The return to duty jarred them both. Remnants lingered of their little practice sessions; Spock seemed more alert than ever to every flip of Nyota's hair, each turn of her wrist. She found herself feeling constantly watched, even while they were each ostensibly occupied with other things.

Nyota, for her part, struggled to control herself. The low brogue of his voice made her tremble; the heat of his gaze thrilled her; the firmness of his commands made her want to arch her back and spread her legs for him.

As she worked at her chair, she would feel the occasional buzz of their link, and would turn to find him staring intently at something else, his hands ghosting sensually over the screen, his chair, his thigh. Twice during those incidents, she had sent a flash of her own arousal at him through their bond, and was surprised to find it met with his much, much stronger desire.

That night, in her quarters, she confronted him.

"Something's different about you."

Spock glanced up once from his reading, shifted the PADD to his left hand, and tapped his right leg once with a single finger - an indicator that he wanted her to come and sit. Now in the habit of compliance, she obeyed and crossed the room to settle herself on his lap.

"What appears to be different about me, Nyota?"

She shook her head.

"Not 'appears to be' - 'is.' I know. I felt it."

He actually stopped reading now, lowering the device slowly.

"What did you feel?"

Uhura tried to focus on remembering the experience enough to describe it; she furrowed her brow in concentration.

"It felt like…a dark spot. Like mercury, spilled. Slippery. Elusive. Confusing."

Something flickered across Spock's eyes, but it was gone quickly. He raised the PADD again and resumed his reading.

"I am certain it was simply a misinterpretation on your part. If you would prefer to access our bond again now to verify, you may. But you can be assured that all is well."

Nyota drew up a little, feeling slighted. A misinterpretation? On her part? She frowned a little, trying to pinpoint her sense of unease. Spock's concise assessments didn't typically affect her in this way, but something had been different; his words had seemed…intentional. Provocative. As if he were baiting her.

Uhura had been fortunately born with a mind capable of examining a massive number of complexities and nuances simultaneously; she put it now to work analyzing all the data she had available about Spock's recent change. Moments later, she had a working theory. But, like any good scientist, she would need to test it.

~:~

"Nyota."

Spock's voice was superficially calm, but Nyota's careful ear was able to pick out the exasperated stretches between the syllables of her name - the landscapes of emotion he painted into every vowel. Serenely, she answered him.

"Spock."

"What is the purpose of this activity?" he asked, curtly, taking another step into his quarters.

She simply smiled in a beatific way and kept her eyes closed.

"The purpose, my love, is to clear my mind. To center my thoughts and find release from the distractions of - "

Spock interrupted, obviously impatient with her obfuscation.

"What is the purpose of undertaking this activity while nude, tal'kam?"

Nyota shrugged one elegantly bare shoulder.

"Your quarters are warm. I was more comfortable."

Then she met his gaze, boldly, and smiled.

Spock stared at her for one long, uninterrupted moment that seemed to stretch beyond the normal boundaries of time. Nyota's heart picked up speed, but she kept her posture willfully calm.

Then, as a dragon wakened after a long sleep, he moved. Spock never moved carelessly; he was a man of intentions, and his intentions appeared in every shift of muscle, in every unbroken gaze. He was atop her in seconds, knocking her off balance and stretching her backwards to lay across the floor. Nyota's breath caught as Spock threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her neck backwards, exposing her throat to him. Her smile crossed from blissful to impish, then back again as he pressed in closer.

Against her skin, he ground out:

"You are teasing me, k'diwa."

"Me? Never."

"Nyota." he snapped, in a voice too gritty to be even half-human, and she only had time to be briefly surprised before he had a hand on her hip and the room shifted and she was suddenly lying on her belly with a particularly serious weight straddling her thighs and a particularly strong hand pressing down between her shoulderblades.

She made a little moan of surprise, and caught with one ear Spock's intake of breath in response. Curious now, wanting to know whether she'd been right, whether the dark spot was indeed connected to this, to his arousal, she reached out along their thin bond. Immediately, she found it - right at the forefront, in a place shallow enough for her to reach, even with their weak and immature bond. She tried to focus her attention on it, to draw mental fingers along that spot of pitch; that slippery rolling-over of unlit emotion. Nyota felt victory, then a frisson of fear - why had she never felt this before? Perhaps their bond was growing stronger. Perhaps he was revealing more to her. Perhaps -

Abruptly, Spock shut off the bond, forcing her attention back to their physical contact. His shielding was slower than usual, however, and for one further, brief moment of linkage, Nyota sensed confusion and then despair and then an all-consuming need. Then Spock blinked and was himself again, the swirling cloud of mystery within him gone, and Nyota once again left to focus on all the places where he was touching her.

The hand on her back flexed as he stretched his fingers over her skin.

"This attempt at provocation is unacceptable, Lieutenant Uhura. Were we on Asteri, it would almost certainly require immediate correction," he paused; then, with an edge of speculation, added: "Most likely corporal."

Was he threatening to spank her?

Nyota tensed, recalling their previous sessions, and suddenly wished she'd been a bit more subtle about this tease of hers. Spock was quiet then, but his hands spoke for him, and in them, there was something that was too clever, too knowing, too aware. Nyota felt exposed beyond her physical self, and squirmed between the confines of his legs. Spock made a low, humming sound that she correctly took to be a warning; she stilled.

"We are not yet on Asteri." he said, reassuring her. She let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "But there are rules nonetheless." he added, and the hand that had been pressing into her back shifted to her shoulder, while another slid from her hip to fit the curve of her ass.

He drew back, and although Nyota knew what was coming, she was still powerless to stop herself from crying out at the first strike of his hand to her ass.

"Five." he said, simply, and she nodded.

By the time he was down to two, she was biting her lip to keep from panting and digging her fingers into the carpet to keep from reaching out for him. One and she gasped out his name, which was not allowed and so he added three more and she made a little sound of protest but then was quiet.

After the last strike, he stopped and slid one hand all the way from her shoulders down over the crest of her ass and to her thighs. She hissed as he crossed sensitive ground, but said nothing.

"I will not accept teasing, ashaya." he said, and his voice was that same low, possessive growl that she associated with the darkness in their bond. "Not here, and not on Asteri. Now give me what is mine."

And then he was using that superior Vulcan strength in that way he had that frightened her and aroused her and lit every animal edge on fire. He nipped her, between her shoulderblades, and she gasped. Vaguely, she could sense Spock fumbling with the zip of his uniform - fumbling? but he never fumbles - and then his weight was heavy atop her again and his cock was a bar of heat, pressing against her sensitive rear.

She tried to spread her legs for him, but wasn't fast enough because he made a sound of dissatisfaction (later he would deny, again, that this was a growl) and grunted as he pulled at her hips to raise her. Nyota went fluidly as ever, stretching her arms so that those slim muscles of her back flexed and drew his attention down, down to the dip of her back and the curve of her ass and then without preamble he thrust and was inside of her.

The contact was so sudden that she yelped, and Spock paused to reach for her through their bond. She felt concern and arousal and a fierce emotion that seemed too alien to be of any use to her; she dug around for the ink spot, but it seemed to have dissipated, and although confused, she abandoned it to focus on the matter at hand.

Spock took her with long, easy strokes - their positioning was not ideal, but Spock's balance was impeccable and he soon set a pace that pleased as much as frustrated her. She whined and arched her back, but this did nothing to speed his pace and so she focused her mind, collected all the thoughts she had of his cock his arms sex touch me love desire make love to me harder wet so wet and pushed them out in the vague direction of their bond.

Spock's head snapped up and he went still. Worried, Nyota tried to half-turn to see him, but before she could, he snapped his hips and she was caught up in the sensations she'd craved; he was thrusting inside of her, marking her, striking her, laying claim to every depth and inch of her and she loved it. The hand which had been pressing her down crept up from her back to tangle in her hair and she arched her back to bare her neck to him; he growled, but refused the prize in favor of changing his angle to bury himself farther in her, deeper, to the hilt and out and in and out again; he lost his rhythm and his thrusts became desperate, clinging, grasping to her and he made that sound again and she felt her own peak nearing.

He was relentless; she felt herself a small ship crested on the wave of his arousal, riding his power without reprieve. She bit her lip and wanted more, more, more, and then unexpectedly, her orgasm overcame her and she cried out and clenched on his cock and moaned and he growled and laid himself over her and his thrusts became frantic as his mouth found her neck and then he was cumming, powerfully, and holding tight to her overwarm skin.

~:~:~:~

Nyota tilted her head in the mirror.

"Well. It's not so bad, really, now that I look at it. Definitely not worth stopping in to Sickbay for." she spun so that she faced him and lazily crossed one leg over the other. "I'll cover it up, and it'll fade in a few days."

Spock met her eyes, and Nyota thought she saw something flash in them, but it was gone before she could look twice and he was back to his normal expression.

"Nyota, I apologize - "

She held up a hand.

"Spock, please. It's just a love bite. You don't have to apologize." She grinned, cheekily. "I enjoyed it."

Spock blinked at her.

"Nyota - "

"Spock." she crossed her arms over her chest, and her expression became serious. "I'm fine. And in two days, we'll be on the planet. Maybe - maybe a little token of your affection is a good thing."

Spock furrowed his brow, but said nothing further, and she turned back to the sink.

"Besides," she added as she checked her reflection again, "What's the big deal about one little bite?"

Spock did not answer her; she simply lingered in the doorway silently, watching her carefully cover the mark and prepare to report to the bridge.