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His utterance was a hoarse whisper. ‘You’re not yourself.’

She gave a soft shrug, eyes turning back to the stars. ‘I’m just missing my family.’

His fingers stilled.

‘Liar,’ he rasped.

She swallowed and said nothing.

He eased onto the divan beside her and sat, boots crossed at the ankle, all muscle and sinewed power, radiating his irresistible energy.

His shoulder touched hers in the silence, as space folded beyond the glass.

He leaned closer, his voice dropping to that dark velvet rumble she felt in her bones. ‘How about I make you forget what’s on your mind,mi reina?’

She turned her head to face his gaze, heat, and undeniable sensuality.

She ought to have resisted; she should have walked away.

Instead, she let him pull her into his clasp.

He lifted her, arms around her waist, and led her away.

His strength enveloped her, like forged steel, his scent all spice and danger, and the ache inside her dulled just a little.

He didn’t speak, he just tucked her into him in a lover’s grasp.

The door slid open as they reached his quarters, and the tension snapped.

Their lips found each other, wild and needing. Fingers tangled in hair, clothes tugged in desperation, mouths moving like they had no time left.

Her back hit the wall just inside the door, and she let out a breathless sound, half gasp, part laugh, then kissed him again, deeper this time.

Just a few more times,she told herself.

Even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie.

XANDER

The morning came heavy, coiled with unease and fragments of everything unsaid.

Xander rose early, pulled on his dark uniform, his eyes on the woman still asleep in his bed. Or pretending to be.

Either way, her reticence had serrated edges, and he felt every single one.

Xander left her sleeping, the sheets tangled around her thighs like a silken barricade. The worry crowded his mind louder than the scrape of his boots across the floor.

When he stepped into the mess, he was already strung tight, nerves flaring like exposed wire.

The place was busy, a hum of voices and cutlery over breakfast trays.

He made a cup ofkahawa, black, bitter, as harsh as his mood, and slouched into a corner, his commtab open in front of him.

Updates scrolled past: recon reports, internal comm logs, patrol checks. All noise. All background static to the knot in his gut.

Salvadore needed breaking.

The alien infiltration had to be traced.