I love how you shudder, once, when I first slide into you, how your soft thighs go slack and fall open in surrender those first few breaths, how your back arches, always, to some degree as you give yourself to me. You have no idea how much you embody every single trait I find delicious about your species.

Your voice is constant, whether a sigh or a whimper or a moan or breathless mutter, even without the depth of subharmonics, the note of your tones are mellow and sweet, like bird song and melody. I love pushing your cries to new heights, making them spiral up and swing down, choke back and break again like water across stone.

The kiss of you, any part of you, from skin to lips to sex to breath, is pliant, soft, yielding like nothing about my species will let me be. The habit your kind has, of touching mouths and tongues, is enticingly indecent and incredibly addictive, but with you especially. I could kiss you all day.

I'm four hours into my usual sleep cycle, but the business of war has begun to trickle to my little port here on Noveria. It's irritating; I'd been hoping maybe Cerberus had forgotten about us.

"The uniform suits you."

Tanith jerked and practically stabbed her omni-tool shut, looking up at Garrus as he sat across from her in the mess hall, a tray of food in front of him. Flushing with the heat of Lorik's newest letter and the intense, almost knowing gaze of the Turian sitting across from her, she tugged at her collar self-consciously.

"Yeah?" she replied intelligently. "The Commander officially conscripted me last night. It's still a little stiff."

He took a bird-like bite of his food, rrmmming thoughtfully and swallowing before replying. "I broke in my C-Sec unifrom by washing it wrapped around my armor boots." At her dubious look, he laughed. "They were clean! The weight worked on the fibers and loosened them up. That's assuming the material is the same."

Tanith squirmed. It wasn't a bad idea, actually. She wondered who's boots she could borrow.

The moment the night before, when Shepard had called her to her quarters and both congratulated her and threw a small duffle at her... well, it was unexpected to say the least. And overwhelming. Not just getting rolled into the Alliance without so much as a piece of paper declaring her new place in the universe, but being there, in the Loft, the Commander out of armor and tired, eyes exhausted and strangely pleased. The details of the spacious room haunted Tanith into her dreams, images of a Drell in a twitching photo-frame, datapads strewn everywhere, the blue, liquid light shadowed and dappled by exotic fish...

She shook herself and blinked at Garrus, his expectant pose, head tilted as he watched her.

Crap. He asked me something. What was it?

Since their conversation in the forward battery, he hadn't disguised his interest in her, not in the slightest, but he'd remained professional and relaxed. He smiled at her whenever he saw her, and seemed to prefer her company in the mess, or the lounge, or on the various space stations, the Citadel-

Now that she thought about it, he prefered her company a lot. Why hadn't she noticed it before?

Because you like him. And you're lonely. And you're trying not to think about how much you miss your boyfr- Er. Whatever. Or how his latest letters point more and more to Cerberus on Noveria.

Her brow crinkled. She doubted anyone had that kind of intel right now. Maybe they did, but what if...

Eyes flicking from her hands to his eyes, she apologized to Garrus. "I'm sorry, I missed that. I ... have some things in my head, and now that I think on it ... Can you tell the commander something for me, see if it rings any bells, or interest?"

At his nod, she took a deep breath. "I'm ... sort of in a relationship with Lorik Qui'in. I think. Maybe. Last I checked?" She tweaked, and continued. "He's been sending me letters, but because I'm pretty sure my omni-tool still has Cerberus software on it, I haven't been able to disable the programs and spy-ware to reply without getting traced. I've been meaning to get it looked at, but ..."

Garrus folded his hands under his chin, still and serious, listening. She cleared her throat and went on.

"Anyway, I'm sure scuttlebutt has gone 'round and you know who he is. His last few letters or so, he's mentioned Cerberus presence on Noveria, and not just as usual clientele to the hot labs. Policy states he can't ban anyone without good reason, but I can tell he's getting nervous. And Lorik ... never gets nervous." She bit her lip. "Have you guys heard anything about that? None of the debriefings I've read have-"

"We're mostly on Shepard's crusade to unit the galaxy in peace, love, and fire-power," Garrus interrupted with an amused drawl, a small smile flicking through his avian features. "She'll definitely want to hear about this."

Relief flooded her, along with a sharp pang of anxiety, and guilt. "I didn't know if you knew about ... ah ... Lorik, and I wasn't-"

He stood slowly, cutting her off as she feared she'd offended him. Instead, she was startled to find his smile widening. "Scuttlebutt is pretty fierce around here, Delano," he chuckled softly. "I knew you were involved with the Hanshan Administrator, if that's what you're worried about."

Tanith frowned at him, confused. "Then... why did you-"

He did the Turian-equivelant of an arched eyebrow, and for the love of God, if you asked her to describe it, she would never be able to. "Why did I what?" he purred.

She blushed. He was teasing her. "Um."

He let her drown in awkwardness for a full twenty seconds before placing his hands on the table and leaning down towards her. "Why did I ... express interest?"

She nodded, blushing harder.

He smiled, then stood up straight and turned slowly away, heading towards the elevator.

"See you later, Delano," he called over his shoulder, dual-toned, liquid voice skipping over her nerves. "I'll get back to you on what the Commander figures out about Noveria."

Tanith sat there, blinking at his retreating back, mind going blank.

She blinked again, and then shoved up from the table and stomped to the starboard lounge, calling in a request to meet EDI 'right now'. The AI answered a comply, and Tanith fumed silently at the stars as she waited, pulling up her personal interface and accessing the sub-routines. She was fairly certain that, if anyone could get all the Cerberus crap off her omni-tool, it was EDI without a doubt.

She glared at the lines of code flicking through her transparent screen, eyes unseeing in her agitation. I need to talk to Lorik about us and this ... this thing and figure out what the Turian hell this is all about. I'm either going to lose my mind or rape the closest Turian-like thing I can find.

Practically jabbing at her arm, she grit her teeth, then, stomping her foot in frustration, she barked in exasperation. "MEN."