toran. After recovering from their lovemaking in that little observation deck, they’d stumbled back to their room, clothes askew, and fallen into bed. They hadn’t done anything except sleep, and for that Iris was glad.