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Chapter Thirty-Three

C allie

The door to our new quarters slides shut behind us, leaving just the gentle hum of the ship’s engines and our ragged breathing. After all the crew reunions, the toasts, and the chaos of officially transferring to Captain Beast’s ship, we’re finally alone in our permanent home.

Spark seems to sense the electric tension crackling between us, its bright colors shifting to knowing rose-gold as it deliberately zips to a far corner shelf, settling into its rest-sphere with what looks suspiciously like a smug pulse. Even our faithful companion knows what’s about to happen.

“So,” I breathe, watching Aries prowl across the room like the predator he is, all controlled power and barely leashed hunger.

The starfield through our viewport frames his bronze skin and gleaming horns, but it’s the molten gold of his eyes that makes my knees weak. “Our first night in our real home.”

My pulse thunders as he stalks closer, each step deliberate and predatory. This isn’t the careful reverence of our first joining—there’s something feral in his expression now, something that promises the gentle intimacies we shared at the cottage are a thing of the past .

“I can smell your need from here,” he growls, stopping so close his heat seeps into my skin—but he doesn’t touch me. “Sweet and intoxicating. Do you have any idea what that does to me?”

“Tell me,” I challenge, lifting my chin defiantly even as my body betrays me with a shiver of pure want.

His smile is wicked, all sharp edges and dark promise. “It makes me want to devour you. To mark every inch of your skin so thoroughly that everyone on this ship knows exactly who you belong to.”

The possessive edge in his voice makes my core clench with need. “Then stop talking,” I reach for him, “and take what’s yours.”

Something flashes in his eyes—heat and hunger and a playful dominance I haven’t seen since that storm night when he ordered me to spread my thighs for him during my bath.

His head dips, but instead of the gentle brush of lips I expect, he captures my mouth in a kiss that’s pure claiming—teeth and tongue and barely restrained violence that makes my blood sing.

His hands don’t frame my face tenderly like before; instead, they fist in my hair, angling my head exactly where he wants it for deeper access.

“You want wild?” he snarls against my lips, his voice a rough growl that sends shivers racing down my spine. “You want me to stop holding back like some civilized male?”

“Yes,” I breathe, my hands already working at his tunic. “I want everything you were afraid to show me before.”

His laugh is dark and predatory as he spins me around, pressing my palms flat against the viewport. The cold transparisteel against my heated skin makes me gasp as he presses against my back, his mouth hot against my ear.

“I’ve been fantasizing about bending you over and taking you against a viewport window,” he confesses roughly, his hands already working at my clothes with efficient brutality. “About having you watch the stars while I make you scream. ”

Heat floods through me at the idea, at the feral hunger in his golden eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

My words unleash something savage in him. Fabric tears as he strips me with ruthless efficiency, his mouth trailing fire down my spine. But instead of gentle kisses, he uses teeth—nipping and marking until I’m trembling against the cold viewport.

“I can see our reflection in the window,” he rasps, his hands skimming down my sides with possessive intent. “Can see how desperate you are for me? How beautiful you look when you’re about to be thoroughly claimed?”

I bend at the waist, needing friction, hoping to feel his hard length against me.

“Not yet. First, I want to watch you fall apart against this window.” One large hand slides up to cup my breast, fingers finding my nipple and rolling it between thumb and forefinger with just enough pressure to make me arch and gasp.

“That’s it. Let me hear those pretty sounds you make when I touch you. ”

His other hand trails down my stomach, fingers dancing along my hip bone before sliding between my thighs. When he finds me already slick and ready, he chuckles darkly against my ear. “So wet for me already. And we’ve barely started.”

“Aries,” I breathe, my palms flat against the cold viewport as he works me with skilled fingers, circling my clit with maddening precision while his other hand continues its assault on my breast. The dual sensations have me trembling, my reflection in the window showing a woman completely undone.

“I could take you right here,” he growls, his fingers increasing their pace until I’m gasping and writhing against him.

“Press you against the portal and make you watch the stars while I claim you. Would you like that, Callie? To be thoroughly owned from behind? Where I can take you any way I want? ”

The thought sends a shock of arousal through me so intense I nearly climax from his words alone. “Please,” I whimper, my hips rolling against his hand.

“Please what?” His fingers slow to an agonizing tease.

“Please don’t stop. Please touch me. Please—” The words dissolve into a moan as he pinches my nipple harder, his fingers on my clit finding just the right rhythm to have me seeing stars.

Just when I’m about to shatter, he withdraws both hands, spinning me around to face him. His eyes are molten gold, pupils blown wide with lust. “Now I take you to our bed,” he says, his voice rough with barely contained need. “And finish what I started.”

Before I can protest the loss of his touch, he lifts me bodily, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me to the bed, stalking like a jungle animal.

Instead of laying me down gently like before, he tosses me onto the mattress with just enough force to make me bounce, his eyes drinking in every inch of newly revealed skin.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, but there’s possessiveness in his deep tone, a claiming that makes my core clench with need. “Mine.”

“Yours,” I agree, reaching for him, but he catches my hands again.

“Not yet.” His voice holds command that shoots desire straight to my core. “I want to look at you. All of you. Spread your thighs for me, Callie. Let me see what’s mine.”

The order echoes our storm-night confessions, and I comply eagerly, watching his nostrils flare as I reveal myself to his hungry gaze. The way he’s looking at me—like I’m a feast he’s been starving for—makes me feel powerful and desired in ways I never imagined .

“Perfect,” he breathes, his hands skimming up my calves, my thighs, everywhere except where I need him most. “Do you know how many times I’ve recalled this exact view? How many nights I lay awake thinking about tasting you properly?”

“Stop teasing,” I demand, my hips lifting toward his hands. I’m so desperate it’s a wonder I can string two words together.

“So impatient,” he chuckles, but his face holds no levity. His expression reminds me of a predatory animal. “I like you desperate for me.”

His mouth traces a maddeningly slow path up my inner thigh, his breath hot against my skin. When his tongue finally swipes across my most sensitive flesh, I cry out, my hands fisting in the bedsheets.

But this isn’t the careful, reverent exploration like it was in our cottage. This is possessive, demanding—his tongue and lips working me with single-minded focus, driving me toward the edge with ruthless precision. When I’m trembling on the brink, he pulls back with a wicked grin.

“Not yet,” he growls when I whimper in protest. “I want you wild first. Completely undone.”

“I am, Aries,” I plead. “I’m desperate.”

He just smiles, a feral grin, and his fingers replace his mouth, sliding inside me as his thumb finds that bundle of nerves that makes me see stars.

But it’s when his other hand reaches up to my breast, when those careful fingertips suddenly pinch my nipple with just enough force to blur pleasure and pain, that I truly fall apart.

“That’s it,” he encourages roughly, his fingers working magic inside me. “Let go for me, sweet Callie. Show me exactly how desperate you are.”

I shatter with a scream that echoes through our quarters, my body convulsing around his fingers as ecstasy crashes through me. But he doesn’t stop, doesn’t give me time to recover—instead, he moves up my body like a lion claiming what’s his.

“My turn,” he growls, and suddenly our positions are reversed. He’s on his back, hands gripping my hips as I straddle him, his cock hard and ready beneath me.

“Ride me,” he commands, his voice rough with need. “I want to watch you take what you want.”

The position gives me power, and I use it ruthlessly. I sink down onto him slowly, watching his face contort with pleasure as my body adjusts to his unique anatomy. Those ridges along his shaft feel even more pronounced now, creating friction that has us both groaning.

“Faster,” he urges, his hands guiding my movements. “I want to feel you lose control.”

I establish a rhythm that’s anything but gentle—rising and falling with increasing intensity, using the angle of my hands on his shoulders to allow me to take him deeper than before. His alien anatomy responds to my movements, the ridges swelling and pulsing in ways that drive me wild.

“Your horns,” I gasp, remembering his confession about their sensitivity. “Can I…?”

“Yes,” he growls, understanding immediately. “Touch them. Hold on to them.”

My hands find the curved bones, gripping them as I increase my pace. The contact sends shockwaves through him—his back arches, a sound escaping him that’s purely alien harmonics that seem to resonate in my bones.

“Callie,” he groans, his control finally starting to crack. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Good,” I pant, using his horns for leverage as I ride him harder. “I want you completely crazed.”

But he’s not ready to surrender control entirely. With a move that showcases his gladiator strength, he flips us again, pinning me beneath him with a speed that steals my breath.

“My turn,” he rasps, settling between my thighs. “Hold on.”

What follows is nothing like the tender way he’s always treated me.

This is raw, primal—his hips snapping against mine with increasing force, each thrust driving deeper than the last. The ridges along his shaft create sensations that border on overwhelming, and when he adjusts the angle to hit that spot inside me that makes me see stars, I nearly scream.

“That’s it,” he encourages roughly, one hand gripping my hip, the other braced beside my head. “Take all of me. Every ince .”

His pace becomes punishing, desperate, and I meet him thrust for thrust, my nails scoring his back as pleasure builds to impossible heights. When he leans down to capture my mouth in a kiss that’s more devouring than tender, I taste myself on his lips and nearly come undone.

“I can feel you getting close,” he growls against my lips. “Come for me, Callie. Come on my cock like you’ve been dreaming about.”

His words, combined with a particularly deep thrust that has his ridges dragging across every sensitive spot, push me over the edge. I shatter with a scream that’s his name, my body clamping around him as waves of pleasure crash through me.

The sensation of my climax triggers his own. With a roar that shakes the bulkheads, he buries himself deep inside me, his own release pulsing hot and thick as his alien anatomy swells and contracts in rhythms designed to maximize both our pleasure.

We collapse together, both trembling and gasping for breath. His weight pins me to the mattress, but I wouldn’t move even if I could—this feeling of being completely claimed, completely his, is intoxicating.

“That was…” I begin breathlessly.

“Exactly what we both needed,” he finishes, pressing kisses to my throat, where I’m sure he can feel my racing pulse. “Wild. Desperate. Perfect.”

He rolls us on our sides—still connected, his possessive gaze piercing into me.

“From now on, every time I take you, it’s going to be because we both want it. Because we can’t keep our hands off each other.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” I ask, feeling desire stirring again despite my recent climax.

His answering smile is pure sin. “Both.”

As if to prove his point, his hand skims down my body, finding me still sensitive and slick. His cock is still inside me, jerking back to life.

“Besides,” he murmurs, his fingers beginning a lazy exploration that has me gasping, “we have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“Aries,” I breathe, my body already responding to his touch.

“Mmm?” His mouth finds that spot on my neck that makes me melt.

“We’re going to scandalize the crew.”

His laugh rumbles against my throat. “Let them be scandalized. After five annums of avoidance and two lunars of trials, I think we’ve earned the right to be thoroughly inappropriate.”

Outside our viewport, stars wheel in their eternal dance, but inside our quarters—our home—we create our own universe of heat and passion and perfect freedom. No more rules. No more barriers. Just us, finally able to love each other exactly as we choose.

Wild. Desperate. Completely ours to forge as we want.