Chapter 4: Steam and Submission
Three days after their explosive reunion. Three days after they’d lied to each other in the dark, swearing it was a mistake, never again.
The promise lasted exactly seventy-two hours.
Lace found him in the communal showers after a brutal, unplanned skirmish with a Galra patrol. The air was thick with steam and the sharp, clean scent of castle-issue soap. She heard the water first, a steady drumbeat on the tile. Peering through the veil of mist, she saw him.
Lotor stood under the single, broad spray, head bowed, water sluicing in silver rivulets down the carved muscles of his back. It traced the latticework of old scars—pale, raised lines against his lavender skin, a map of a violent history he never discussed. Battle grime, dark and oily, swirled at his feet before vanishing down the drain. He was a statue of exhaustion and residual adrenaline, his shoulders tight.
She didn’t announce herself. She simply toed off her boots, stripped off her own grimy flight suit, and let it fall in a damp heap. The cool air of the chamber raised goosebumps on her skin before she stepped into the billowing cloud of steam.
The heat of the water was a shock. She moved behind him, the sound of her steps masked by the spray. He didn’t turn. He must have heard the door, must have sensed the shift in the air. But he remained still, accepting her presence as if he’d been waiting.
Lace lifted her hands. She placed her palms flat between his shoulder blades, feeling the heat of his skin, the tension coiled in the muscles underneath. Then she dragged her nails down, slowly, tracing the paths of the water, following the ridges of scar tissue. A full-body shudder went through him. A low, almost inaudible groan was lost in the shower’s white noise.
That was all the invitation she needed.
She spun him around.
His eyes were closed, water beading on his long white lashes. His face was a mask of weary surrender. Her gaze dropped, taking in the water sluicing over his chest, his stomach, lower. He was already half-hard, arousal stirring despite the fatigue, or maybe because of it—a pure, physical response to her touch, to her, that bypassed all the complicated wiring in his brain.
Her mouth watered. A fierce, possessive hunger clawed up from her gut.
Without a word, she sank to her knees on the wet tile. The water pounded on her head and shoulders, plastering her hair to her skin, streaming into her eyes. She didn’t care. She looked up at him, watching his eyes open, watching the haze in them sharpen into a dark, focused intensity. He looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
She leaned forward and took him into her mouth.
He was fully hard in an instant, a smooth, solid heat against her tongue. She took him deep, relaxing her throat, one hand wrapping around the base of his shaft while the other dug into the hard muscle of his thigh for balance. The taste of him was clean soap and salt and something uniquely, intimately Lotor. A muffled curse echoed above the water. His hands came down, tangling in her soaking hair, not guiding, just holding on, his fingers tightening almost to the point of pain.
She set a relentless rhythm, her head bobbing, her tongue working. It was blatant, it was selfish, it was everything they’d promised to avoid. The steam wrapped around them, a private cocoon. Her fingers pressed harder into his thighs, claiming, anchoring. His hips began a subtle, involuntary thrust, meeting her movements. The pretence was paper-thin, pathetic. This wasn’t about washing off a fight. This was a different kind of cleansing, a desperate attempt to scrub away the need for each other by drowning in it.
It was an addiction they couldn’t quit.
A particularly deep pull wrenched a raw, ragged sound from his chest. Suddenly, his hands in her hair weren’t holding—they were pulling. He hauled her upwards, off her knees, the movement shockingly strong.
“Enough,” he growled, the word rough and waterlogged.
He lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Her world tilted, the shower wall a cool, sudden pressure against her back. Her legs instinctively hooked over his shoulders, her body opening to him, completely exposed. The position was shockingly intimate, vulnerable, dominant. Water cascaded over them both, streaming from his hair onto her face.
He didn’t hesitate. He looked her in the eyes, his gaze holding a challenge and a confession all at once, and then he thrust into her, hard and complete.
The cry that left her lips was swallowed by the steam. The fullness was breathtaking, a sharp, stretching pleasure that made her see white at the edges of her vision. He held her there, pinned against the wall, buried to the hilt, not moving, just letting them both feel the shocking reality of the connection.
“This is a problem,” he breathed, his forehead touching hers, water dripping from the tip of his nose onto her cheek.
“I know,” she gasped, her ankles locking behind his back.
Then he moved.
It was a brutal, driving pace, each thrust jolting her against the tile. The slick heat of their bodies, the water sheeting over them, the overwhelming sensory overload—it was too much. It was everything. Her hands scrambled for purchase on his slick shoulders, her nails biting in. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity that felt like anger, like prayer, like the only truth left in the galaxy.
There were no more lies about mistakes. No whispered promises to stop. Here, under the sterile castle lights and the endless spray, there was only this hungry, grinding truth. Her climax built like a pressure wave, sharp and fast. It broke with a silent, shuddering violence, her internal muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses. The sensation tipped him over the edge. With a final, deep drive, he groaned, a sound torn from the core of him, and she felt the hot rush of his release inside her.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of water and their shattered breathing. He leaned into her, his strength the only thing keeping her upright. Slowly, carefully, he lowered her legs, letting her slide down the wall until her feet found the floor. Her legs trembled, threatening to buckle. His arms stayed around her, holding her up, his face buried in the wet column of her neck.
They stood like that under the endless spray, letting the water try to wash it all away. It couldn’t.
Finally, he reached behind him and shut the water off. The sudden silence was deafening. Drips echoed in the tiled room. He stepped back, his hands falling away from her. The cold air rushed in, raising fresh gooseflesh on her sensitized skin.
He didn’t look at her. He grabbed a towel, his movements efficient, closed-off. The prince was back, armoring up.
“The others will be looking for a debrief,” he said, his voice flat, all emotion carefully vacuumed out.
“Right,” Lace said, her own voice hoarse. She wrapped a towel around herself, the rough fabric a poor shield.
They dressed in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. He left first. She waited, counting to a hundred in her head, listening to the echo of his footsteps fade down the corridor.
When she finally emerged, the castle felt different. The hallway lights were too bright. The hum of the engines was a taunt. She walked towards the bridge, her body still humming with the memory of his, her mind a static void. They had just added another layer to the secret, another layer of complication to a war that didn’t allow for complications.
As she rounded the corner, she almost collided with Allura. The princess was fresh-faced, her hair perfect, her expression one of concerned focus.
“There you are,” Allura said. “We’ve been waiting. The sensor data from the skirmish is… curious. Lotor believes he’s found a pattern in the Galra’s new attack formations. He’s already on the bridge, analyzing it.”
Of course he was. Back to work. Back to the alliance. As if nothing had happened.
Lace forced a nod, a tight smile. “Great. Let’s go see.”
She followed Allura, the ghost of the water still running down her spine, the ghost of his hands still on her hips. The problem wasn’t the sex. The problem was the silence afterwards. The problem was that they were both so very good at pretending it meant nothing, even as it carved a hollow inside them that nothing else could fill.
On the bridge, Lotor stood at the main console, pointing at a star map, his voice calm, analytical, persuasive. He glanced up as they entered. His eyes met hers for a fraction of a second—cool, clear, utterly devoid of the man who had shuddered against her in the steam.
And in that moment, Lace understood the real danger. It wasn’t that he was using her. It was that she was beginning to prefer the lie of his touch to the truth of his indifference.
It was that she was beginning to prefer the lie of his touch to the truth of his indifference. The realization was a cold stone in her gut for two days, a counterweight to the fevered memories of the shower’s steam. She threw herself into simulators until her muscles screamed, into strategy sessions where she argued against his proposals with a venom that made Coran raise an eyebrow.
She was trying to prove something to herself. That she was still in control. That the secret hadn’t metastasized.
On the third afternoon, the castle was quiet. Hunk was in the kitchens, Pidge was buried in the tech lab, and Keith was running drills somewhere. Lace found the empty living quarters a relief. She flopped onto the large, curved sofa, a battered paperback romance she’d found in a human settlement tucked in her hands. It was a ridiculous escape, full of heaving bosoms and grand declarations, and it was exactly what she needed.
She got lost in it. She lay on her back, one leg dangling off the couch, the other bent at the knee on the cushions. Her head was propped on a throw pillow, her entire world narrowed to the dusty pages and the improbable tale of a duke and a governess. She didn’t hear the door sigh open. She didn’t register the soft footfalls on the plush flooring.
“Lace.”
His voice, low and directly beside the couch, made her jolt. The book tumbled onto her chest. “Quiznak! Don’t do that.” She scowled up at him, her heart hammering from the startle. “What do you want? I’m off-duty. This is my heaving bosom time.”
A flicker of something—amusement, perhaps—passed over his face. He said nothing, just held her annoyed gaze. Then his eyes trailed down her body, over the simple training leggings and cropped tank top. The intensity of that look was familiar, a spark thrown onto tinder. Annoyance melted into a different kind of heat. She broke the stare, pretending to search for her lost page. “Seriously, did you need something? Allura’s probably looking for you.”
He remained silent. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him move, not towards her, but away, around the back of the sofa. Good, she thought, he’s leaving. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and found her page. The words blurred again as she listened, but heard nothing more. He was gone. She sank back into the story.
The first touch was a phantom, a whisper of warmth through the fabric at her inner thigh. She shifted, thinking it was the couch settling. Then the fabric of her leggings was being tugged, carefully, insistently, downwards. She froze, the book going slack in her hands. “Lotor, what are you—”
The sentence died in her throat. In one smooth, silent motion, he had pulled the stretchy fabric down and aside, baring her completely to the cool room air. Before she could even process the exposure, the heat of his mouth was on her. There was no preamble, no gentle exploration. He took her whole, his tongue finding her clit with devastating, immediate accuracy.
A loud, strangled moan ripped from her. Her hand flew to her own mouth, smothering the sound, her fingers pressing hard against her lips. The book slid to the floor with a soft thump. Her back arched off the couch, a silent plea for more, for less, she didn’t know. Through the dizzying burst of sensation, she felt him shift. Somehow, in a clumsy, urgent shuffle of limbs, their positions reversed.
Now he was flat on his back on the cushions, and she was straddling his face, her knees sinking into the soft material on either side of his head. His hands gripped her hips, anchoring her, as he resumed his ruthless ministrations. The angle was deeper, more intimate, overwhelmingly consuming. She braced her own hands against the high back of the sofa, her head hanging forward, every muscle in her abdomen pulled taut as a wire. Muffled whimpers escaped her sealed lips. The world narrowed to the slick, rhythmic pressure building between her legs, a star about to go supernova.
The living quarter doors hissed open.
Lace’s entire body locked in panic. Her head snapped up. Allura stood in the frame, her silhouette crisp against the hallway light. Lace straightened her spine with a jerk, trying to look casual, normal, like someone just sitting on a couch. She drove her fist down lightly, desperately, against Lotor’s sternum, a signal to stop.
He didn’t stop. If anything, his grip on her hips tightened, his mouth worked harder, faster, his tongue a relentless, knowing pulse. The contrast was surreal, terrifying, electrifying. Below the solid line of the couch’s back, she was being devoured. Above it, she forced her face into what she hoped was a mildly curious expression.
“Lace! There you are,” Allura said, stepping fully into the room. Her gaze swept over her, thankfully seeing only a paladin lounging. “Have you seen Lotor? We were meant to review the nebula projections ten minutes ago.”
Lace’s voice came out a half-octave too high. “Lotor? Nope. Haven’t seen him.” A particularly clever flick of his tongue made her eyes want to roll back. She dug her nails into the couch fabric. “Maybe check the training room? He mentioned something about… calibrating the drone sequences. Yeah.”
Allura’s brow furrowed slightly, but she nodded. “The training room. Of course. Alright, I’ll try there. Carry on with your… relaxation.”
“Thanks. Will do.”
Allura offered a small smile and turned, the doors closing behind her with a final, soft click.
The moment the seal was complete, the coiled tension in Lace’s body shattered. The climax he had been ruthlessly engineering, and that her panic had held at bay, crashed over her without mercy. It was silent, violent, a wave that turned her bones to liquid. She collapsed forward over the couch back, her forehead pressed to the cool material, her body trembling through the endless pulses.
Only when the last shudder subsided did he let her go. She slid off him, onto the floor, her legs unable to support her. She leaned against the side of the sofa, pulling her leggings up with shaking hands. She couldn’t look at him.
He sat up slowly, adjusting his own clothes, his breathing the only sound in the sudden, heavy quiet. He looked utterly composed, save for the slight dampness around his mouth. “That was risky,” he said, his voice calm, analytical.
A disbelieving laugh, harsh and brittle, escaped her. “Risky? That was… that was insane.” She finally turned her head to stare at him, her emotions a tangled knot of outrage, awe, and residual, buzzing pleasure. “She could have seen! She could have walked around the couch!”
“But she did not.” He stood, looking down at her with that infuriating, detached curiosity. “The calculation was sound. The couch back is 42 inches high, and your posture obscured the necessary sightlines. The risk was approximately 8 percent, assuming she had no pre-existing reason for suspicion.”
He was talking about angles and percentages. While her heart still threatened to beat its way out of her chest. While the taste of her own arousal was still on his lips. The cold stone of her realization from days before turned to ice. This wasn’t just indifference. It was experimentation. She was a variable in a thrilling, risky new equation.
He walked to the door, pausing as it opened. “The projections, unfortunately, are real. I am late.” He left without a backward glance.
Lace stayed on the floor, listening to the distant, fading sound of his boots. The ghost of his mouth was still on her skin. The ghost of Allura’s oblivious voice hung in the air. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, seeing bursts of color in the darkness. The lie wasn’t just in his touch anymore. It was in her ability to deliver one, perfectly, while falling apart.