What if this was his future?
Leaning forward, he whispered into Garnet’s ear, “Make your peace with my body. And if you are still afraid of it, I will teach you to love what I offer you. Even if that is pain. You will enjoy it. You will crave it. Because I take what I want, and I want you. Get your thoughts in order, because I will come for you, and you better be ready.”
Pushing off the wall, he turned and left her there. Before he gave into his urges when she still wasn’t ready. Before he threw her over his shoulder and dragged her back to his room and showed her that there really was nothing to fear from his barbs.
He’d show her eventually. And if she didn’t lose that wide eyed look of surprise tinged with apprehension before then, he’d just make sure she was too fuck drunk to notice when he slipped inside her for the first time. And by the time she remembered she was supposed to be afraid of his barbs, they’d already be pressing into her flesh, keeping her locked to him as he filled her.
Because Tanin saw his own future, and he wanted it with a hungry desperation that clawed at his throat, deep from within his belly.
He’d have her. She would decide how it would happen, but itwouldhappen.
It was too late. He’d decided.
She was his.
Chapter 26
Garnet
“You got to make sure that you protect the package at all times,” Rok was saying as he pushed the cart of biohazardous something towards their destination.
Garnet followed along beside him, alternating between looking at the ominous thing and Rok’s happy face as he explained his job to her.
Garnet had decided to go along with him to the delivery today. It was a safe one. Safe in that they didn’t expect anyone to attack them. The delivery wasn’t to a station, but instead to a free-floating laboratory out in space that dealt with the deadliest viruses in the universe. Since it was on a small station built specifically for this lab, if something got out of containment, the lab could be shut down and whatever escaped couldn’t spread. There was even, Alred explained to her before they left the Humility, a rumored failsafe that would send the lab hurtling towards the unnervingly close sun of the empty system it was situated in. Empty in that there was no life on any of the circling planets so, even if the lab somehow fell out of the sky and hit the ground somewhere, it still wouldn’t hurt anyone.
And they were taking a box big enough for her to sit in to them. She didn’t know what was inside. For all she knew, it was packaged snacks, but she somehow doubted it.
The client paid extra for discretion, so only Tanin and Alred knew the contents of the box. But she was told that it was very fragile, the specimens inside were very dangerous, and both she and Rok had to be decontaminated before and after leaving the lab. Just in case.
Even with all those warnings, she still insisted on coming along.
She was hiding from Tanin. Which was rather difficult to do considering they lived on the same spaceship.
He’d scared her off. Just a little bit. Garnet wanted him, no doubt. She was eager to explore the dick-barb situation just to know for sure he didn’t have inch long nails or something sticking out of his cock. That didn’t seem likely, but she’d still feel better once she laid eyes on them, so to speak.
Sex? She was so down. She was starting to have dreams about all the things that serious, intense male could do to her.
But intimacy?
That was a bit more than she was really ready for. And something she honestly didn’t expect from Tanin at all. But the way he looked at her when he declared his intentions, the blazing in his eyes, told her that he was suddenly much more invested in her than she ever intended.
Garnet signed up for fuck buddies. She’d been pushing him gently, wanting nothing more than that. It was even going to be one of her arguments to him about why they should do it when he finally gave into her. Fun fucking between friends. Bumping buddies. Pleasure pals.
But that wasn’t what she saw looking back at her the night of the party.
He looked at her withintention. Withdetermination. Some hang up she hadn’t even known about in his head had snapped without warning. Before she could even realize what was happening, he warned her to get ready. She didn’t think he just meant for the sex.
Garnet wanted to get fucked. She hadn’t seriously considered a…relationship.
Not that she had anything against a relationship. Not really. She’d never had time for one in the past. The few times she broke down and convinced herself to let a guy into her life, he turned out to hate how much time she had to spend working, cheated on her because she spent so much time working, or he spentnotime working, and she had to take care of him like he was a child. Men were good for sex, and sometimes not even that.
So, what did she do now that Tanin had made that declaration?
He hadn’t pushed since. Not in the time it took to reach this package, nor the time it took to recharge the generators and bring it to this lab, or even the couple days they’d been waiting for the station to finish decontaminating so they could come aboard safely. He treated her like he always did.
But she sometimes caught him looking at her. And not just looking butstaring. Giving her that heated look he’d speared her with in the shadows that night. The one that carried a threat. The one that was patient but becoming less so with each passing day.
So, to get some space from him, however little it was, she’d asked to follow along with Rok. She cited her interest in learning more about the job. Even suggesting that maybe she could deliver smaller packages herself one day.
