Chapter 14 Navi

I lean around him to see if anyone is watching us. He braces my bare shoulder with a hand and continues his gentle cleaning of my back.

CrazeNavi: Your friends are asleep. Tangle and RamBash are eating. They won't bother you.

CrazeNavi: Please tell me why you are so scarred if you have no body augments.

Instinct grips me as I finally unlock my body from the shock of his presence. I wheel around and back up.

Craze, who has removed his shirt and harness since I saw him last, takes me in like a hungry animal. Then his eyes find the scars on my chest and soften with pity. He walks through the spraying water and reaches for them.

His body tenses. Craze turns away, grabs two rocks from the floor, and growls. His breathing quickens, and he curls his fists, crushing the rocks until they fall like sand from his fingers. When the sand has drained, he sighs and runs his hands through his hair, then paces a circle.

The pulse in my ears eases. I don't think his plan is to hurt me, but the way his chiseled muscles flex, I know he could, easily.

Craze calms, then faces me. He stalks through the water and cups my bare shoulders with his hands. "Why do you have your name carved in your beautiful flesh? Did you have a digibadge? Did they cut it out of you?"

"Sevrin made me carve it." I blink in the spray that leaps off of his proud chest. "He likes torturing living things to see what they do. It's his demented form of psychological experimentation."

Craze slumps and braces his forearms on the rocks over my head. "And the burns?"

"A few are from him. Most are from the attack on Earth Minor." I can't figure out why he's so upset. "It's all in the past. It's fine."

"It's not fine," he rumbles.

I press myself against the warm, wet rock, bracing myself. I switch off and acknowledge his upset is over me being hurt. I'm freaking out because he's powerful, but that doesn't mean he's evil. Nothing has suggested he is. It's just not easy to change gut reactions after years of training.

"You shy away from me, from those who want only to keep you safe." Craze's eyes blaze to life with storming light. Even his digibadge glows brighter. "They scarred you in another way."

"Nothing I can do about that but try to let it go and move on so I can do what is necessary for my friends."

He rests his forehead to mine. "I admire that, Navi. But I see that we have a lot of work to do. Will you trust me, just for a moment? I won't hurt you."

I study his virile body, his contours accented by the blue light over the shower and the way the water rolls down his synthskin. His attention is unwavering, like he can't think about anything else. I can't bring myself to say yes because I don't know what's on his mind . I won't fight you, but I can't say that I won't run.

Fair enough. Craze lowers his head until his hot breath warms my neck. His lips find my ear, sending a titillating wave down my shoulder. But as his teeth graze my neck and nibble their way around to my shoulder, I wonder what I've gotten myself into. His hot tongue glides up my throat until he's face-to-face with me again.

The numbness in my body slips away with every affectionate move of his mouth over my skin.

Craze sweeps his lips over mine. "I do not understand how they could harm your gorgeous body. It infuriates me that they would think it amusing to make you do such torturous things to yourself. So I would like to reverse that and show you how good you can feel. But I need your permission."

I stutter through the tingling heat he evokes in my core. My pussy slicks, as my mind races through possibilities. "Is that some sort of Titan thing?"

"For others. I am choosing to ask."

His power and sultry words make me weak in the knees.

Craze's eyes close. He inhales deeply despite the hot rain pouring over us.

CrazeNavi: I just need permission.

I laugh softly in disbelief. But when he opens his eyes, there is only sincerity and determination.

I switch off so I can think in privacy, and a flash of hurt crosses his gaze. I'd be crazy to say no, right? He clearly wants me. It's hard to believe something good can be real. But that was my old life.

NaviCraze: Permission—

Craze scans between my eyes like he's suddenly facing his ultimate fate. To think I have so much pull in his world when he's basically immortal, I realize I can't throw his attention aside like it means nothing. And as much as the unknown scares me, I'm ready to move on.

NaviCraze: Granted.

A hungry growl comes from deep inside of him. Craze's hands travel down my sides as he slowly takes a knee. His lips find every scar on the way down. Then his tongue maps every curve until I am afire with his touch.

Craze glides his tongue up my navel and curls it around a breast while his hand massages the other. He pinches and flicks one bud while his teeth eagerly graze my chest.

When his fingers slink lower and find my delicate folds my folds drip in anticipation. My body is alive, and Craze is in control.

He runs a thumb over my clit, igniting a deep need that makes me grab his burly shoulders to steady myself.

Craze finds the string of scars on my thigh from the scalpel Sevrin loved so much. His fingers explore my folds while he kisses every single line in my skin.

CrazeNavi: You are the most stunning and toughest creature I know.

Then he dips a fingertip inside of me, and I can't stop myself from clenching around him.

A triumphant rumble leaves his throat. Craze wraps his arms between my legs, lifts them over his shoulders, and braces me against the wall.

I struggle to steady myself on the rock wall behind me. My only other option is his head.

NaviCraze: What are you doing?

He grins and winks as he lowers his nose in the hot rain and inhales me. Craze's grip on me tightens with his excitement. His head drops lower.

The heat of his tongue sinks into me, and breath catches in my lungs. In a powerful, steady movement like he's savoring every second of being inside of me, he licks me all the way out as if I am a delicious dessert.

A frenzied euphoria stirs in me—wild and out of control. I glance down the rocks, toward the faint glow of the stove and wonder if anyone will accidentally walk in on us.

When he looks up at me, his eyes are narrowed with mischief and satisfaction.

CrazeNavi: Like that?

NaviCraze: I—

He licks me deeply again before I can respond. A flurry of hot sparks curls through my body and into every limb.

CrazeNavi: Well?

NaviCraze: I—

He plunges his tongue inside me while thumbing my clit, igniting a scintillating pleasure that pulses to the beat of my heart.

I give up on responding so I can linger in the skill of his tongue.

Craze draws me harder over his face, plunging and exploring with his tongue until I am a mess of feverish need on the edge of losing control.

"Craze," I rasp.

He manages to free a hand and fondle a breast while he buries himself to my deepest parts. The way he growls with lust—sending little vibrations into my aching center—pushes me over.

My first clench around his tongue makes him gasp and grunt in delighted surprise.

He clutches me to him and fiercely penetrates me with his tongue again and again. The shower blurs as I ride the high, strain for air, and buck onto him.

His body moves with mine, like he craves every deep bonding as much as I do.

Craze supports me as my limbs shudder from the molten release. He licks his lips, rinses his face in the shower, and eases me into his lap. He hooks my ankles behind him and gets to his feet.

Hot water falls down my back as he moves me under it and wraps his arms around me.

I rest my head to his chest.

NaviCraze: Thank you. You didn't—

CrazeNavi: Stop. I wanted to. You deserve it, needed it. I want you to feel good. And I want to be the one to do it.

I'm so tired, satiated, and comfortable that I close my eyes and sink into him.

CrazeNavi: I will keep you safe.

Delicately, he unwraps my hands in a gesture so compassionate that it brings me to tears. Then, for several long minutes, he simply holds me up in the hot water until I am calm again.

He dries me off and helps me get dressed. Then he wraps me in a blanket, carries me out by the cookstove fire, and curls me up in his warm lap. Rest. You will need energy tomorrow.

I would be happy to die right now.

CrazeNavi: Please don't. I have outlived too many friends during my operation.

I've left my splay on, but I'm too tired to switch off. I'm not sure why I matter among so many.

CrazeNavi: I need you .

Sleep soon takes me, and I'm left dreaming of Craze and his talented tongue.