Page 31 of Signed, Sealed, Seduced (You’ve Got Alien Mail #1)

“The bonding ceremony,” she manages, her voice unsteady. “When... when will it be?”

“When you wish it,” I tell her, my lips moving against her neck. “Tomorrow, if you desire. Or we could wait, have the formal celebration with representatives from your homeworld, from the allied systems...”

“Tomorrow,” she says immediately, then seems to surprise herself. “I mean... I don’t need a big ceremony. I just need you. This. Us.”

The fierce certainty in her voice undoes something in my chest. “Tomorrow, then,” I agree, pulling back to meet her eyes. “Before the Council of Elders, with whatever witnesses you choose.”

“Rusty,” she says immediately. “And Vex’ra. And... and that’s probably enough. I don’t need crowds of people I barely know. I just need the people who matter to us.”

“Our family,” I observe, recognizing the truth of it. This fortress, with its eclectic collection of beings, has become exactly that—a family we’ve built together.

“Our family,” she agrees, and then she’s kissing me, her mouth soft and desperate against mine.

The kiss is different from the others we’ve shared tonight—less gentle, more urgent. It carries the weight of our commitment, the promise of forever, the desperate need to seal this moment with something more than words.

I respond with equal fervor, my hands tangling in her hair as I deepen the kiss. She makes a soft sound of need that goes straight to my core, her body pressing closer as if she can’t bear even the smallest distance between us.

When we break apart, both breathing hard, her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are dark with want. “I know we’ve been together for three years,” she says, her voice husky. “But somehow this feels like the first time. Like we’re promising each other something entirely new.”

“We are,” I realize, the truth of it settling over me like a revelation. “Everything before was... exploration. Discovery. This is commitment. This is choosing to bind our lives together, permanently and completely.”

She nods, understanding flickering in her eyes. “So show me,” she whispers, her hands sliding up to cup my face. “Show me what it means to be yours. Really, truly yours.”

The request is both vulnerable and bold, so perfectly Suki that I feel my heart skip. I lean into her touch, pressing a kiss to her palm before answering.

“Here?” I ask, glancing around the observation deck with its transparent walls and star-filled views.

“Here,” she confirms without hesitation. “Under the stars, where we just promised ourselves to each other. I can’t think of anywhere more perfect.”

Neither can I. The observation deck, with its panoramic views and ethereal lighting, feels like the heart of everything we’ve built together. It’s fitting that we should mark this moment here, surrounded by the cosmos that brought us together.

I shift our position carefully, laying her back on the cushions with a reverence that borders on worship. The starlight plays across her skin as I begin to remove her clothing, each garment discarded with the same care I might show a priceless artifact.

“Beautiful,” I murmur, my hands skimming over the exposed skin. “You are so beautiful, Suki.”

Her response is to reach for my own clothes, her fingers deft despite the slight tremor in her hands. “So are you,” she says, her voice filled with wonder as she traces the patterns of my markings. “All of you. Every alien, impossible inch of you.”

We undress each other slowly, each revelation celebrated with touches and kisses that speak of familiarity and newness in equal measure. This is not our first time together, but it feels monumental nonetheless—a consecration of everything we’ve become, everything we’ve chosen to be.

When we’re both bare under the starlight, I pause to simply look at her.

My human, my variable, my constant. She is small compared to my bulk, delicate in ways that still make me careful, but there is nothing fragile about the way she looks at me.

Her gaze is steady, trusting, filled with a love so complete it takes my breath away.

“I love you,” I tell her, the words feeling inadequate. “I love you beyond measure, beyond reason, beyond anything I thought possible.”

“I love you too,” she replies, pulling me down to her. “Forever and always and in every way that matters.”

When I move over her, settling between her welcoming thighs, the joining feels like coming home. She arches beneath me, her hands gripping my shoulders as I enter her slowly, savoring every moment of connection.

“Stars,” she gasps, her head thrown back against the cushions. “Every time... it’s like the first time and the thousandth time all at once.”

I know what she means. The familiarity of her body welcoming mine, combined with the earth-shattering significance of this moment, creates a sensation that defies description.

This is not merely physical pleasure, though that is certainly present.

This is recognition, completion, the final piece of a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving.

We move together with the rhythm of long practice and newfound purpose, each touch and kiss a promise, each whispered endearment a vow.

The starlight bathes us in silver and gold, and my markings pulse in time with our heartbeats, creating a light show that has nothing to do with cosmic alignments and everything to do with the bond we’re forging.

“Mine,” I whisper against her throat, the word torn from some primal part of me. “My mate. My wife. Mine.”

“Yours,” she confirms, her voice breaking on the word. “Always yours. And you’re mine, First Blade. My alien warlord husband. Mine.”

The possessive declaration sends fire through my veins, my careful control beginning to fray. I increase my pace, driven by a need that goes beyond the physical, beyond the rational. This is claiming and being claimed, marking and being marked, in the most fundamental way possible.

She meets me thrust for thrust, her body arching to take me deeper, her hands mapping the planes of my chest and shoulders with desperate reverence.

When her climax takes her, she cries out my name like a prayer, her body clenching around me with an intensity that threatens to shatter my composure entirely.

I follow her over the edge, my own release tearing through me like a force of nature. For a moment, the universe narrows to nothing but sensation and connection, the feeling of being completely and utterly joined with the being who has become my everything.

Afterward, we lie entwined in the starlight, our breathing slowly returning to normal. I gather her close, her head pillowed on my chest, our legs tangled together in a way that speaks of perfect comfort and trust.

“So,” she says eventually, her voice still slightly hoarse. “We’re really doing this. Tomorrow, we’ll be married.”

“We will,” I confirm, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “How does that make you feel?”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel her thinking, processing the magnitude of what we’ve just committed to. “Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she says finally. “Like everything that came before was just... preparation. For this. For us.”

“For us,” I agree, tightening my hold on her. “The courier who crashed and the warlord who found her.”

“The variable and the constant,” she adds with a smile I can hear in her voice.

“The beginning and the end,” I continue, falling into the rhythm of our private litany.

“The question and the answer,” she finishes.

We lie there in comfortable silence, watching the stars wheel overhead through the transparent dome.

In a few hours, the fortress will wake to the news of our engagement.

There will be preparations to make, protocols to follow, a ceremony to plan.

But for now, there is only this—the perfect quiet of two beings who have found their place in the universe, together.

The courier who crashed on my landing pad. The warlord who found her irritating, then intriguing, then essential. An equation that should not balance, yet somehow does, perfectly.

My variable. My constant. My Suki.

My wife.