Parts are entirely NSFW. Read at your own risk.

I think I've made it clear who owns what where and that I'm not profiting except by ego boost.

Chapter 30

She Said

It felt safe and wonderful to sit there on that table in the mess, the arms of the man I loved around me, his scent filling my nose, the feel of his stubble against my forehead, my arms tight around his trim waist. I let my hands trace his spine for a moment and felt him shiver slightly. I smiled and looked up at him and found his beautiful brown eyes staring down at me, his lids partially lowered. The frank gaze made things tighten in my body and he lowered his mouth, his lips barely brushing mine. I slid my hands down to his belt and pulled him closer to me. He responded by pressing his mouth against mine, harder, pushing mine open, his tongue slipping in between my teeth..

He pulled me off the table until I was standing in front of him, his hand cradling the back of my head, his other arm holding me tight against him. "Room," he murmured against my lips. I nodded against his mouth. He turned us around and I walked backward with his guidance, still wrapped around him, tongues entwined. I didn't want to let go. He apparently didn't either. He slapped irritably at the door control and it slid open. No sooner had it slid shut behind us, than we started pulling at each others' clothes. I felt his rough, warm hands on the small of my back as he untucked my shirt. I pulled at his belt, unbuckling it. I wanted as much of his skin next to mine as I could get, despite the small warning bells going off in the back of my head. Too soon!I squashed the thought.

My heart was pounding and my fingers shook with need. I fumbled with his shirt, pulling it up and running my hands under it, tracing his muscles with my fingertips. I shivered as his hands slid up my back to unhook my bra. I stepped back long enough to pull his shirt over his head and he did the same to me, my bra coming off in the process. I captured his mouth with mine again, not wanting to stop kissing him. He pulled my hips tight against his with one hand and the other slid up to cup one of my breasts, his thumb teasing the nipple. "Oh, God," I moaned against his lips, "Kaidan... chair, now."

"Good idea." He steered us over to a chair and sat down, pulling me on top of him so that I straddled his hips, my feet dangling. I pressed myself tightly to him, feeling him grow harder against me, feeling my own ache intensify. I ran my fingers over his chiseled abdominal muscles, my blunted nails running through his chest hair. He pulled his mouth from mine and I tossed my head back, my hands sliding up to his shoulders, clinging to him. He kissed a trail of fire from my neck down to my breasts. One arm supported me as I arched against him. The alarm bells reached a cacophonic level. We have to stop, this is a very bad idea! The little voice I'd silenced earlier was louder and more insistent.

A tongue gently lathed my nipple and sent a shot of heat through to my core and I writhed against his hips, feeling him grow harder beneath me. His other hand cupped my other breast and I moaned at the sensation of heat from his mouth and the roughness of his fingers. I clung to him in my precarious position on his lap, my arms around his shoulders, my fingers in his hair. I moved my hips against his again and he moaned, too, but didn't pull his mouth from my breast. I inhaled sharply, and the little voice took over. "I... oh, God, Kaidan. Stop... please." Wait, what? No, no, don't stop!

He looked up at me and switched breasts. "You sure you really want me to?" He did something that sent another shock of heat to my groin and I involuntarily ground my hips against him, harder.

"This is... oh, god... no, I don't. Kaidan," I gasped, threading my fingers through his hair. I really didn't want him to stop. But we needed to have a real relationship first before we complicated things with hopping back into bed. There was a brief war within me between my heart and groin against my mind, but the mind won out. Roughly, I pulled his mouth off my breasts and cupped his chin in my hands to ease the sting. "But, as much as I want to continue this, it's not a good idea, Kaidan."

Both of his hands now cupped my breasts, taking the place of his mouth, rubbing gently. Oh, hell, that feels good. I trembled in need. "You're probably right. I'm just having a hard time making my body believe that, however." His hands slid to wrap around me and pull me tight against him. He buried his face in my neck and I let my fingers trail through his curly hair, giving in to the urge to lick the hollow behind his ear. He shivered and asked, "Are you sure we have to stop?"

I nodded, regretting my impulse, "Do you trust me completely yet?" His silence told me everything I needed to know. "Then yes, we have to."

"Sometimes, doing the right thing sucks, Avery." His whiskey soaked voice was muffled against my collar bone, deeper and harsher than usual.

"I know, Kaidan." He sat back to look up at me. I still felt him hard and eager through my trousers. I tried to shift away, but he kept me held tightly against him. "I'd spend the night here, just to stay near you, but I don't think we can restrain ourselves."

He rested his head on my breastbone. "I'm having trouble restraining myself right now." He groaned. "I don't want you to go." He moved his head enough to slide his tongue teasingly across my nipple again. I gasped and grabbed the back of the chair and shifted my hips against him. His eyes crinkled in amusement as he did it again. "You don't want to go, either." He drew it into his mouth and closed his eyes as he sucked.

"Oh... Kaidan... Don't. Stop. Please." He didn't, he continued to play with my breasts, his hands roaming over my body. My head reeled, all I could do was hang on to him. I grabbed his hair and pulled his head back up to look at me, ignoring the ache of longing for him to keep going. "We can't."

His hands slid down under the loosened waistband of my pants (when the hell did they get unbuttoned?) and cupped my bare ass, one of his fingers tugging suggestively on my satin thong. I moaned and pressed against him again. He buried his face between my breasts and murmured, "I know. I just can't convince myself to let you leave." He looked up at me from under those beautifully thick eyebrows. "Stay. Please. I'll behave myself."

His hands were still in my pants and I still ached for him to keep going. I wanted his hands to slide forward, to rip that little scrap of fabric between my legs and rub me, his fingers to slide into me. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath, "I'm not sure I'll behave myself." I really wanted to believe we could keep our hands off each other and just sleep next to one another all night. I absolutely wanted to talk myself into staying, I didn't want to be away from him, anymore than he wanted to be away from me. But I couldn't trust myself. And he didn't appear to have any more self-control in this instance than I did. But, it was all about trust after all. Me, trusting him. Him trusting me. Oh, god, I want you inside me so badly,I thought. Aloud, I said, "Can you really look me in the eye, and tell me you can stop? That we can stop here and just hold each other all night?"

I met his gaze. He merely looked at me for a moment, his fingers tightening on my ass, before dropping his head back down, "We can't, can we," he muttered.

"No," I whispered. I reluctantly slid backward off his lap, his hands equally reluctantly leaving my pants. He remained seated. From the looks of things, he probably couldn't stand up yet. He watched me with that look again. The possessive one that made me want to throw myself back on his lap and finish what we'd started. Instead, I held my pants up with one hand and picked up my bra with the other. In the few minutes it took for me to get dressed, he hadn't moved, nor had he stopped looking at me like that.

I walked back over and cupped his face in my hands and gave him a brief good night kiss, "I do love you, you know."

He kissed me back just as briefly, "I know." Half of me was disappointed he didn't grab me again. I turned and walked out of his quarters, not trusting myself to look back at the half-dressed marine I'd just left.

I headed for the showers. It was going to be a long night.

The next morning, I went down to the cargo hold, Garrus at my back, to check on our batarian prisoner. Kaidan promised to meet us there. The four eyed alien was chained to the wall, a pallet within his reach and a half eaten tray of food and a bottle of water. Zaeed watched him, his rifle unslung and across his legs. At least my team had treated the prisoner well. I honestly expected no less. The batarian glared up at me, then spat at the deck plates near my feet. Before either Garrus or I got a chance to react, Zaeed leaped to his feet and punched the man in the mouth.
I held up my hand, "That's enough." Zaeed sat back down in the cheap chair and Garrus took up a position behind me, leaning against the wall. I turned my attention back to the prisoner. "I doubt you're going to tell me anything." I examined my nails. The batarian most likely had no clue how insulting that was meant to be, but it made me feel better. I looked back at him, "So, you'll be left here to rot till our business is done and then turned over to the Citadel for slave running in our jurisdiction."

I didn't think batarians could turn pale, but he certainly did. "You.. you have no proof!" he sputtered. I merely looked at him with a raised eyebrow. I didn't really want to deal with this jackass, but the bare chance he could help us nail down which planet we needed to go to was too good to pass up.

There were times where Mindoir crept up on me and hit me between the eyes with a flashback or three. Usually it was when I was confronting a batarian of any sort. Those eyes made my skin crawl, but not because there were four of them, but because I still remember one of them coming at me with my father's blood on his face. It was the same batarian I always envisioned every time I shot one.

"Name?" I asked calmly. I had one hand behind my back, clenched, digging my nails into my palm so I wouldn't flare up and put hole in the hull of the ship.

"Jierag R'khal," the prisoner spat. "What the hell do you need my name for?"

"So I know what to write on the body bag we send you back to your people in. To hell with due process," I told him and turned on my heel to leave him to Zaeed's tender mercies. The grizzled merc grinned ferally at me then turned his blank eyed gaze on the alien.

The batarian scrambled back away from the human, his eyes wide. "Wait!" I stopped. "What do you want to know?"

"Where did the order originate from that told gave you the bounty on me?"

The alien laughed, "Fuck, that's all you want? I don't owe shit to those people. Not like they told me I was supposed to hunt down Commander Fucking Shepard! Caleston. Balor System. Planet Partholon. Some sort of space station."

I glanced at Zaeed. "Turn him over to the Shadow Broker. Say he was useful." I glanced at Garrus, "Tell the pilot to take off the minute the scum's off the ship."

Garrus and I left the cell while Zaeed readied the prisoner for transport. Liara would find a use for him. As much as I'd like to, killing a batarian entirely at our mercy was not something I wanted on my conscience.

Kaidan was out in the passageway. Garrus brushed past me on his way to deliver my orders. The Staff Commander beckoned to me and led me into an empty hold. He waited until the door slid shut behind us and pulled me against him, hugging me.

"I know letting him go wasn't easy."

"I turned him over to Liara."

"Better than killing him. Though I wish you'd have let us turn him in for trial." His fingers were rubbing a gentle circle on the small of my back, making things awaken that we shouldn't really address. But he pulled away first. "Sorry, Avery. I - I just wanted to tell you that."

I smiled. I couldn't help it, even after everything, he was looking out for me. "Thank you." I brushed his lips lightly with mine and turned to go.

"Promise me one thing?" I looked back and his brown eyes were solemn.

"Yes, Kaidan?"

"Take me with you, if you decide to hit that base. It matches one of the planets you've got on your short list." I blinked at him. He worked fast, but then, he was always efficient.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Kaidan. I miss having you at my back."

"I miss being there."