I wake with a start and look around the room. Koba is sitting close to the window looking out into the night. I must have dozed off but something woke me up.

“The noise is coming from downstairs,” Koba says quietly, his voice deep and soothing. “Bar fight.”

Sure enough, the sound of a glass shattering can be heard, as well as the muffled rumble of voices. I sit up in bed, and rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Have you slept yet?”

“No. I wanted to keep an eye out, make sure we are safe.” He turns back to the window and then says, “Sleep now.”

The temperature in the room has dropped significantly during the night. The fire is still burning but it’s a soft glow instead of roaring flames. I’m still wearing my cloak and there’s a thin blanket pulled over me, but my extremities are too cold for me to sleep. I toss back the blanket and lightly tiptoe across the floor toward the fire.

“I’m freezing,” I say while grabbing a small log to help me stoke the fire. Once I poke the sticks around a bit, I drop a few more sticks in the fire until it grows and starts kicking off more heat.

“Here, let me do that for you,” Koba says, kneeling down by the fire next to me.

“It’s okay. I had a wood burning fireplace in my apartment back home. I was lousy at getting a fire going at first but after many nights of practice, it’s a piece of cake.” I rub my hands together in front of the fire, warming my fingers. “The winters get really cold where I’m from but I couldn’t afford to run my heat very high. It would feel like an icebox when I would get home from work. I’d make the fire right away and then cover up with three blankets while I waited for it to warm the apartment.”

He’s quiet. I look over and he’s staring at me intently.

“You’re missing your home?” Koba asks, pulling me from my memories. His concern makes my heart do that silly flutter thing again.

“I guess I am,” I say.

Of course I do, is what I really want to say but that doesn’t seem like the right thing to say. After all he’s done for me, I don’t want to disappoint him by telling him that I’m homesick. He has been so kind to me since the beginning.

“I miss the familiarity of it. And I miss my friends.”

I look at Koba again and he’s looking into the fire. A look of concern flashes across his face. “Did you have a mate on your planet?”

His question catches me off guard and I make a weird laugh sound combined with a snort. “No, I didn’t have a boyfriend or anything,” I say uncomfortably.

“Is a boyfriend like a mate?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I say, “I guess it is … it can be.”

He continues staring into the fire and I’m not sure what he’s thinking. There’s a newfound familiarity between us as we sit together in front of the fire. When he’s so close to me, there’s strong sexual tension. It’s something that I never noticed before because of the constant drama, one thing after another. Now that we find ourselves together in this room with nothing but time, there’s no denying the feelings that have been brewing under the surface. He creates a restlessness inside of me and I can’t calm down when he’s so close. His Force uniform is gone, replaced with the normal attire to help him blend in on this planet. His cloak has been tossed over the chair, leaving his impressive muscles on display. The light of the moon accentuates his bulges and washboard stomach. I never thought it was possible to be attracted to an alien, but it’s official, I have a full-on crush.

“Do you have a mate?” I ask quickly, before I can change my mind.

He hesitates for a moment and my heart drops. Maybe he has someone back on his home planet.

“No. Between fighting a war and joining the Force, I haven’t had time.”

His answer surprises me and I can’t help smiling.

“Why do you smile?”

“Oh, sorry. I just, I was thinking how we have the same problems on Earth. We work too much and don’t have the time.”

There’s a loud crash downstairs and I jump. Koba quickly gets to his feet and goes over to the door, unlocking it and peering out through the crack.

“It’s downstairs.” He walks over to the window and looks down into the alley below. I’m still frozen in place in front of the fire, silently hoping we won’t be bothered by any more confrontations. “It’s nothing.” He walks back over to me and kneels down in front of me. “Why don’t you go back to sleep. I’ll keep watch, you’ll be safe.”

“You need to sleep, too,” I say. Besides, I already know there’s no way I’ll be able to fall asleep with all of the commotion going on downstairs. “Why don’t you sleep for a while and I can keep watch? I need to wait for it to warm up in here again before I’ll be able to fall asleep anyway.”

He gets up off of the floor and walks over to the bed. “Come.” He motions for me to join him. “I’ll lie with you until you fall asleep. I run hotter than you, it’ll keep you warm.”

His words fill me with a tingling warmth throughout my entire body. My cheeks flush again, and I’m worried if I lie down with him he’ll feel how hard my heart is pounding away in my chest. There’s something about lying in his arms that terrifies me and turns me on all at the same time.

After a moment of hesitation, I stand up on shaky legs and walk over to the bed. I’m too shy to meet his eyes so I just climb in and pull the covers over me. A few seconds later, he lies down behind me, tucking my body into his. He wraps the blanket tightly around us both and then I feel his arm settle around my waist.

I try to calm my breathing and settle my heart but my body is tense and I can’t relax enough to fall asleep like this. It isn’t the first time I’ve been in bed with a man, but this is different. Hooking up with an alien was never on my list of things to do … but I made a deal with Stosk that is most likely a one way ticket for me. I did it to save Koba because I’ve quickly learned that he’s one of the good ones. I want this memory of him to keep me warm throughout whatever may come when I go back to Stosk.

“Your heart is racing,” he says quietly. “Do I make you nervous?”

I exhale, trying to quiet my heart. “I can’t relax when you’re holding me like this,” I say. “Instead of helping me sleep, I’m desperate for you to touch me.”

He is so still behind me I wonder if I have misread our chemistry. But to me, his hand resting on my waist makes my body tingle with want.

“Look at me,” he says with his deep, gravelly voice.

I roll over so I’m facing him, looking directing into his incredibly sexy bedroom eyes. It’s his lips that I can’t stop staring at. They are full and oh so kissable.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, bringing his finger to my cheek and slowly caressing me.

“Do your people kiss?” I ask, shyly.

The brown in his eyes deepens to a milky chocolate. If I ever wondered what smoldering looks like, I have my answer. The way he looks at me sends shivers through me, bringing a tingling pleasure between my legs. Before I can combust, he leans in and presses his lips to mine. The heat that spreads through my body is unlike anything I have felt from a kiss before. When he opens his mouth and deepens the kiss, his tongue slides inside, seeking my warmth with gentle licks.

I guess I have my answer.

My hands grip his onto his arms, feeling the rock hard bulges of his muscles under his velvety smooth skin. There’s an animalistic growl rumbling in his chest as he grips me tightly, igniting the passion between us with his kiss. He pulls me on top of him, my aching, wet pussy resting against his hard cock beneath me. There’s a slow pulsing in his cock that surprises me, making me break the kiss and look at him questioningly.

“You are pulsing?” I ask.

He nods his head and slowly begins removing my shirt. He peels it from my body and tosses it on the floor, leaving my breasts aroused and exposed to him. I nestle against his pulsing cock while his strong hands grip my breasts. My hips naturally start to move against him, a satisfying warmth spreading through my body.

He sits up, pulling me close. The warmth from his mouth makes goosebumps rise up on my body just before his lips press against my skin. My body is on fire from his touch. I trail my hands up his arms, letting my fingers play with his hair. I hold him tightly to me while he ravishes me with his mouth, my mind clear and my body relaxed for the first time since I left Earth.

Now that he’s holding me so intimately, I realize that it wasn’t the closeness that was making me feel so jittery, it’s that we weren’t close enough. It’s in this moment that I know he has my heart and there’s no going back.