Scent
by Mimi Tanaka

"Scent"

When she raged into my office, heels skidding sparks, complaining about unwanted attentions from my soldiers to whom her beauty and combative fierceness must have seemed the embodiment of adolescent fantasy, I tried to point out the cultural differences between Bajor and Cardassia.

But, confronted with her disturbing presence and her implacable insistence that I personally stop them, I could only seize her hand, pressing my lips to its palm, then slowly, watching her pupils dilate and her breath catch, drag it with its sensitive wrist under my chin and along my jaw, caressing my auricular-mandibular ridges.

Her lips parted, and I could taste the dizzying, if subtler, scent of Bajoran arousal.

`What the hell are you doing, Dukat?’

`I’m marking you with my scent, my dear. You shouldn’t have any trouble with my men, wearing that.’

Her face as she disappeared displayed fleeting glimpses of anger, embarrassment, and indignation. But I’ll never forget the wonder of seeing in the depths of those jewel eyes, grudging pride, and desire.