Something to Consider
He had the drop on her.
He could see the back of her head, red-orange hair pulled back and up on either side of her skull, the shape it made from behind reminding him oddly of a swoop bike's handlebars. Strong shoulders, wider in the heavy armor, above a tiny waist, hips framing an unforgettable backside.
Her helmet was inexplicably on the ground, staring up at him. The Devaronian was staring at him too, careful and side-eyed, wary, the red-skinned form slowly blurring into the background, fading away. His focus was only on the Champion, his blood thrumming with the heavy, heady desire for her, mixed with the keen, constant ping against his nerves, like the edge of a knife scraping around the rim of a glass, from being so close to something so dangerous, so strong. Deadly.
She was going to disarm him; he already knew it. He had to be faster, to be better, to prevent it.
When he spoke, she turned. It was the first time he'd seen all of her features unobscured by a helmet: eyes large and bright and watchful, soot black war paint darkening her lips, blown out around her eyes. The paint made her skin look paler, the red of her hair making her eyes greener, as if her irises were filled with trees.
Even then he'd known that he wasn't really seeing her, the paint camouflaging her features into a hard-edged mask, grim and intimidating: yet another layer of armor, a last line of defense. Even now part of him knew that this wasn't really happening, that it had happened before and would happen again in his memories, in his dreams.
Every time she turned towards him her voice turned sultry, giving form to words he'd longed to hear, the desire hidden deep down in his secret unaccountable dream-heart, locked away, unknowable and safe until she gave them voice, their edges, their promise splitting him open, lowering his guard in a hot spill of shock and need.
Every time she disarmed him. Every time he ended up flat on his back with a boot on his chest, blaster in his face.
Every time but this time. This time he took her at her word.
He grabbed her by the forearm, pulled her into his body, and kissed her, the rakghouls, the Devaronian, and Jicoln Shab'la Cadera be damned.
The feel of her mouth against his was indescribable.
Immediately he was pushing her back against a wall in the yellow-lit room, lifting her hips with his hands so her thighs straddled his waist, feeling the metal of her armor scraping against his own as he yanked her upwards against him, recapturing her mouth. The barriers between them shifted, melted, and were gone, her bared skin hot and silky against his own.
He felt as if he'd become all hands, as if he'd sprouted a few more appendages since he'd kissed her, needing to touch her all over, grasping and clutching, kneading and stroking. He traced the shiny burn scar on her naked side, the back of her thigh, her flank, a scar he shouldn't have known was there, a scar that shouldn't have been there, not yet. Her body was a shimmering, luscious blur.
Her hands twisted roughly in his hair, a strangely muted dual burst of pain along his scalp as she grabbed on, using the leverage to boost herself up onto him, back arching, her shoulders the only thing bracing her against the wall behind her. The heat of her against his abdomen was sweltering, volatile, pulsating like an overheated shield generator.
There was a perfectly good bed right there, right somewhere, in the yellow room, but he couldn't wait any longer. There was an urgency, illogical but undeniable, the absurd certainty that this would be the only time he'd ever get to do this.
Her nipples rasped against his chest, her hips tilting in welcome, then in demand. When he took her invitation at last her mouth opened against his like a flower, his name in the bloom. "Torian."
As her body parted to his, the grip of her insistent, slick and hot and perfect, everything he had ever dreamed,
He woke up, mouth opening in a gasp at the sensation and at its immediate loss, as real and yet as amorphous as a soap bubble popping, there and then gone.
He stared at the underside of the bunk above him. The pillow beneath his head was damp with sweat, the sheets clammy against his skin. He breathed into the ache in his chest, sharper and throbbing in his groin, all of him needy, desperate, cheated, thwarted. Pent. He couldn't feel his legs; he wasn't sure if he had legs.
He grabbed the sweaty pillow and covered his hot face with it, holding on, breathing out, breathing in, the texture of the pillowcase against his lips so different from her dream-mouth but still making his skin tingle, his nerves jump, his blood burn.
There was a subtle shift of movement above him, the tinny creak of springs.
He peeked out sideways beneath the pillow to find Gault peering down at him from the top bunk, horn and a half absurdly upside down, voice knowing and amused.
"Rise and shine, kid. Or maybe just shine, looks like you've got the rising part covered."
His face was on fire. He stuffed the pillow back over his head to cover his blush, unable to prevent himself from groaning wordlessly into it. He wanted to grab the nearest vibrosword and try out its edge on the Devaronian's neck. He wanted to grab himself and finish what the dream had started. He wanted her.
The voice, and Gault, retreated.
"'Fresher's free, kid. After you, I insist."