🎁 Bonus Scene: Northern Lights

The aurora was the brightest Maya had ever seen it.

Great ribbons of green and violet light rippled across the sky, so vivid they cast colored shadows through the observation deck windows. She stood transfixed, her breath fogging against the cold glass, watching the universe put on a show just for them.

“Beautiful,” she murmured.

“Yes.” Elena’s voice came from directly behind her. “You are.”

Maya turned to find Elena watching her with an expression that made her stomach flip. There was heat in those pale eyes—the kind of focused intensity that Elena usually reserved for her research. Except now, all of that intensity was directed at Maya.

“I wasn’t talking about me.”

“I know. I was.” Elena stepped closer, close enough that Maya could feel the warmth radiating from her body. “I’ve been watching you watch the lights. The way they reflect in your eyes. The way you smile at them like they’re performing just for you.”

“Maybe they are.”

“Maybe.” Elena’s hand came up to brush a strand of hair from Maya’s face. “Or maybe the universe just wanted to give me the perfect backdrop.”

“Backdrop for what?”

Elena’s smile was slow and devastating. “For this.”

She kissed Maya—deep and thorough, the kind of kiss that started slow and built into something consuming. Maya melted into it, her back pressing against the cold window, Elena’s body warm and solid against her front.

“I’ve been thinking,” Elena murmured when they finally broke apart.

“That’s usually my line.”

“About all the things I want to do to you.” Elena’s mouth traced down Maya’s jaw to her neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin below her ear. “About how you sound when you come. About whether I can make you lose control the way you make me lose control.”

Maya’s breath stuttered. “Elena—”

“I want to take my time tonight.” Elena’s hands found the hem of Maya’s sweater, fingers slipping underneath to trace warm patterns on bare skin. “I want to learn every single thing that makes you fall apart. And then I want to do all of them. Twice.”

“Twice?”

“At minimum.” Elena smiled against her throat. “I’m a scientist. Replication is essential.”

Hours later, utterly spent and tangled in sheets that desperately needed washing, they lay watching the aurora fade toward dawn.

“We should probably sleep,” Maya said drowsily.

“Probably.”

“We have work tomorrow.”

“We do.”

Neither of them moved.

Elena pressed a kiss to Maya’s shoulder. “This is everything I never knew I wanted. You’re everything I never knew I wanted.”

“Same.” Maya turned her head to meet Elena’s eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Elena pulled her closer. “Now sleep. I have plans for you tomorrow that require you to be well-rested.”

“More plans?”

“I told you—I’m thorough.”

Maya laughed and let herself drift off, wrapped in Elena’s arms, while the last traces of the aurora painted the sky.

She’d come to the Arctic looking for a mentor.

She’d found something infinitely better.

She’d found home.

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