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They were at a bar on Ilium when Shepard caught Thane listening in on a conversation.
He was good at that sort of thing: eavesdropping from unnoticed corners, observing from the shadows. Still, it was the amusement on his face that got to her when he returned this time. Usually he was reporting back on illicit secrets of some sort, not something as mundane as what appeared to be a bachelor party in full swing over in the corner.
And from what Shepard could see of it, it did look like quite the show.
"It's said that every race finds something to admire in the asari," Thane said as he settled in beside her at the booth. They both looked across the room at the stripper on the table, who was bending her lithe blue body in every direction imaginable. "This is, however, the first time I've seen a salarian pay quite that much attention to… well, anyone."
Shepard grinned at the absurdity of that image, then latched onto something he'd said. "All races, huh?" She knocked back another gulp of her drink and gave Thane a look over the rim. "Even yours?"
"Even mine. I certainly knew a few people who'd sought out… liaisons. As it were."
She half-snorted, half-laughed. "I wish you knew what you sound like when you say things like 'liaisons.'"
Thane didn't reply to that, but he smiled, his full lips subtly curving. Shepard let her gaze linger there a moment. Then she took another drink and said, more thoughtfully, "You know…. I seem to remember you telling me you'd never been attracted to anyone outside your species before."
"I did. It was true."
"So if everyone's so prone to being asarisexual, why not you?"
Thane considered Shepard's glass as if he was wondering how many she'd already emptied in his absence. Still, he began answering her. "Everyone tends to see features in the asari that resemble their own. Something familiar and appealing. Even I notice things -- some quality of the skin, perhaps. And I'm told that when they join minds with others, their eyes can look…."
She grimaced at a memory. "Big, black 'n' creepy."
"I was… aiming for something other than 'creepy,' but yes."
Shepard met Thane's dark gaze and said hurriedly, around a hiccup, "I didn't mean you. I meant… well." She glowered momentarily at her drink. "The mind-meld thing probably is a lot more erotic when it's not about pulling screaming Prothean nightmares out of your head."
He smiled wryly. "I expect so."
"Trust me to get the crap side of it." She leaned back, in a direction that was not coincidentally closer to Thane. "Anyway. You were saying, about the asari…?"
"I suppose what it comes down to is that I understand the appeal, but I was always more fond of a different physical type."
"And what was that?" She paused. "You know, I don't even know what drell women look like. Except, presumably, green."
He sounded mildly amused. "Skin tone actually can vary. It's much like humans. But in general… our women are smaller. Slimmer. They don't need to nurse, so…."
"Huh. No breasts at all?"
"That's what can make the asari seem…" He blinked at the dancer who was stretching her way through another, conveniently exhibitionist curve. "Excessive."
Shepard snorted properly this time. "And here I'd thought the mere existence of the asari was proof that the hey-look-at-my-tits approach to life had universal appeal." She looked down at herself around her glass, decided to empty it so she could get it out of the way, then looked again. "Then what about me?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Humans and asari share a few features too, in case you hadn't noticed." She re-angled herself. "So do I seem 'excessive' to you?"
The frills at his neck fluttered subtly. "Ah--"
"Because I also seem to remember, and you can check me on this, since you'd know, that when we last… spent time together… you spent some time, hmm, admiring that part of my anatomy."
Thane took a half second to process the way Shepard was insinuating herself into his personal space, and another to consider the people nearby. Then he gave in with a small smile. "Given the opportunity, well -- there is a certain… tactile appeal."
Shepard looked at his hands, warming at the memory. "You got that right."
"And what about you?" His voice had lowered; the undertones creeping in made her warm even further. "Had you ever been attracted to anyone other than humans before?"
"Hmm. Curious how you match up?"
"Indulge me."
Shepard tried to make a show of thinking about it, just to make him wonder, but quickly dissolved into a laugh. She shook her head. "Not really. Never expected to. Just…."
"Couldn't resist my charms," said Thane, who was doing better at holding a straight face.
"Or the way you move. Or…."
He'd made a low, pleased sound. Shepard, feeling the thrum of it all the way through her, tilted her head up and murmured, "That."
She was very nearly in his lap by now; she could feel his breath brush lightly across her lips. "Perhaps," he said, even while one hand wandered to her hip, "this is a conversation better suited for a more private venue."
"I'll bet you could find us one."
His brow lifted once he understood what she was getting at. Then he laughed, the sound absolutely exquisite, and helped hoist her to her feet. "Yes, I believe I could."
They walked together past the bachelor party, still in progress, on their way to the door. None of the men spared them a single glance. But Shepard caught the dancer eyeing them both, and if she weren't mistaken, the asari gave them a smile and a rather extravagant wink.
---
It was well into evening when they emerged outside, and the chill of the air proved it in a shivering rush. Within moments, however, that all ceased to matter.
Thane always was a man of his word. Shepard was aware he knew Illium well -- particularly all the obscure back alleys and hidden corners. And so when he started leading her off anything resembling a public avenue, she realized his intent, and laughed. "You know," she said, while they clambered through a maze of scaffolding toward an unfinished balcony, "most people would hear 'private place' and think, for instance, 'hotel room'…."
Thane stopped, gripped her around the waist, and neatly swiveled her around. Before she could catch her breath, she found herself pressed against a nearby beam. "I hardly think either of us," he said with a small, sly smile, "qualifies as 'most people'."
"Lucky us," she breathed, and pulled him into a kiss.
She really only had control for an instant, because Thane was devastatingly good at this. The heat of it soaked into her, warming her from the inside out while his deft fingers slid down her sides and his tongue slipped between her lips, drawing her moan out like he meant to taste it. She'd been feeling pleasantly adrift from the alcohol, but now what focus she still had was sharp and vibrant, and all on these points of contact: their mouths, their hands, their hips. "God," she breathed, in the one ragged moment when she could, even while she tried to arch closer.
Thane laughed again, soft and low, and she felt it everywhere.
"Do all humans," he murmured against her lips, "always respond with such… enthusiasm? Or is this…."
She hitched one leg up, using it to tug him closer. "Don't start fishing for compliments, Krios." She felt the distinct press of him against her. "You're not exactly… disinterested either…."
"But you're still coherent." His voice, still amused, had also slid into a darker register that did absolutely unholy things to her nervous system. "I have some work left to do."
His fingers slipped beneath her clothes, and Shepard's reply was lost in another, even deeper kiss.
The longer they touched, the more that another sort of disorientation crept into her senses. The slants of sunset-tinted light through the beams, the way his skin shimmered under their touch, was taking on an over-bright intensity. The air tingled, too, as she pulled in an uneven breath. Hallucinogens, she thought, imagining the toxins from his kiss lingering on her lips. She'd been warned. She absolutely and utterly did not care. Instead, her fingers -- maybe trembling just a little -- found the fasteners on his clothes, and started to undo them.
"Ever done this outside before?" Shepard asked, while she pushed the coat off his shoulders. He still had the presence of mind to catch it -- better than she could have done just then. He answered her, though, with a flash of intensity to his eyes that suggested a memory.
"Yes. Outside, in a tremendous storm…." He tugged her shirt up over her head. "Once, under water."
"Under--"
"You'd be surprised," he said, "what people can get up to on a planet 90% ocean."
She imagined it. In her hazed vision, the air warped like water, and she felt the free-floating delirium of it. She shivered pleasurably. "Someday," Shepard said, imagining the nearest equivalent a spacer girl could, "I'm going to talk EDI into turning off the a-grav in my bunk. Write it off as a fuel-saving exercise…"
Thane was kissing her throat, then the space where it curved into her shoulder, and she felt his mouth curve into a smile. "Interesting idea," he said. "Have you done that before?"
His fingers had reached her bra strap. The anticipation alone made goosebumps prickle everywhere across her skin. "Once," she managed, although it was getting very hard to talk. "During an emergency power cut. Nothing dangerous; it just stalled us. We all got fucking bored. Literally." Thane chuckled, slowly slipping the straps off her shoulders. Her eyes fluttered closed; sparks danced behind her eyelids. "Awkward, and yet… had its moments…."
"Indeed." He cast the bra away, and licked a long, tingling trail up her neck. Then he whispered into the curve of her ear, "But is this better?"
Her whole body ached. His hands had found her breasts, his skin pleasantly rough and warm against hers. She pressed into the touch, knowing he was feeling how her nipples had tightened; the contrast between the heat of his hands and the chill of the air made brightness flash in her vision again.
"You're still," she struggled to say, "fishing for comp…li...."
He pulled her up so that she was flush against him, and able to feel exactly how hard he was. "What was that?" he murmured.
God, that voice. It thrummed through her, making the heat already building within her flare so sharply it almost hurt. "Damn it, Thane--"
"I believe we have incoherence," he murmured.
"Fine," she said thickly. "You win."
"And what, may I ask, is my prize…?"
Shepard breathed in deep, and although her body cried out to just give in, an even more stubborn streak made her shove him back against the opposite beam. The whole structure of the scaffolding rattled. Thane's already wide eyes went wider, and Shepard, even while her world went spinning in a whirl of uncertain light, smiled.
"You get me," she breathed. "Now let's see how long you last."
Without any further ceremony, she tugged his pants loose and went to her knees.
Abruptly, they'd moved past all teasing. Shepard saw, for a few fragmented seconds, the familiar form but undeniably alien qualities of his body. Her hand slid down the length of his cock, feeling the subtle, still-unfamiliar friction of his skin, and felt him twitch, heard his breath catch. She could nearly feel him begin to say her name. But after all this, she wanted to steal the words from his lips as much as anything she'd ever done. So before she could lose control of the situation, she gripped him firmly and bent close.
The poison sweetness of his skin had never tasted better.
He was so hard, and swelling even further as her tongue dragged up the length of him. In most ways he was a man like any other, and the same techniques still worked. But there was something about this, something intensely different. The feel of his fingers as they clutched in her hair, like he was was still surprised at the texture -- the sound of his breathing, dangerously rough, but also with more reverberant depths than any human could muster…. and most of all the incredible, dizzying high she got merely by touching him. Tasting him. Wanting to drown in him. She knew just what it felt like now to make love underwater, because this was it -- awash in sensations and not even knowing which way was up… and not caring.
Not as long as she could keep touching him.
He was saying her name now, low and desperate, and his fingers were clutching even tighter. Even beyond the disoriented haze, she felt a flicker of raw energy crackle over her skin. He was losing control. That same stubborn part of her that had started this felt a glow of satisfaction, because dear God, he was close, and she almost had him --
She moaned faintly, involuntarily, around him, and as attuned to sound and sensuality as he was, it was enough. Thane's hips jolted forward, and with a helpless groan, he came hard down her throat. She swallowed it all, gripping his thighs for support, and kept holding on until he stopped shaking. Only then did she slowly, dazedly, let him slip free.
Her vision was so distorted when she looked again that all she saw was him, and sunset light glinting off metal with such intensity that she felt like she'd emerged from the deep into nothing less than the desert sky.
Thane breathed in hard, neck arched, chest heaving. Slowly, his hands loosened. Her head rang with the sudden lessening of pressure, the world distorting around her again. She gasped; she must have, because he looked down like he'd heard it, and then she felt his hands move, swiftly catching her up and pulling her to her feet. She felt too light, unsteady, but he hoisted her onto a ledge beside him and stayed close, murmuring something she couldn't hear but could feel throughout every bone of her body.
"Thane," she whispered. "Thane, I--"
He kissed her into silence, and then she started losing details under the heat of him against her, the heat of this foreign sun.
She knew, distantly, that he was tugging the rest of her clothes off, and even more distantly that she was helping him, but the intensity of how much she wanted his hands on her was all she could truly care about. She wanted him so much she almost couldn't breathe. Fortunately, he understood what every whispered, ragged bit of urging meant, and as soon as he could, his hand slipped between her thighs. She was so wet that his fused fingers slipped inside with almost embarassing ease, and she swore helplessly at how good it felt; her hips instinctively rose into it, moving with his rhythm. All too soon her muscles started to tremble around him; she was right on the verge. Then she swore again, loudly, and made herself focus. "Thane," she gasped. "I know you've got it in you, you inhuman jackass, don't you dare hold out on me--"
She caught the glimmer of a smile, because that line was born of his own dry observations on drell endurance -- namely, that there was a reason they'd overpopulated their planet. But there was something tender in his reply, even underneath the heat of his own desire. "I could never deprive you of anything you wanted, Siha."
The word made her whole body sing. She arched into his hand, moaning at the delicious pressure, and then she lifted her face to the sun, to him, and cupped his face in her own hands. "You, Thane. It's just you." She was shaking, but she kept her gaze locked with his, anchoring herself in the only thing she knew for certain. "It's you."
He breathed out a reply in his own tongue. She could taste it in the air, feel it on her skin, and she swore she could understand it, as potent as it was -- she knew --
And then he was moving, his hand withdrawing and gripping her hip instead as he slid into her. She cried out. Still cautious about that line between pleasure and pain, still just a little uncertain at the differences, Thane slowed and held himself steady, waiting for her signal -- which she gave with no such hesitation, coiling her legs around him to urge him onward. He let out a shuddering breath and did. The next thrust was deeper, the next harder, and soon the rhythm of it was relentless, just what she needed and so blindingly good. When she came, it was with an explosive shout and such a clench of her muscles around him that his orgasm hit with full force moments later -- bright and powerful and completely shattering.
She rode out the waves for as long as they lasted, and then slowly, almost unwillingly, went lax with exhaustion. For a few minutes she just drifted. And then in the wake of it all came slow, quiet relief.
Thane moved before she did, lifting his head again and brushing her sweat-slicked hair back. For a while he just watched her. Too tired to say anything, Shepard ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips. The last remnants of his taste lingered there. She felt her eyelids flutter, just barely; brightness hazed beyond them, then faded once more.
"Someday," Thane murmured apologetically, "that may not hit so hard."
She took a deep breath. "I think I might miss it."
"I think I might too," he said, and kissed her forehead. Her eyelids flickered all the way closed. While there in darkness, she felt his hand touch her face again, his thumb brushing lightly, almost curiously, along the arc of her eyelashes.
"Siha," he said, his voice quiet and oddly raw. "What I said to you…."
She slowly opened her eyes again. Her fingers touched his lips, stopping him mid-word. For a moment they both stayed suspended in that moment of simple contact. Then he moved just enough to turn it into a kiss, his tongue softly tasting one fingertip before she withdrew.
In return, she clasped his hand with hers and held it between them, close enough to her heart that she knew he could feel it beating. A tiny smile flickered at the corners of his lips. As if he knew she understood, he said nothing more.
Some time later, once the chill of the air became too much to ignore, they finally left that place. Shepard distantly wondered what the construction crews would make of the abused scaffolding, and what they might all think if they ever found her hopelessly misplaced undergarments. But in the grand scheme of things, she really didn't mind. Dressed in what clothes she was able to reassemble, Shepard followed Thane back out into the streets of Illium, tired but dizzily content.
And if anyone back on the Normandy had anything to say about their commander so casually wrapped up in Thane's coat, for once they all had the good grace to keep it to themselves.