Ag Grey Heart Bikini Mature -

“Still upright,” she murmured to the empty room. “Still moving.”

This was not a seduction. It was a surrender. Not to the men watching, but to the simple, brutal fact that she was still here.

She was not young. She did not look like the holos. The grey did not mask her flaws; it framed them. The scar on her ribs looked like a river delta flowing into the dark fabric. The surgical line across her stomach was a white thread against her tanned, weathered skin. But for the first time in a decade, she did not see a battlefield. She saw a body that had carried her through hell and kept going.

A knock on the door. Three sharp raps.

“Captain?” It was Kaelen, her navigator, a man ten years her junior with earnest eyes and a dangerous crush. “We have a two-hour window before the tide window. The dock manager says the thermal vents on the south beach are open to crew. Good for the bones.”