("If we engage in coitus, will things change between us?" she asked after a long kiss that had melted into a dozen tiny ones. She was draped across his body with her head on his shoulder. He caressed her naked arm, the barest of touches that tickled in a way she had never yet felt. She basked in him, in the shape of his body beneath hers, the press of his hips against hers, the way his other arm draped across her shoulders, and the way he had allowed her to run her fingers through his uncovered hair.

"How do you mean?"

"Will I feel differently afterwards? Is it a trans-formative act? I have read both the medical and romantic literature of several worlds and they are, by and large, contradictory of one another. Will I change?"

He thought for a long moment, caressing her skin, content with the feel of her in his arms. "In some ways, I suppose, but not in the ones that truly matter. You will still be Aya."

"And you, how will you feel afterwards?"

He didn't hesitate, tilting his head down to capture her rapt attention. There was worry creasing her brow and he kissed it away softly. "I will still love you.")

Her mouth holds a charge, electrifying as it slides against his in an eager-to-please press. His hands cup her face, thumbs brushing her cheeks as he tilts his head, deepening her kiss. His lips tingle, sending shivers of excitement through him. Her kiss is always like this, like being super-charged by a Blue Lantern must feel like. Every blood cell rushes to the surface of his skin, nerves singing from the contact of her body barely touching his.

Her arms encircle his neck and she draws herself up on her tiptoes, pressing for more, taking him by surprise. There is a hunger about her, a caged need in the corners of her lips that entices and traps. His tongue sweeps forward, along the soft line of her lips, the barest of brushes. Aya makes a noise, the softest sound, and opens her mouth to him. His tongue flicks slowly along hers. It's like licking a battery, but he's used to it, addicted to it. It excites him, makes him forget himself for a moment.

His hands trail down her neck, over the hard casing of her metal form and down to the softer contours of her hard light waist. He pulls her against him; their bodies flush in the darkness. One hand dares her lower back, fingers possessive on the hard molded swell of her rear. Aya's arms tighten around his neck, her fingers folding, gripping the red and black-striped cloth at the neck of his uniform. Another soft sound escapes her as her head angles again, inviting him to follow.

A mad rush of need runs through him from head to toe and he has to stop himself from giving in to instincts too deep to fully control. His mouth crashes against hers, a desperate clench of lips and the scrape of teeth. Her tongue is slick, the texture smooth as it twists with his in a sensual motion born from trail and error. Months of tentative exploration have eased the rough bits of their disparate experiences, gaps in knowledge and natural hesitancy.

(She is surprising in a thousand ways he could never have predicted; a soft touch here, a bold kiss behind Hal's back, a playful nip to his chin, the tip of her tongue tracing the markings on his chest, her fingers beneath his shirt, her thighs tightening on his hips, bite of her lip, the first moan she'd ever made—a literal uttering of the word that had taken him aback, for all that he'd found it unbearably sexy.)

He turns them in place, too full of her to stop himself, daring to throw his natural caution to the wind. She moves with him, allowing him to press her against the curved metal wall. Another soft sound, a real moan this time, rolls between them as he drags his mouth against hers, pulling her lips between his teeth. One of Aya's hands unclenches from his neck and grasps his helmet. She pulls it free of his head and drops it behind him, where it dissipates in a glimmer of red just before it would have hit the floor. He concentrates for a moment and the rest of his uniform follows, dissipating between them and leaving him in his civilian clothing.

His thigh slides in along hers, opening her to him, the press of his hips lifting her a little between himself and the wall. Aya's fingers are on the covering on his head. When she tugs it down, he pulls back from her exhilarating mouth and shakes his short white hair free. She had been fascinated with the feel of it the first time he'd allowed his head covering to be removed in her presence, running her fingertips along the coarse strands, sending goosebumps traveling down his scalp. He likes it when she touches him.

The space between them is as charged as her electric kiss as Aya's fingers sink into the hair at the nape of his neck. He braces them against the wall with the hand not holding her lower body against his, the thrum of the ship echoing through his spread palm. His nose nuzzles hers, his breath against her lips.

"What brought this on?" he mumbled into the hum of the engines. She had surprised him in his quarters tonight, kissing him the moment the door had slid closed behind her. Their stolen moments of privacy have been scattershot at best, but always scheduled beforehand, boundaries silently agreed upon. He finds that he likes this better, likes the wildness in which she had all but yanked his mouth to hers the moment the door had closed.

"I…do not know," she says, brow furrowing slightly as her fingers absentmindedly card his hair. "I have felt the strangest disturbance in my sensors and receptors all day, but my diagnostic scans have uncovered nothing faulty in my thought matrix. I tried to narrow down the possible causes, but I was too…distracted."

"By what?"

"The memory of our last meeting," she says, her guileless eyes searching his face. He flushes a little. The memories had been haunting him, teasing and intrusive whenever he set eyes on her.

("Is this pleasurable?" she had asked against his ear that night, as the ship glided through the darker corners of space. A bold stroke of madness had made him pull her into his lap and he had been unable to hide or stop the instant reaction of her body over top of his. He could still remember the feel of her fingers flatly pressing against the hard ridge of his cock through his clothes, so bold and unafraid, analyzing his reaction with a feigned detachment.

"You don't have to—" he had started, but she had already unlaced his trousers and pushed her hand inside. His mouth had opened in a silent moan, his skin burning, fighting a long-banked need.

"My studies have led me to believe that male humanoids of all species enjoy even casual touching of their sexual members. I have…much desired to apply my knowledge to your particular member," she had said as she stroked down the length of him. He had twitched in her fingers, eager, over-sensitive, his hands tightening on her hips. A sound ripped out of him and she stopped, fingers wrapped tightly around him as he throbbed in her palm. "I will stop if you do not wish me to continue."

"Please…do not stop…")

"I have been replaying it for days in an attempt to study your reactions. I cannot seem to think of anything else, and I have felt the need to touch you again ever since. I have felt this way before, but never has the impulse been this strong," she says and he can hear confusion in her voice. "Do you know what is wrong with me?"

A ghost of a smile crosses his lips. "There's nothing wrong with you. I've felt the same way."

"It is desire?"

"Yes."

"I cannot seem to control it," she says and her mouth twists in such a way that the ghost of a smile flirts with a grin that he suppresses. "I would like to…experience more."

His hand tightens on her lower back. He hesitates and then asks, "How much more?"

She doesn't answer in words, but in the slow draw of her mouth against his. It is a wholly different kiss than any other she's given him. He can taste the desire in her electric mouth, charging through him, crackling across his senses, sending little jolts along the tree of his nervous system. It inflames him, as instant and white-hot as a blast of rage channeled through his ring. He is powerless in the face of it, unable to stop the headlong rush of her body against his. He pushes off of the wall and turns them again. Aya moves with him, her arms sliding down his chest, wrapping in the folds of his brown shirt.

She pulls up the hem and together they drag it over his head. He tosses it aside and grips her forearms, pulling her against his naked chest. Her hands land on his narrow hips, mouth against his in a hungry press. She pulls back and whispers, "I would like you to undress me now, Razer."

A breath leaves him as he angles his head into her neck and lets his hands trail down her back. His lower lip drags along the metal of her shoulder joint. Very slowly, piece by piece, hands trembling a little, he begins to undress her.

("I have condensed my components into a more pleasing anatomical shape," she'd told him two months ago as she'd walked into his quarters aboard the Interceptor. The door closed behind her, shutting out the rest of the universe. "I seek your approval."

"You don't need my approval, Aya. And you don't need to change. I find your shape…pleasing as it is," he had mumbled, though they had tread this territory before, always in the theoretical, always in stolen, quiet moments far from the ears of others.

"Regardless, I have altered my mechanical form, allowing for the optional removal of non-essential parts, with the addition of a simulacrum of certain required physical components," she had said as she'd reached for her gauntlets, allowing them to drop to the floor with a metallic clatter, leaving only a bracelet of metal behind, encircling her green wrists.

"Aya…"

He'd watched with burning eyes as the majority of her armor had dropped to the floor at her feet, revealing the changes, the hard light skin, the soft curves broken by the barest hint of metal. He'd found he couldn't swallow, couldn't move from his seat as his bitten lip bled onto his tongue.

When she was finished, her blue eyes had slowly lifted to meet his, almost shy in its hesitancy. They had stared at one another for a long moment, the hum of the ship outmatched by the race of his heart.

"As you see," she whispered, "I am now essentially…naked.")

The last of her armor lays on the floor at her feet. Razer looks up at her from his crouch on the floor where he has pulled the last of her leg pieces free. She is more hard light than metal now, naked in a way only she can be. His hands slide up her calves, over the metal of the back of her knees and right up the green of her slender thighs. His fingers dig into her buttocks, pulling her forward a step. Aya stares down at him, watching with a bitten lip as he pushes his face against her stomach. Her hand goes to his hair again, lightly holding him to her.

He kisses her stomach, trailing his lips over her in lazy, rambling circles. He pulls the hard light—no, he cannot call it that, it is too soft, too intimate, too Aya to be anything but flesh—into his mouth in tiny nibbles. Aya squirms in front of him, her hips canting forward. His mouth drags downward, tongue sweeping flatly along her lower belly. His hands move, flat-palmed, around her hips and spread there, thumbs pressing into the vulnerable mound of flesh, slowly spreading the soft lips to reveal the delicate berry of her clitoris.

("I require your inspection," she had whispered with lowered eyes, her lips barely brushing his as she'd slowly pulled his hand to her naked waist. His hand had spread on her stomach, unable to look away from the thin metal band running down the center of her body and encircling her hips just above the crease of her newly designed sex. He barely saw the thin metal bands at the joint of her thighs, or the circlets spreading around what would have been her ribcage. Her breasts were high, firm, her nipples hard and perfect and pebbled, begging to be tasted. He had had to restrain himself from pulling them into his mouth and instead met her gaze.

She slowly pulled his hand downward, his fingers trailing, pushing into surprisingly wet heat…

"Is…is m-my form pleasing to the touch?" she had stuttered, answering her own query.)

His gaze flicks upward, catching hers for one hot moment and then his tongue slides along her wet flesh with an electric sizzle. Her fingers tighten in his hair as his tongue strafes her flesh. She is utterly unique in the taste of her, the feel, and the hovering static electricity that clings to his wet mouth. The tip of his tongue teases slowly and he nearly purrs with pleasure when Aya whispers his name, a moan threading through the sound.

His fingers gently press through her softness, sliding flatly along her clit for several circling strokes that have her hips canting forward again. When he slides them through her wetness and sinks them inside of her, Aya lets out a sigh, perhaps of relief, but mostly of pleasure. He slowly works her with his fingers, opening her to him, testing and teasing, caressing. His fingers curl forward, his lips closing over her clit again, giving an insistent tug that has Aya's knees trembling as she stands before him. His tongue flicks against her again as she quivers around him, tight and hot.

Her body hums against his as he tastes her, drawing moisture and little tremors from her. She is slick and grasping around him, eager, and he loses all sense of decorum on his knees, groaning as his body reacts to the nearness of hers. After several intense strokes, he is surprised when she gives a tiny cry and tenses around him for one moment, quivering tightly, and then crumpling into him. He catches her with one swift movement and then turns to deposit them both on the bed. He cradles her against him. Her eyes are closed, lips bitten as she folds herself around him, face buried against his neck.

After a few moments she gives a ragged, unneeded exhale and says in a confused voice, "Curious. My power levels surged to 110.53% and then drained to 90.01% within the span of 2.24 seconds."

"Did you orgasm?"

"I…do not know. But in future, you may do that again whenever you wish," she said and kissed the taste of herself from his lips.

("Do you think that I am beautiful?" she had asked on a quieter night, when they had only dared kissing and the touch of fingers against half-naked flesh as Aya 'collected data" to help refine her redesigns. He had been rolling her nipples in his fingers, thumbing them in a lazy experimental motion while Aya pressed her thumb against his flat nipple in indolent exploration. Her head rested on his outstretched arm, his breath warm against her lips.

At her question, he had reached up, tilting her chin with his thumb and forefinger so that he could stare into her luminous eyes.

"You are a work of art.")

"I would like to taste you like I did before," she says against his hungry mouth after several minutes of hard, wild kisses and then he finds himself on his back beneath her. Her fingers are around him again. There is no hesitation in her movements. She knows what she wants, emboldened by the odd percentages and power fluctuations his mouth and fingers have caused in her.

Despite his previous experience, he is still not prepared for the electric tingle of her mouth on his cock, or the way it sends pleasure crashing and spiraling like a bomb through his body. His body bows into the sparking heat of her mouth. The soft suction, the flat press of her tongue, the seal of her lips shaping him, all drives his heels into the mattress. He fills her mouth and she pulls off of him.

Their gazes meet as he breathes heavily; his stomach muscles contracting as her fingers slowly work him.

(He'd barely dared the fantasy of her mouth on his cock before now, and then only in the dark escape of dreams, but the sight of her shaping him, slow, experimental, clocking his reactions, learning him with each slow thrust of her head was everything he had ever wanted. As with everything else, it was trial and error but she learned quickly and he couldn't hold on, couldn't take the electric pleasure shockwaving through him at the contact of her mouth around him.

"Aya, I—I'm going to…"

But the words had barely left him when orgasm rippled through his body with a collision that couldn't be control, just survived. And afterward she had merely curiously examined the pearly liquid at the corner of her lips and smiled as he struggled to find the words to apologize. The smile she gave him was shy and just as arousing as ever.

"If you allow me, I would like to do that again in the very near future.")

Just the memory of coming in her mouth is enough to destroy his control, just as it had that first time.

He lets out a groan, half-animal, all-need, and bites back a curse with a flash of fang. He rolls out from underneath her with another ragged breath and sits on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched. Sweat breaks out on his pale skin, his close-cropped hair sticking up in every direction, static-y from her eager fingers. He wipes a hand down his face as Aya sits up on the bed behind him. He is all too aware of her, every inch of him following every tiny movement.

"Razer, is there something wrong?" she asks softly, the light of her eyes spinning a blue tinge into the shadows clinging to the corners of the room. He feels her shift on the bed and then the soft press of her fingers on his naked shoulder, sliding along the sweat-slicked muscle and sending more shivers down his spine. His eyes close and his teeth dig into the edge of his lip, every nerve ending centering on her, wanting more of her touch. Needing it.

"No," he bites out raggedly, breathing too hard. His hands clench on the rough fabric of his unbuttoned trousers, pushed halfway down his hips.

"Did I do something wrong?" Her fingers tense, stopping the slow caress down one of the black markings that travels the gauntlet of his spine.

"No!" he says fiercely, turning his head to catch the glow of her eyes in the darkness. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and regard him warmly. There are roses in her cheeks, a blush of slightly darker green. "You…"

But the words won't come, not when she's looking at him like that, the current of her kiss still tingling his lips, the unique taste of her body on his tongue. Why is he hesitating? Why, when everything inside of him wants nothing more than to continue, to pull her against him until flesh and hard light yielded to one another. His whole body vibrates on the bed, a jittery need that won't be denied, can't be contained for much longer.

"Are you not aroused?" she asks as he turns away, breathing out as her arms encircles his waist from behind.

"I am… I just…ohhhh…" he strangles out, clutching the bed as one of her hands slides flatly along his stomach to the cradle of his hips. She encircles his cock with her fingers, sliding from root to tip with a squeeze that knocks both another moan, and the strange hesitation out of him. He grips her hand and turns his head to the side to see that she is watching him with a closed smile on her lips. He kisses her again, a wild kiss full of a million unspoken things. He turns on the bed and pulls her into his arms.

("I believe we should explore the rituals of mating," she had said to him out of nowhere, on a hot night on Odym when the only thing he had yet dared was to hold her hand. At her sudden declaration he had tripped over his own two feet and nearly fallen on his face. From across the courtyard, Kilowog's distant booming laughter told him that there were witnesses to his idiocy.

"Here?! NOW?" he had sputtered, afraid the others had heard.

An amused tilt of her lips mocked him. "I do not believe Sergeant Kilowog would find that as amusing.")

Together they shift backward on the bed and he covers her, pressing her down into the mattress. He tugs his trousers off, settling naked against her as she moves beneath him, opening her thighs to let him sink between her legs.

Her hand touches him again, stroking him as he braces himself above her. His hips surge forward, the head of his cock rubbing through the wet folds of her sex, pleasure roaring through him. Aya twitches upward, her breasts lifting to graze his chest. He releases her mouth and feathers soft kisses across her breasts, his tongue following, sliding along the pebbled green skin. He pulls each nipple into his mouth, plucking at it with his teeth, rolling it between his teeth. The response in her is immediate.

Aya's head goes back, mouth opening as she clutches him to her breasts. A throaty sound escapes her, as soft a cry as he's ever heard from her and it hardens him even more, drives a need straight through him like a spike. His ring sparks with red and he takes a deep breath, face buried between her breasts. When he lifts his head, Aya is staring at him again.

"I desire you," she says as her palms press along his back, fingers digging into the rolling plains of his muscled, marked spine. "It is curious to me, this feeling. I—I need to feel the surge in my power levels again. I can only describe the need as urgent."

"Are you sure, Aya?" he asks as their noses brush in the darkness. The hum of the ship around them is comforting. The universe seems very far away. There is only Aya, the epicenter of everything good in his life.

"Razer…" she says, a plea in her voice as she presses low on his spine, lifting her hips against his. Supporting himself on one arm, he reaches between them, positioning himself at her opening and then easing himself inside of her slowly. His teeth clench as his muscles tense, his hand tightening on the covers. Aya makes a sound, another of her soft sighs. Her head turns to the side and her eyes close as their bodies coil around one another in the smallest of earth-shattering increments. He comes to rest against her, enveloped in her tight, electric heat.

"How does it…?" he asks, but is unable to finish the question. Aya doesn't answer. Her mouth is open, her head tilting back to expose her throat. Razer pulls back and then rolls his hips forward again, taking her with an electric, shattering jolt. Their hips lock, fitting together perfectly as he moves within her in slow, steady pulses. Aya moans again and her hands press on his lower back, digging into his buttocks with each thrust into her wet core. Her thighs tighten painfully on his hips.

"Razer…" she whispers again, sounding breathless as she opens her glowing eyes and stares at him in the darkness. He dips his head, kissing her as hard as he dares. The electric thrill that is all her, all Aya, all his, blisters through him and centers at the base of his spine, threatening an atomic bomb. Aya lifts her hips off of the bed, need driving her. Razer thrusts harder, pulling back, cupping the underside of her knee to open her further to him. Sweat clings to him as pleasure rolls between them, shared in its intensity.

He can't hold on. He knows it, knows that the wet clench of her body will be his undoing too soon. He kisses her again and the electricity seems more intense, the charge running down his spine and setting fire to every nerve and hormone in his body. His hands find hers and their fingers tangle. She breaks the kiss and her mouth lands on his neck, sending more tingles through him, the current spreading across his skin, centering in the places her mouth alights. Her hips twist upward and down and he lets go of her hands, bracing himself over her again to pump his hips against hers.

Her lips tug at his nipples for one shocking moment and he growls with a snap of his teeth, grasps her and rolls on the narrow bed until they fetch up against the wall on their sides. He presses her back against the wall, lifting her leg over top of his to wrap it around his waist. He kisses her again, hard and rough as he takes her, slamming her rear and his knees back against the cold contour of the wall. Aya's hand clenches his hip, pulling him to her with each growling thrust.

When he bites down on her neck, Aya gasps and slams her hand against the wall at her back. She pushes off of the wall and he rolls onto his back with Aya straddling his hips.

She kisses him and then sits up, her hips working back and forth over top of him, taking him deeply. His hands clench her hips as he takes in the sight of her, instinct taking hold of her and causing a tremble in her limbs. The flat of his palm presses into her lower belly as they come together, hard and fast.

"My…p-power levels are at…145.69%… I…I…I believe I will peak…very soon…" she manages as he sits up and drags her mouth to his. He cups her face, riding the current of her mouth as her body convulses over his, hot and tight, stroking him in deep pulses that he can feel all the way to his bones.

"Come with me, Aya," he manages as he stares into her eyes. Her arms go around his neck as he threads her trunk with his arms. Their mouths connect with another hot sizzle and then he is lost, utterly lost in the mad rush of her body around his. The atomic bomb at the base of his spine detonates, the fire finally catching. A deep growl of satisfaction roars out of him as he shatters beneath her, around her, into her. She shakes around him with more decorum than he can manage. He hears her name on his lips, feels the surge of her power, and then the sudden draining as the tension runs out of her all at once.

Her head falls back, her fingers tightening on his shoulders in a futile attempt to keep herself under control. Her hips twitch against his as they both ride the crest of their shared orgasm. Razer's mouth trails lazily over her neck, up her chin, and then claims her mouth again. She kisses him back slowly, coming back to herself in small gulps and tiny aftershocks.

Finally, her head rests against his shoulder as he slowly rubs her lower back. When her head lifts, she stares at him in the darkness, her eyes the only light in the world. She slowly smiles and he finds himself returning the expression.

"Is it always like this?"

"I hope so," he says as they stare at one another. "Was it… Did you…?"

"My power levels climaxed at 174.99%. I believe I have experienced an orgasm."

"What did you think of it?"

"I want to have another one very soon. You are very good at this, Razer."

Razer blew out a breath and put his forehead against hers. "So are you."

He sank down onto his back, taking her with him. He slipped out of her body and she lay on his chest, fingers absentmindedly tracing one of his markings. "Razer?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

A smile took hold of his mouth in the darkness. "I love you too, Aya."

"…Razer?"

"Mmm?".

"Next time we try for 175.00%."

(She doesn't sleep in the truest sense of the word, but her diagnostics mode is close. She closes her eyes and rests her head against his shoulder, lost to him in her private world of numbers and sensors, data and code. His hands link with hers and she curls her fingers around his on instinct and sighs into his the warm comfort of his body. And, in those moments, it is more than enough for the both of them.)

(end)