A/N: Thank you all for reading, favoriting, following and reviewing.
Special thanks to Cassandra Y, SingedFringe , Tuffet37, GreenYoda987, ImmortalFlower, halvwyn , Suilven , CyanB, Guest, gogogeisha, and Detective-Mason for leaving a review on the last chapter. I really appreciate it. :)
Warning: This chapter has mature content.
Thank you to The Red Celt for beta reading.
BioWare owns Mass Effect and its characters.
One good thing about being the commanding officer of a ship was having your own quarters—especially having your own personal bathroom. Not that she cared too much if anybody got a glimpse of her naked body (after all, she'd left the last remnants of her modesty at the door the moment she'd enlisted in the military), but the fact of the matter was that it was nice to make your showers as hot as you wanted and have them last as long as you damn well pleased. Right now, she really didn't want that scalding water to stop beating down on her body.
She closed her eyes and rested the palms of her hands against the wall as she stood under the deluge. The tight knot in her shoulders had started to relax somewhat in the blissful warmth, but she could still see the scorch marks on the walls and the emptiness of the halls behind her eyelids, and every time she thought of the Collectors walking through her ship like they owned the place, rounding up her crew and dragging them away as if they were a pack of wild animals, she felt like she was going to explode.
"Fucking bastards." She hit the wall with her fist and hissed out in pain when the hard metal scraped off a layer of her softened skin. It stung, but her skin weave repaired the damage almost immediately.
Nevertheless, it was time to stop brooding and wasting water, so she turned off the shower and reached for the towel to dry off.
She almost ran Garrus over when she charged out of the bathroom. He grabbed her arms to stop her before her face could make contact with his carapace, and when she looked up into his blue eyes, all thoughts of the damn Collectors dissipated from her mind.
"Garrus! What are you doing here?"
"I came to check on you. You okay? You spent an awfully long time in there."
"Just how long have you been standing here?"
"A while." His eyes slid down and settled on her collarbones peeking out from under the neckline of the oversized tee shirt she'd thrown on after her bath. He couldn't help but notice the glistening drops of water that had collected in the hollow of her throat, and he had to make a concentrated effort to control the overwhelming urge to bend down and lick that moisture right off her skin.
"I was just taking a shower." She shrugged her shoulders, hoping that the casual tone she'd forced on her voice was convincing enough, and pulled away to head down the stairs and get her clothes from her locker. They had a couple of hours before their arrival at the Omega-4 Relay, and she had no intentions of spending all that time in her armor, as comfortable as it was (relatively speaking). Apparently Garrus had had the same idea, because he was wearing his civvies for a change.
She stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of a pile of ration bars and two bottles of water on her coffee table. "What's this?"
"You didn't come down to eat, so I figured I'd bring up some food. I don't know about you, but I'm starving." He wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer; she needed her energy now more than ever, and damned if he wasn't going to make sure that she was at her best when they finally took the fight to the Collectors.
"Yeah. I didn't feel like eating in the mess hall. It was too... empty." She walked over to the couch and dropped down on it with a grateful smile. "Thanks."
"No problem." He sat down next to her and picked up a dextro bar. "I didn't feel like eating in the mess either."
Shepard took one last bite of her food then washed it down with a gulp of water before she crumpled the foil and hurled the shiny little metallic ball into the trash can by her desk.
"Fucking assholes." She shook her head and let out a frustrated puff of air through her nose. Who was she kidding? This was all her fault. "I shouldn't have taken everybody with me. Whoever stayed behind could have defended the ship."
Garrus's eyebrow plates pulled into a frown as he turned his head to look at her. So that was what was bothering her. He should have known. This guilt gnawing at her insides was all too familiar; he'd felt the same way when he'd returned to their hideout on Omega and found his men bloodied and dead on the floor. But this was different—this time they still had hope.
"The Normandy was disabled," he said, waving a hand and gesturing at nothing in particular. "How long do you think they could have held out while more and more Collectors got on board? At least we didn't lose them, too. We still have a full team of badasses to take to their homeworld."
She considered his words for a moment before she nodded. "Yeah. You're right. I just... hope we won't be too late."
"Those bastards take people alive, and they haven't been gone that long. I'm sure they are fine, they're just... paralyzed. We'll find them. And when we get there, ah, how does Donnelly say it? We'll kick those damn Collectors in their daddy-bags?"
Shepard laughed. "Something like that."
She rested her head on his shoulder and took his hand in hers. It took a bit of maneuvering, but she managed to intertwine her five fingers with his three. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Garrus." She planted a kiss on the side of his neck for emphasis and smiled happily when she was rewarded with a deep, rumbling purr in return. "I like that," she murmured, closing her eyes and letting the vibrations travel through her body.
"What?"
"That sound you're making."
He hummed in acknowledgment and rubbed his chin against the top of her head. "And I like that thing you do with your lips."
"You do, huh?" She looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. "Like this?" She kissed his neck again, adding a lick and a suckle this time, and let out a pleased chuckle when his subharmonics dropped to a lower register. "And this?" She sat up straight to have better access and ran her tongue along his mandible, then she continued her trek on to his mouth plates.
"Definitely," he rumbled as he pulled her closer to deepen the kiss.
She eagerly let his tongue in, but she had some other ideas now, so after a while she broke away and stood up. He was about to protest, but he quickly swallowed the words when she climbed over him and settled down on his lap, straddling his legs and resting her forearms on his shoulders.
"What else do you like about me?" She watched him attentively as she waited for his answer, her lips curving into a nervous smile. Perhaps it was vain of her to fish for compliments like this, but even an intergalactic hero needed to hear sometimes that she was appreciated for more than kicking ass and solving problems.
He reached out to pick up a lock of her silky hair and rolled it between his fingers. "I like your, ah, hair. It looks... good. And I like your waist." His hands coasted down on her back, then moved to her sides and settled in that delicious dip that he loved so much. "It's very... supportive."
Shepard's smile turned into an amused smirk, but she bit back the sarcastic remark that wanted to roll off her tongue. Okay, so smooth talking wasn't exactly his forte. Still, it was the effort that counted, and besides, he was definitely quite talented at... other things. Which he aptly demonstrated the next moment, when his hands snaked forward and took hold of her breasts.
"And I, uh, really love these," he said as he gently kneaded her flesh through the fabric.
Even if she wanted to say something now she couldn't anymore; the only sound that was able to escape her throat was a strangled gasp and a moan. He sure knew how to push the right buttons to get her started, she thought, but then so did she. She reached behind his neck and drew a few lazy circles on the sensitive skin under his fringe before she dug her fingernails in a bit deeper and dragged them down towards his cowl.
He released a soft growl as he leaned forward to nip at her shoulder while his hands trailed down to her thighs and moved under the hem of her shirt.
"And here's another thing I love—" He stopped abruptly and lifted his head to stare into her eyes. "You... you're not wearing any underwear."
"That's right." She flashed him a grin through the blush that was rapidly creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks, and watched with amusement as his eyes lit up at his discovery. "I was going to get dressed after my shower, but somebody distracted me."
"That bastard," he murmured, turning his attention back to nibbling her earlobe and slipping a finger into her wetness.
"I, ahh, don't really mind." Her eyelashes fluttered as she threw her head back with a groan. God, he was definitely an expert at turning her on faster and harder than anybody else she'd ever been with. "At least..." she had to swallow to moisten her suddenly dry throat before she could continue, "it sped things up." Her hands moved away from their perch on his cowl and headed to his front. When she glanced down his body and noted with a certain degree of satisfaction the rapidly growing bulge in his pants, she looked back up into his eyes with a grin. "Now we just have to do something about your clothes."
Her deft fingers made short work of his zipper, and before he could even say or do anything, he was already bare for her. She stroked him from the base to the tip, then she scooted back to give herself a little more room and bent down to run her tongue along the same route.
Garrus sat up straight as his eyes opened wide and his mandibles went slack. Spirits, she was going to do that wonderful thing with her mouth again. He buried his fingers in her hair and closed his eyes, barely daring to breathe for fear of interrupting her ministrations, and gave himself over to the sensation of her moist, hot lips closing around him and drawing him in deeper and deeper. Every lick, every swirl of her tongue discharged a bolt of lightening through his body, and it took all his willpower to stay still and not buck his hips up in tandem with her movements. The rumbling sound emanating from his chest, however, could not be tamped down, and it rose and fell along with the wild beating of his heart.
His climax was approaching more rapidly than he'd ever thought possible and, tempting as the thought of letting go was, he wanted to see her come undone first. He grasped her shoulders and pressed them back with a gentle push. "Jane," he groaned, "stop. I'm getting too close."
She straightened up and looked at him with a perplexed expression in her eyes. "So?"
"I want to satisfy you first."
God, the way he said that, in that rumbling voice of his, sent a jolt of heat right to her groin. She bit into her lower lip and moved forward wordlessly to position herself over him, and she sank down with the most obscene moan that had ever erupted from her throat. They stayed like that for a few seconds, connected but motionless, her forehead pressed tightly against his, before she finally started to move. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his mouth, while she raised herself up and sank down again and again, rolling her hips on every descent to make contact with the base of his shaft.
He let her control the rhythm, only thrusting up a bit harder every once in a while, each time drawing out a sharp inhale and a desperate moan from her. He knew she was almost there when her breathing became heavier and her movements sped up, and he gripped her hips to help her glide up and down on his length, matching her fast tempo with the insistent bucking of his own pelvis.
He held her tight when the shudders overtook her body and moaned into her neck as her tight channel convulsed around him, and she clung to him as if her life depended on it. She was still coming down from her high when she vaguely became aware of being picked up, and the next moment she found herself flat on her back on the coffee table, the empty water bottles scattering and rolling off the smooth surface.
Garrus was looming above her, their bodies still connected. How he'd managed to do that she'd never know, but she didn't really care. All that mattered was the insatiable desire in his eyes and the loud beating of her own heart as he wrapped her legs around his waist and started to move. His hips snapped forward and began their forceful thrusts, long and slow at first, but building up speed rapidly as every single nerve ending in his lower belly lit on fire and begged for release.
He let go of the tight control that he'd been imposing on himself until now and drove into her as hard as his aching groin demanded, and she reached behind her head to hold on to the edge of the table and keep herself in position through his determined jostling.
"You okay?" he panted, slowing down, afraid that he might have hurt her, but she shook her head and dug her heels into his lower back to urge him on.
"Never... ahh... been better," she moaned as she lifted her pelvis in offering. "Keep... going."
She didn't have to say it twice; he grasped her bottom and buried himself deeper as he continued drilling into her, the pace of his movements increasing along with the volume of his grunts, and in no time at all he started to feel the first waves of his pleasure creeping up on him. She was close, too, he could tell, so he reached down between them to press his thumb against that wonderful little nub at her center. The results were immediate; she cried out as her back arched right off the table, her body thrashing and her inner muscles quivering around him, and he followed soon after with a roar of his own.
He bent down and touched his forehead to hers once he'd stopped shaking, and she reached up to caress the back of his neck beneath his fringe with a gentle hand. In that brief moment everything was right; there were no Reapers, no Collectors, no war, just the two of them in their warm little bubble, oblivious to the outside world as they held onto each other and drew in big, hungry gulps of air and waited for the erratic beating of their hearts to subside.
"Garrus," she finally whispered, cupping his cheeks and lifting his head up so that she could look into his eyes, "no matter what happens today, I want you to know that I'm glad we've had this time together."
He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes with a blissful sigh. "Me, too."
"I just need one thing now."
"What's that?"
"Get off me, so I can peel off all those empty wrappers that I think are sticking to my ass."
He let out a rumbling laugh and stood up, pulling her up with him when she reached for his hands in a silent request. "Sorry." He looked her over and brushed off the two thin sheets that were indeed stuck to her bottom and thigh.
"It's okay." She flashed him a warm grin, then she started to drag him behind her as she headed towards her bed. "We still have another hour or so before we have to start getting ready. Will you stay with me?"
"Of course."
They climbed onto her bed and settled down, and he held her tight as she snuggled into his side.
"And if you want to go another round, you know where to find me," he purred into her hair, and smiled when he managed to draw a blissful chuckle out of her.
"I'll keep that in mind."
She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensation of his callused fingers running up and down her arm. That second round didn't sound like a bad idea. Not bad at all.