Disclaimer: Bioware owns all trademarked stuff and the Mass Effect universe in general. But I bet the character like me a lot better.

Author's note: Written for the incomparable Galleywinter, who requested something *ahem!* steamy to celebrate her return from her vacation. A promise is a promise, my dear!


SSV Normandy SR1, en route to the Terminus Systems

Crew Deck

Sleeper Pod 6A


Of all the little indignities and discomforts of serving on a spacegoing vessel, the lack of privacy is one of the top contenders. The first place winner, for Kaidan Alenko, is the institution of the sleeper pod.

Nothing is more uncomfortable than the spacegoing coffin he's forced to lock himself into during his alotted sleep cycle. Kaidan is, if given the opportunity, a sprawler. He habitually takes up most of the bed if he has one. The sleeper pod is designed for space constraints and practicality, not comfort. Sprawling is an impossibility. Privacy is a microfilament away from nonexistent. That presents problems on long voyages, when stress and boredom set in and a soldier needs a little personal relief.

Alliance regs forbid interpersonal relationships, particularly between officers and enlisted, but they're pretty silent on the subject of human weakness. Horniness is pretty much overlooked as long as you're discreet.

Problem is, the direct cause of Kaidan's horniness isn't too distant from his pod.

It's the damndest thing, having a crush on your commanding officer.

The mental image of Commander Shepard curled into the comparative luxury of the captain's bunk haunts him. Every night, the fantasies start up. In his head, he isn't in the cramped sleeper pod, alone and aching, a dimmed privacy shield between the rest of the ship and the uncomfortably persistent hard-on tenting the thin nylon of the running shorts that he sleeps in. He's in the captain's quarters, standing just inside the door and outside the circle of pale blue illumination from the desk terminal.

That's where Shepard is.

Sometimes, Kaidan stops the fantasy before he steps closer to her, before he reaches out for her, because fantasizing about your commanding officer is just such a piss-poor idea and he knows that. But tonight the beat of blood between his legs is heavy, hard. Life has been too hectic, too stressful, and for most of the past week, he's been asleep the moment the seals hiss closed around him. Tonight... tonight is different.

Kaidan closes his eyes and surrenders.

In his fantasy, Shepard is sitting at the terminal in the captain's quarters, clearly dressed for bed, and is just as clearly unable to actually rest. He moves closer to her, running through the things he could say, as if there's anything he can come up with to convince her to sleep, to relax for half a minute. "Commander..."

She looks up from the mission reports and scrolling data, and she smiles at him, just a small, tired smile, but it's genuine. "Little out of uniform, LT."

Self-conciously, he brushes a hand across the worn grey cotton of his Alliance T-shirt, feeling his muscles jump under the touch. His skin is insanely sensitive. "Same goes, ma'am." He nods at her N7 tank top and loose shorts. Her hair is down, for once, and it fascinates him, how it makes her look softer, more approachable, without once detracting from her obvious strength.

Shepard laughs quietly, the weariness disappearing from her dark brown eyes. "Did you need me?"

Kaidan reaches out for her, but even in his own erotic daydream, he knows he isn't capable of safely touching her. It crosses every line. His hands clench into fists, hovering in midair between them... "God, Shepard. Yes. I need you. I want you." He steps closer to her, so close. Not touching. Restraint is a threadbare thing, but it's there. "But it's wrong for both of us."

She tilts her head to one side, dark hair sliding over her shoulder. "You're not wrong for me, Kaidan."

Wantwantwantwant... Some dim part of his mind calls Kaidan a fool for being so honorable in his own damn fantasy, but he can't change who he is, even here. "You're killing me, Shepard." It's a groan, and it's all he can do to keep standing there. "It's a court martial if I put my hands on you."

She stands and faces him, and the slow smile that curves her full lips is beautiful sin. "Then use your mouth."

The ache in his groin radiates through him, burning along his nerves like an eezo spike, and Kaidan has to squeeze his eyes closed and sink his teeth into his own lip to keep from losing it then and there. She can't know his preferences, can't possibly know what he likes with a lover - even in his fantasy he knows that. But even the thought of tasting Shepard makes an already raging erection go impossibly harder, and the small part of his mind that isn't wholly invested in his fantasy is aware that, in the real world, he's wrapped shaking fingers around his cock and started a slow, tight stroke.

He's a breath away from her. "Is that an order, commander?"

"Just asking for your input, lieutenant." She leans into him, softly running her lips along the line of his jaw.

He nuzzles her in return, following the line of her jaw, because it's always fascinated him, then brushing his lips down the side of her neck. She shivers, and he smiles against her skin, feeling her pulse pick up a mad beat under his mouth. He spends long moments lingering there, learning what makes her sigh and heat, and what makes her gasp and shiver. The hunger in him won't wait any longer, though, and Kaidan moves on , dropping kisses along Shepard's arms, using his teeth to slide down the straps of the tank top she wears to bed until it pools around her waist. He nuzzles the strong curves of her shoulders, finding them equally as fascinating as the small, soft swells of her breasts. Her breath hitches, and he loves it, loves the incongruous softness of her skin, loves the clean almond scent of her, faintly herbal from shampoo.

He backs her against the utilitarian desk terminal, locking his hands on the desktop on either side of her hips, and drops to his knees in front of her. "Shepard... I want to see you."

She slides her shorts and panties off her hips in a slither of Alliance-blue nylon, and he catches his breath. The sight of her is a hammerblow to his groin, and he's afraid he's going to come right there. She's naked and already glistening for him and oh, God, he needs to taste her like he needs to breathe.

Kaidan lifts one of her legs over his shoulder and just... looks. She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, soft and deliciously wet, and the most gorgeous shades of pink, shading to a deep, fleshy rose... His fingers actually tingle with the need to part the lips of her sex, to see her in full flower in front of his eyes, but he can't use his hands.

"Use your mouth." Shepard's rich voice is a trembling whisper, an invitation that detonates like a bomb in his gut.

"Aye-aye, ma'am," he whispers against the taut skin of her belly, and does just that, blowing a gentle stream of air past pursed lips, directing it at that little bundle of nerve endings so he can watch it shiver and tighten.

"Kaidan?"

Still on his knees, he looks up at her, and the sight of her, flushed, lips parted, makes him smile and ache at the same time. "You're beautiful," he says simply.

And then he uses his tongue.

Her gasp hitches into a moan. "Kaidan." Her hips roll upward convulsively to meet his mouth, and she shudders.

For the first time in his fantasy, he grins, cradled in that intimate space between her thighs, and then Kaidan lets his mouth be wicked.

At first, he confines himself to full, soft lapping, to delicate forays with the tip of his tongue. He wants to map Shepard, to learn her. The most erotic dream he's ever allowed himself, and all he wants to do is please her. But the sweetly musky flavor of her, her warmth... She goes straight to his head; it's actually spinning as his teeth close on delicate flesh with careful restraint, isolating it for his tongue. Her hips jerk, her muscles tensing, but he doesn't stop, and she doesn't stop him. Above the pounding rush of his own blood, Kaidan can hear Shepard's breath catch. His name falls from her lips in a whisper.

"Kaidan. I'm so empty. Please..."

He groans into her, sliding his tongue deep into silk and wetness, relishing it when her short, practical nails bite into his shoulders, loving it when she moans low and long. Shepard deserves this, she deserves so much more than she gets from life. He's seen her bloody. He's seen her battered and filthy. Now he wants, more than anything, to see her fly. To feel her come hard around his tongue and know that he's done this for her.

"Kaidan..." Her hands slide into his hair, holding him against her as he fucks her with his tongue. Her fingertips map the curve of his skull, brushing his amp port, and the surge of sensation is a shockwave down his spine. It's almost - almost - enough to make him break away from her, but not quite. His fingers clamp on the edge of the desk until they're trembling, and he's dimly surprised that he hasn't torn hand-shaped chunks out of the thing. His whole world is Shepard, the scent of her, the taste of her, thick and heavy and bittersweet on his tongue, the sounds of her panting and the quick, hard shivers rocking through her as he slides his tongue as deep as it will go and mimics the thrusting he so desperately wants to do with his cock.

Reality narrows to her, just her, and the pattern he's establishing. He lives in the spaces between her moans when he thrusts deep, the broken gasps when he flicks, and the long, drawn-out moan when he pulls back to suckle just where she's most sensitive. He's on fire, hard as titanium, skin as sensitive as when he has a migraine, but it's such joy to do this, to see Shepard like this, that he barely notices. Time doesn't exist, the ship doesn't exist... it's just her and him and this...

"Please. Kaidan, please... "

Reluctantly, he pulls back a scant inch and looks up. Shepard's eyes are huge and dark in a flushed face, her bare breasts heaving. "Please what, Shepard?"

Her hands, her clever, steady hands, are trembling as they cup his head, trying to guide him back to her. "Please let me come."

Kaidan knows that the smile he gives her is pure predator. "Aye-aye, ma'am." He wants to dive back to her. She wants him to. He doesn't. Instead, he holds her gaze with his and slowly, slowly, lowers his face to her. And uses his teeth.

One exquisitely careful nip and Shepard shudders. Giving into the temptation, he slides his tongue into her once, twice, and then rakes his teeth gently over the bundle of overstimulated nerves at the apex of her thighs.

She screams, and he shifts to seal his mouth over her clit and suck hard as she shatters, licking and swallowing and driving her as high as he can before it's too much and she pushes against him. Kaidan doesn't even have a second to enjoy the flush of his success before Shepard is shoving him backward. He falls, a little awkwardly, and she's there, braced above him. Her bare breasts brush his chest, and he swears he can feel her burning through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. "Shepard..."

She avoids the hand he lifts to cup her cheek, and that smile is back on her face. "No hands, lieutenant," she whispers, and Kaidan has only a second to let the shock punch through him before she's rocking back on her heels and pulling down his running shorts. True to her word, Shepard does not use her hands. She slides her mouth over the engorged head of his cock, holding carefully still when his whole body jerks from reaction. "Kaidan." She murmurs his name around his flesh, then releases him with a slow lick that about kills him. His hands clench into tight fists as she presses a soft kiss to the tip of his weeping erection. "Come for me."

The sensation of her taking all of him into her mouth blows the top of his head off, and he comes hard, so hard... and it's like nothing has ever been before, until he's sure he's given everything he is to her...

And he wakes in the middle of the most intense orgasm he's ever had, fist blurring around his cock as he pumps into his own hand, the fingers of his free hand pressing hard below his balls to shut off the flow of come so that he doesn't make a huge mess in his sleeper pod.

It goes on forever, or seems to, and afterward Kaidan's not sure whether he should be horrified at his lack of control, or impressed as hell at his own imagination. He flexes, stretching as much as a tall man can in the confines of the pod, and wriggles his fingers and toes experimentally. They're tingling. His clothes are sweat-damp and a little uncomfortable, but he just can't bring himself to get out of the pod to change. He closes his eyes instead, chasing the last lingering remnants of his dream down into real sleep.