The door hissed open without warning. Riven filled the frame, his ice-blue eyes molten. The scent of her need had drawn him back, a predator to a flame. He didn’t speak, just crossed the room in three strides, his hands finding her waist and lifting her, pressing her back against the cold wall.
His body caged hers. The hard ridge of his arousal ground against the aching heat between her thighs through the fabric of his uniform, through hers. A sound escaped her—not a word, a fractured exhale.
“The alert is red,” he rasped against her throat. His breath was hot on her skin. “Now we see what your control is really worth.”
Her hands came up, fingers splaying against the solid wall of his chest. To push him away. They curled into the black material instead, holding on. Her head tipped back, bare throat offered. A surrender her mind screamed against.
He didn’t kiss her. He watched her face, his gaze tracing the flush spreading down her neck, the parted lips, the storm-grey eyes gone dark and wide. His hips rolled once, a slow, deliberate press that made her knees buckle. He held her up, his grip on her waist iron.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice was gravel. A command wrapped in a test.
She couldn’t. The word lodged behind her teeth, dead weight. Her body was liquid fire, every nerve ending screaming for the friction of him. The silvery scar on her jaw gleamed under the stark light.
His thumb brushed it. A feather touch. Then his mouth was there, on the scar, not kissing—inhaling. Drawing her scent deep into his lungs. A low rumble vibrated through his chest and into hers.
“You’re drenched,” he muttered into her skin. A clinical observation that felt obscene. His hand slid from her waist, over her hip, pressing palm-flat against the front of her trousers. The damp heat there. He pressed harder. “Aren’t you.”
She shuddered, a full-body convulsion. Her forehead dropped against his shoulder. The wool of his uniform scratched her cheek. She smelled starch, ozone, him.
His other hand came up, fingers tangling in her dark brown hair, fisting just shy of pain. He pulled her head back, forcing her to look at him again. His eyes were no longer glacial. They were a blue flame.
“Beg,” he said.
Her lips parted. The word sat at the base of her throat, a stone she couldn't swallow past. His grip tightened in her hair, a warning, a promise. She felt the damp heat of her own body against his palm, felt the rigid line of him through his trousers, felt every cell in her body straining toward surrender.
Her mouth moved against the wool of his shoulder. A whisper. A breath. "Please."
The sound was barely audible, swallowed by the fabric, but she felt him go still. The hand on her waist tightened, fingers digging into her hip. A long, shuddering exhale left him, hot against her temple. He didn't move. He held himself there, a predator poised over prey, and she felt the tremble in his frame—the control he was exerting, the war he was losing.
"Again." His voice was wrecked. A command that sounded like a plea.
She lifted her head. Her grey eyes met his blue ones, and she saw it—the crack in his armor. The hunger he'd been hiding behind clinical observations and cold commands. He was as desperate as she was. The thought sent a jolt through her, liquid and electric.
She brought her mouth to his ear, her lips brushing the shell of it. "Please," she whispered, and this time the word was honey, was surrender, was a door she was opening for him.
A sound tore from his chest—half groan, half growl. His hand left her hair, sliding down her spine to grip her ass, pulling her harder against him. The pressure of his arousal against her damp heat made stars burst behind her eyes. He rolled his hips, grinding into her, and she gasped, her nails scraping down his back through the wool.
"You have no idea," he rasped, his mouth at her throat, teeth grazing her pulse point, "what you've just done."
His hand left her trousers, and she whimpered at the loss of contact. But then both hands found her waist, lifting her higher, and she wrapped her legs around him instinctively. He carried her two steps, her back hitting the wall again, and the new angle pressed him exactly where she needed him. She arched into him, a broken sound falling from her lips.
His forehead dropped to hers. His breath was ragged, uneven. "If I take you now," he said, each word a stone dropped into still water, "there's no going back. Do you understand?"
She nodded. A small, desperate movement. Her fingers found the collar of his uniform, curling into the fabric. "I know."