and he found himself quietly willing her to touch his skin again, to give him a little relief from his growing hunger. He needed to feel her soft warmth against him. Ached for it.
“ Are you certain you know what you are doing?” he said, wishing that he could see what she was looking at and clawing back a little control.
He didn’t have a clue about how the suit worked or how to fix it. He hadn’t paid much attention during his engineering lessons. Those lessons had taken place in a room near the atrium and he had spent most of his time there staring out of the window whenever his teacher had had his back turned.
“ My brother and myself are the only crew of our ship. If things break, we have to know how to fix them. I like to think that I’ve become quite skilled at repairing things or installing new parts. I’m sure I can fix this.” Her hands paused at their work again. A cold breeze against his back chilled him to the bone. She must have opened the suit to get to the same area the commander had accessed.
Sweet mercy she was going to touch him.
Her fingers brushed his bare back and he swallowed hard, unconsciously leaning backwards into her touch so he could feel her better. He wanted her hands all over him, covering every hard inch of his body.
They were warm as they stroked his back, sliding under the suit in a sensual glide that made his heart beat faster.
“ You’re too far away,” she whispered.
He groaned internally and leaned further back. Her warm breath fanned over his back, making him shiver and tremble. Her fingers caressed his skin in mesmerising patterns as she searched for something on the suit. His teeth sunk into his lower lip, biting it hard in an effort to restrain the moan that tried to escape as she swept her thumbs over his back and then breathed against him again.
She was going to be the death of him.
The feel of her hands on him was exquisite, addling his mind and making his head spin as he silently begged her to touch more of him. He craved it. Needed it so violently that he was bordering on turning and trying to break through the bars to get to her. He yearned for her.
Everything about her made him hard and hungry for her. He had never felt such a deep gnawing hunger and desire.
He had never wanted a female like he wanted her.
“ Aha,” she said and his eyes shot wide when she slid her hand into the back of his suit and then pulled it out again. She hummed, singing a melody that he didn’t recognise, and then made another noise of triumph. “There.”
Intense heat spread outwards from his back as she closed his suit. It travelled down his spine, its hot fingers creeping around his front and then down his arms. He sighed, content, when his entire body began to warm.
“ Thank you,” Tres said and turned to face her. He sat there a moment, basking in the warmth and smiling as it seeped into his body. It was divine.
“ They’d only disconnected the wiring.”
The way she said that made him feel as though he could have fixed it if he had bothered to try. The idea of exposing himself to the cold for even a few minutes had stopped him though. Even with the suit unable to radiate heat, it was still thermal and had kept him warmer than he would have been without it.
“ Tres?” she said and his heart beat again, hard and deep in his chest, turning his blood as warm as the suit was.
“ Yes?” he said and was tempted to say her name. Renie. His courage failed him.
“ What do you do for a living?” She carefully pulled her hands back through the bars.
“ Living?”
“ A job? Myself and my brother are archaeologists... explorers. We travel the galaxy studying dead cultures and abandoned planets.”
He vaguely remembered that she had mentioned that yesterday. At the time, he had been too enthralled by her hand on his to listen intently. It explained her interest in his knowledge of dead languages. A skill such as his would be beneficial in