When she thought of him, she was reminded of a particularly rare port she'd once had. Imported from Earth, distilled from vines nurtured on sunny hillsides in Spain, presented carefully warmed and decanted. It swirled, rich and thick as blood in her glass, and its heady aroma lingered warm and intoxicating in her nostrils. She sipped, and her tongue exploded with raisins, caramel and chocolate, tawny sweetness with a distinct alcoholic kick. When she swallowed, tilting her head back sensuously, it flowed down her throat as smooth as silk, and settled, purring like a kitten in her belly, where it curled and sent playful paws dabbing fiery warmth over her entire body. She savoured it and craved more.
Kaidan was just like that.
Which was why she had to get rid of him.
She couldn't afford the liability of distraction, however delicious it might be.
But every time she looked at him, at his cocoa eyes and bronzed skin, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Every time she heard his velvety port wine voice that sent infinitesimal shivers through her core, she forgot exactly why she was there, and just listened to him instead. Every time she watched him – at his terminal, or fighting beside her, or hacking consoles or recovering artifacts – she imagined tracing the contours barely hidden under that armour, discovering whether the bronze coloured all his skin, tangling his silky ebon hair between her fingers. And her mouth went dry and her heart rate accelerated and her fertile deprived damned imagination painted heady scenes of skin on coffee skin, limbs intertwined, velvet voice raised in passion.
And so they continued, backwards and forwards, the subtle game of conter fleurett, advances and retreats and innuendoes. Until they arrived at a tropical paradise, all sapphire and emerald and ruby death. And she leaned on the ugly grey railing and studied the vivid, jeweled beauty before her, beauty that made a mockery of everything that was happening, and was forced to the choice.
Kaidan? Or Ashley?
Lieutenant? Or soldier?
Chocolate? Or persimmon?
Chocolate? Or…
And she prayed, in the incandescence of cataclysm, that she chose aright.