This was what it was about. An hour later, Max pulled them to a stop as they reached the cliffs that jutted out over the beach of Vrinli II’s ocean. Dark purple water churned below them, splashing up against pale blue sand.

The area was designed for camping. A small patch of gravel had been set off the side of the road for people to leave vehicles. A little further down the path there was a replicator station where they could purchase simple food and supplies. But Inrit had everything they’d need for the night in her pack.

She watched Max walk to the edge of the gravel and study the sand that led up to the stone cliffs. Unlike the beach, this sand had been placed here on purpose, more decorative than anything else. But it was pretty, and Inrit could appreciate the unexpected beauty of land. She crouched down and ran her fingers through the cold sand. The sun was still high overhead, but it would grow cold as it got dark and she wanted them set up by nightfall.

She stood and wiped her hand against her pant leg. The sand in her fingers threatened to rouse long quashed memories, and this was a night for new beginnings, not the painful past.

“This area was originally mined for minerals several hundred years ago,” she said. Max turned around at her approach and wrapped his arm around her. They walked close to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the sea, the ground dropping out beneath them. “There are several cave systems that cut through the cliffs, but there are also some hollows that the Vrinlanders bored to sleep in back when the mines were still open. Now the campers use them as shelter at night.”

“You want to sleep in a cave?” He grinned. Though he teased, he wasn’t eyeing their bike to head back to the city. Then again, he hadn’t seemed to like the bike all that much to begin with.

Inrit laid her head on Max’s shoulder and snuggled into his side. “I doubt we’ll do that much sleeping.”

Silver rolled over his eyes and this time, it had nothing to do with a glitch. Inrit shivered and wondered if her own face got so intense when her eyes went to full red. She couldn’t control it, but she knew when it happened. As heat bloomed in her chest, she felt the shift in her gaze that signaled the red lights.

They were frozen, gazes locked, and if a well-travelled road didn’t lay just a few meters behind them, his clothes would have been torn to shreds and she’d have her mouth on him right there. But he was just for her and she wasn’t going to give anyone else a peepshow.

She tore her gaze away and pointed to a dark, narrow fissure along the cliff’s edge. “Do you see that chasm?”

Max nodded, silent.

“There are stairs along it and it leads to the caverns. The way is supposed to be very tight. And private.” She could almost feel the hard wall of stone pressed up against her back as Max held her in place and took her just out of view of any day trippers. Gods above, she was wet just thinking about it.

He didn’t say anything, just grabbed her hand and tugged her towards the path as if some ancient beast had roused to life within him and demanded that he take her like a barbarian of old. Inrit had never been into games like that; she’d met too many real barbarians to see the attraction.

Until now.

If Max threw her over his shoulder, she’d come on the spot.

He gripped her hand tighter and tugged harder, as if he could read her thoughts. He couldn’t, she was certain of that. The denya bond wasn’t sealed, and even then, telepathy was incredibly limited between mates. They might get a sense of each other’s emotions or physical presence, but articulated thoughts were almost impossible to read.

There was no one else near them and Inrit said a silent prayer of thanks to all the gods. Civility was losing the fight to her inner animal and she didn’t want to pretend to placate prying eyes.

Their insistent steps ate the distance to the stairwell and even though Inrit wanted to vault down it and take Max with her, she moved with caution. The stairs were carved into the cliff face and long enough that she could lay down and stretch her arms all the way over her head without her feet dangling off, but there was no rail or wall to keep them from falling down the sheer face of the cliff on the other side. Inrit glanced back, taking a view of the cliffs they’d just been standing on. From the top it wasn’t clear, but now she could see the purple veins of whatever mineral ran rich here. It twinkled in the light of the sun and gave the entire rock face an ethereal glow.

She didn’t need telepathy when she could see the thick outline of his cock against his dark pants or feel the insistent pull of his hand. A body could speak just as much as a mouth, and right now Max silently declared that he was going to eat her up. If he looked back at the sway of her hips or spied the shadows of her hardened nipples peeking through her top, he’d know that she was saying the same thing.

When she turned back, she found Max looking at her. “How did you find out about this place?” he asked, awed. He skimmed a hand over a thick vein of the purple stuff that ran from the top of the cliff to where it cut through the stairs. “There’s nothing like this back on Tarni.”

She almost dismissed it. There were planets out there with molten gold oceans and skies that rained gems. These rocks were beautiful, sure, but nothing like a dozen other inhabited planets. But she stopped herself. Max’s mouth hung open and he couldn’t stop touching the rock. “You’ve been to planets besides Tarni, haven’t you?” After traveling for so long, Inrit forgot that most people never left their home world. In their eyes, she would be the strange one, casting off all hope of ties for unknown horizons.

Max yanked his hand back and came right up to the edge of affronted. “I ran Nina Station, of course I’ve been to other planets.”

She didn’t see how the first part of that led into the other, so she just raised an eyebrow and waited. The trick never failed.

And when Max said, “I’ve been to Beothea and Thanatos as well,” she grinned.

“Is that why you ran to the ship?” she asked. She knew he hadn’t left the station on the best of terms. But a man like Max, even when he’d been glitching and on the verge of meltdown, had to have options. He was too magnificent to be left adrift.

Max reached up and cupped her cheek and Inrit leaned into the heat of his hand. “I think I was running towards you,” he said.

She’d heard Stoan and Reina say shit like that on the long ride they shared after they met in the Citadel. While most of her had scoffed at the emotion infused words, a part of her had yearned for a man who’d say that shit to her. And here he was, cradling her cheek and eyes shining silver.

It wasn’t the eyes that gave away the little emotions, not really. She didn’t see Max’s vulnerability in the silver of his irises. It came from the small tense crinkles near his nose and the way he had to force himself to hold her gaze when she looked at him for so long without speaking. Just as she didn’t know how to take it when she heard it, he didn’t know how to say it.

“Me too,” she finally said. Simple was best. And it was even the truth. “I died when I got taken.” His hand flexed under her cheek but Inrit didn’t let him pull back. Before they went further, she had to get this out. “Not literally. My heart beat, body functioned. But I became a… thing, rather than a person. A thing that could kill and commit…” Her head started shaking and she made herself still. She didn’t need to name every crime. “I started to wake up, or come back to life, or whatever, before I met you. But until I saw you, I didn’t realize what I’d been missing. You’re it for me, Max. You make this whole thing worth it, and I…” She swallowed. The last part was the hardest, but she’d done so much worse. She needed to get this out. “I love you.”

He stared at her like she’d grown a second head and he did it for so long that Inrit felt the urge to reach up and check that she hadn’t. His breathing grew a bit ragged like he’d just won a fight in one of the pens at the Slave Markets. The wind whistled past them, loud screams as it tore past the cliffs and down into the caverns just beyond them. But Inrit had no problem hearing him when Max began to speak.

“Back when I started to glitch, I wished that I had met someone. That I’d started a family, lived a normal life. All of that. But every moment, every pain has led me to you and I wouldn’t change a thing.” He laced his fingers through hers and they walked down the last few stairs and into the recessed entrance to the caverns.

At first glance, the area looked off limits, like it hadn’t seen foot traffic in years. But a sign on the wall pointed them towards the camping area and a small trash compactor had been set into the stone so that no one found it necessary to litter. But it was the off season and even with the evidence of life, she and Max were all alone. The two of them, the salt air, and a secluded space where no one would hear a word. Or a scream.

Inrit wanted to back Max up against the wall of the passageway that stretched up more than ten meters in the air, drop down to her knees, and taste him, bring him to completion right there. Her mouth watered at the thought, but she didn’t tell him to stop. Not when they were so close.

The cave they found was rather small, but it looked out over the water through a hole at head level and let in natural light. From a depression on the ground, she could see that this was a popular choice. The only hint that these caves were made by hand rather than nature was the discreet doors hidden in the rock. One press of the wood and they slid closed, giving her and Max complete privacy.

Inrit didn’t know how they managed to set up camp—lighting an artificial fire, setting out the bedding, laying out their weapons—without throwing everything into a pile and leaping at each other. She’d become uncomfortably aware of her body, the press of her thighs as she moved, the scent of Max as he brushed past her, and the heat that was starting to build. The unspoken tension was probably what let them build their camp in less than ten minutes. Once the final blaster was set by the bed, they both looked up and shared a glance.

And in unison they began to rip off their clothes. Inrit’s claws almost sprang out to take care of her top when a button snagged on a piece of thread. Her hands shook in frustration and she yanked too hard, tearing the fabric without need of anything sharp. A glance up showed her that Max was already half naked and then it became a race to see who could get naked faster.

She jumped up and down to shimmy out of her pants and cursed as she forgot that her boots were still tied tightly. Rather than pull the pants back up, she bent over to untie her boots with her ass hanging out.

Max groaned and Inrit paused. She untied her laces slowly, swaying her hips as she worked. Her footwear was all tangled up with her clothes, but she was able to pull them off and work on pushing off her trousers. But before she could stand up, she felt Max’s hand warm against her bare ass, his fingers sliding down the sensitive flesh and further down her leg. Inrit cast a glance over her shoulder and saw that he was already naked, his cock hard and ruddy, right there. If she backed up a single step, she’d be pressed up against it. And him.

So she leaned back. Tonight wasn’t a night to deny themselves any want.

Max groaned again and his fingers dug into the muscles of her leg almost hard enough to hurt. If anything, that made Inrit’s pleasure bloom. “Are you trying to end the fun before it even begins?” he asked, with a ragged edge to his voice that made Inrit burn.

She looked back at him with red eyes. “Are you saying you don’t have stamina?” she asked with a wicked smile. Cyborgs weren’t just legendary for their battle prowess, if some of the racier novels she’d read were to be believed.

His nostrils flared and Inrit sizzled as his fingers crawled back up and swiped against the swollen folds of her sex that were so lewdly on display for him. She would never have stood like this for another man, so exposed, so vulnerable. But Max could keep her safe; he was just as tough as her. And there was nothing she’d hold back from him. Nothing he’d ask for that she wouldn’t give.

“Lay down,” he said, barely flirting with the nub of her pleasure.

There was steel in his voice. A tone that brooked no resistance. And though Inrit would give him anything, she was still going to make him work for it. She stood up and turned, placing both her hands on his hard, naked chest. His heart beat like a drum under her palm and he was hot to the touch. The cave felt like a sauna and they were both sweating, their scents mixing together into something that was neither one of them individually, and yet wholly their own.

“You’re not laying down,” Max said casually. She’d realized that he did that when he was too full of emotion, feigned apathy until he got himself under control.

Fuck that.

Inrit grinned and then darted forward and bit him at the base of his neck, marking and claiming him as her mate. She felt a growl building in the back of her throat as his hands latched onto her hips and he picked her up. Her legs wrapped tight around him and they backed up. Her teeth were sharper than a human’s and could do damage to human flesh, but she pulled them out and licked the wound, tasting the coppery blood of her mate. The bite was raw and red, but more decorative than painful. And already she could feel the bond reaching out from her to him, nascent threads tying together even though they hadn’t yet made love.

This time when his fingers found her sex, he wasn’t playing. Inrit’s stomach clenched and her legs tightened, thighs burning until Max had her pressed hard against the rock.

“You’re already so wet,” he said, his eyes locked on hers as he touched her, the intimacy almost too much to bear.

Inrit rippled under him as he stretched her out, made her ready for the invasion of his thick cock. With every little movement, she felt it press against her, but never quite where she wanted it.

“You just look at me that way and I’m ready,” she confessed.

“Are you?” he challenged. “I want this to be good for you.”

She arched up against him as he hit a sensitive spot, the sound that escaped her throat absolutely uncivilized. “Oh,” she moaned out as she tilted her hips up, “No risk of this going bad, my love.”

He captured the words out of her mouth, invading with his tongue as if he could steal her confessions of love and swallow them for himself. Inrit gave as much as she could, unable and unwilling to stop. She opened her soul to his kiss, laid herself bare, and let herself be devoured as he took her.

This was wholesale slaughter of the person she once thought she was. That woman couldn’t be kissed like this, that woman never fucked like it was life or death and pleasure was the only thing worth living for.

That woman didn’t know how to love.

Under Max’s hands she was born anew, everything bright and the touch almost painful to her newly sensitive skin.

As they kissed, he guided his cock to her entrance and stayed there, brushing up against the wet and tender flesh, flirting with her slit, asking for invitation.

In her position, she was completely at his mercy. One thrust and he’d be in, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, nothing she wanted to do to stop it. There was power in this vulnerability. He worshipped her with each swipe of his tongue and stroke of his fingers, demonstrated that she was his goddess and he her supplicant.

He nudged the tip of his cock into her entrance, giving her time to pull back. Inrit just kissed him harder. There was no pulling back from this, no denying their bond or running away. Not now. Not anymore.

They never had another choice and she’d never been happier about it.

“Hard,” she gasped against his mouth, too consumed to pull away. “Harder.”

“Yes,” he hissed.

He sank himself in, centimeter by tight centimeter. It almost hurt, with his big cock and her tight cunt. But the heady feel was a reminder that he was in her, a brand against her flesh, marking her as she’d already marked him.

He seated himself to the hilt and held still, breaking the kiss and clenching his jaw as his breath came in harsh gasps. He looked ready to come, to spill inside of her already.

Inrit rolled her hips and watched him gasp and bite his lips, his cheeks flushing with the harsh red of pleasure.

And then he moved. He did it so quick that it caught her off guard and if he hadn’t had her pinned, his hands cupped under her ass and her back against the wall, she might have fallen.

He thrust in and out, pulling out almost all the way only to slam himself back into her, the shock reverberating through her bones. She moved with him, bouncing against him and clutching herself close as she tumbled over the edge, her sex rippling with orgasm as Max pounded into her, never letting up.

The first ripples exploded into the second and she cried out, gasping out a wordless plea. Her mind became a haze of pleasure, time dissolving into nothing, and the only physical existence in the world was Max’s hot skin and his thick length inside of her.

His pace increased, something she hadn’t known was possible and he made a low sound, something rumbly and dark, animal. He leaned forward and placed his teeth right on her neck, a mirror of where she’d bitten him. Inrit jerked her head to the side, giving him the access he asked for.

As he bit down, he gave one final thrust, spilling into her and marking her neck just as a Detyen male would, claiming her in the way of the ancient and sealing their bond stronger than it should have ever been.

It snapped into place, the sound almost real. Inrit could almost reach out and grab the thick cord that seemed to shoot out of her chest and into his. But with a blink it was gone, completely invisible to the eye and yet still there, holding them together.

Max’s head lolled against her neck as he started to soften within her. His fingers curled against her and Inrit unclenched her legs, setting them down unsteadily and leaning against him for support.

Max’s hands slid up her back and came around to cup her breasts. He pulled back until he could look down at them and grinned. “Fair warning, mate. I’m nowhere near done with you.”

Inrit smiled back. “Good.”