Thirteen years of writing fan fiction, and this is my first smut piece. I just found the letter Thane wrote for Shepard in the Shadow Broker's dossiers, so although I have a couple of thoroughly angsty stories in the works, I really, really need to write something fluffy and plotless right now.

Whispers into the Tide

Rhiannon Shepard drifted awake early, blessedly unremarkable dreams dissolving instantly into forgetfulness. She didn't know what time it was. Early enough that Thane, usually up and about long before her, was still asleep.

Propping herself up on one elbow, she took a moment to simply watch him. She rarely saw him like this, so utterly relaxed. Even the painful rattle of his lungs seemed lessened. He lay on his back, one leg straight, the other crooked at the knee, his arms over his head. His face was turned toward her, peaceful and smooth, full lips slightly parted. The blanket had slipped down to his hips, leaving his emerald scales to shimmer in the pale light of the aquarium.

He stirred slightly—a shifting of limbs, a small sigh, a fluttering of eyelids—beginning to awaken. Shepard reached out with the lightest of touches, ghosting her fingertips smoothly down over the taut muscles of his chest and stomach, eliciting a low rumble from the drell who was now most definitely not sleeping. But his eyes remained closed, and he didn't move. He had, in fact, gone very, very still.

Shepard allowed herself a wicked grin. Spreading her hand flat against him, she slid it slowly up, up, toward the sensitive red frills on his neck. His scales were slightly rough against her palm this time as she rubbed them the wrong way. Or maybe the right way, she corrected herself, as Thane's eyes snapped open with a gasp. She leaned down to kiss him, stroking the curved ridge where red met green, and felt him shiver beneath her.

Trailing kisses down his neck and collarbone—she'd be seeing stars later—she shifted position to straddle his hips. When he reached up to tangle his hands in her hair, she grabbed his wrists and forced them back down, pinning him helplessly in place.

Thane's breathing quickened, and his eyes were wide and dark. Shepard could feel his pulse pounding in time with her own. The information Mordin had given her had been very good, she reflected—with that to go on, it hadn't taken her long to figure out how to strip Thane Krios of every ounce of his vaunted self-control.

She held him there for a moment, her face buried in the curve of his neck, reveling in his arousal and the musky, spicy scent of him. "Don't move," she murmured, then sat up, slowly releasing his hands and trailing her fingers back along his arms, feeling the muscles twitch as her hands once again slid against the direction of his scales. She was definitely going to remember that.

Her touch was suddenly much less gentle as she raked her fingernails down the length of his torso, hard enough to have raised welts if he'd been human. Thane arched his back, fingers clutching at the edge of the mattress above his head. "Siha!" he groaned. His crushed-velvet voice heated her blood and made it race.

She silenced him with another kiss, delicately worrying his lower lip between her teeth. Touching her forehead to his, she stared into his increasingly desperate eyes as his breath came in ragged gasps. Then she delivered her coup de grâce, rocking her hips against his in the way she knew drove him absolutely wild.

He was completely undone. With a soft growl and a burst of wiry strength, he flipped her onto her back and buried himself in her, kissing her hungrily all the while. His cool hands traced every curve of her body, and suddenly it was Shepard who was struggling to keep it together.

Thane soon recovered himself enough to settle into a long, slow rhythm. Shepard could almost see him committing every sensation to perfect memory. Then his mouth closed on her breast, his tongue swirling around her nipple, and the contrast of cool lips and hot breath on her skin set off sparks behind her eyes. A breathy, shuddering moan escaped her, her fingernails scrabbling for purchase on the smooth scales of his back.

With a low chuckle, Thane took hold of her arms and pressed them to the pillow above her head, just as she'd done to him. Pinning her wrists with one hand, he slid the other around the back of her neck, his thumb brushing her cheek reverently. His eyes transfixed her as he quickened his tempo, and Shepard thought she might drown in their fathomless depths.

And then the tide swept them both out to sea. Shepard cried out wordlessly as wave after wave of ecstasy crashed over her, and Thane tensed, convulsed, and collapsed. They lay laughing breathlessly for the sheer joy of being together, their bodies still joined as they rode out the aftershocks and the last ripples deposited them back on the shore.

Shepard wished she had the perfect memory of a drell, solely so the look of pure contentment on her lover's face would be etched forever into her mind: the sparkle in his eyes, the smile on his lips—and the knowledge that she had put them there. Happiness, for him, was a rare and fleeting thing, every moment of it precious beyond words. And when it whispered back into the tide, only memories remained.