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“And I like taking them,” he murmured against my lips. “But please turn over so I can get your back as well.”

I turned to my stomach so he could swirl the dust-covered pants over my ass and down the backs of my legs. He took his time. Every slow sweep of the soft fabric made me shake, shiver, and moan.

“Done,” he said, and rolled me onto my back. I stared.

He’d somehow performed magic and removed his jumpsuit while I’d turned away, and now I saw all of his body for the first time. Well, the first time that I remembered, given my memories of our meeting in the cargo hold were nothing but blurry impressions.

The same dark blue skin and green leafy patterns covered his entire body, including a cock as beautiful as it was thick and inviting. It curved upward toward his abdomen. I licked my lips.

“Tell me what kind of heat you want,” Kerian said. His hot fingertips ran up my thigh and over my hip to my waist. An old scar ran almost halfway around my abdomen. He must have seen it, along with all the others, when he treated my injuries, but they didn’t seem to bother him. And he didn’t ask how I’d gotten them. He’d probably already guessed I’d made my living with guns and blades before becoming captain of theNebula.

“This kind.” I spread my legs for him, marveling at how my skin shimmered in every color. He’d even dusted my toes. “How do I look now?”

“Like a dream I never want to wake up from. Like the sweetest dessert in the galaxy.” Kerian slid down the bed and kissed his way up my inner thighs. “I love to eat dessert first,” he murmured, and raised my hips so he could slip his tongue between my legs for a series of long, sinuous licks.

Oh, gods. I twisted my fists into the bedding.

“No.” He raised his head, his gaze dark with need. “If you want to grab something, hold on to me.”

I let go of the comforter and slipped my fingers through his hair. He rewarded me with flicks of his tongue, and more when I clutched his hair and pulled.

No one had touched me like this in far too long, and Kerian’s lifesaving talents paled in comparison to the way he plucked and played every sensitive place like a stringed instrument. When his hot fingers slipped inside me, I came apart on his tongue, screaming and grinding against his face and hand.

I expected him to stop, but he didn’t. He didn’t even pause, as if my cries weren’t as loud or desperate as he wanted them to be. And when his fingers curled inside me, stroking and searching, I came undone again, this time with a scream.

Kerian moved up my body, his fingers still stroking inside me so I writhed and panted. “Tell me what kind of heat you want now.” He dipped his head to lick and suck my nipples, biting each time I raised my hips to grind against his hand. His hot cock rubbed against my thigh, collecting more stardust with each movement he made.

“More of this,” I gasped, clutching his head so he would keep teasing my nipples with his tongue and teeth.

“Stroke my antennae,” he ground out, his tongue laving my breast until I wanted to scream with how good it felt. “Be gentle.”

I drew my fingertips from the base of one of his antennae to the top. He shuddered hard. “Again,” he said. “Please, Gen.”

His plea melted me all the way to my core. I repeated the movement, alternating between the antennae so I could keep one hand on the back of his neck. I had no idea what sensations this gave him, but he trembled against me as he drew more pleasure from me with his tongue, lips, and fingertips.

He lay half on his side, leaning over without putting his weight actually on me. His skin felt so much warmer than mine. I wanted—Ineeded—more heat.

“Put your body on mine,” I told him, raising his chin so I could look into his beautiful glowing eyes. “I want all of it. I want all of you.”

Bracing himself with one hand, he moved his knees between my thighs to keep his weight from crushing me into the bed. He ran his lips, tongue, nose, and antennae over me, tasting and smelling my skin, and even licked his fingers before slipping them back between my legs.

I wanted to taste him too, but I needed to feel his heat warming me from the inside. I wrapped my legs around his hips and urged him closer.

Instead of obeying, he resisted, looking down at me from above.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, breathless. My fingertips traveled across his chest, following the lines of his muscles.

“I don’t know how I ended up on this ship.” He dipped his head into the crook of my neck and shoulder and inhaled deeply, as if he wanted to drink in every atom of my scent. “I intend to kill whoever did this to me. But I owe them athank youbefore they die.”

“You did say you are a polite man.” I cupped his face with my palm. “Anything else on your mind?”

“Only you.” He rested one hand on my shoulder to hold me in place and pressed his lips to my ear. “Only…this.”

He thrust deep into me with his shimmering, stardust-covered cock in one powerful stroke.

We cried out at the same time. The entire bunk shook beneath me. I couldn’t tell if I was writhing from head to toe or if he was, or both.

The burn and pleasure of his thrust turned into a series of orgasms that rolled through my body, one after the other, with no pauses and no mercy. I screamed. I sobbed. I cried out Kerian’s name, sometimes as only syllables and sometimes as the whole word. My vision tunneled into a kaleidoscope of the colors of his wings, as if we were tumbling through space and he’d wrapped them around me. I felt weightless, free, transformed…and yet perfectly safe.