I spin, trying to regain control, but he’s already anticipated it. The moment I turn, he steps in, backing me toward the table. My hips bump the edge. The flashlight’s beam drifts across my thighs as he plants both hands beside me, caging me in.
“Is that supposed to make me feelsafe?” I murmur. I circle back to that theory he had in the car—about lust and safety. It makes him smile that smile of his. Hot. Dangerous. Just unhinged enough to make my already weak legs feel weaker.
“Depends,” he breathes. “The same knife you use to carve meat can gut a man when it needs to.”
I swallow hard. My fingers twitch on the edge of the table, but I don’t move. Maybe I can’t.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on watch?” I ask. “Keep this up and you’ll not only abandon your post. You’ll wake the others.”
“Nothing wakes them once they’re out.”
“Even with something like that roaming around?”
“Believe it or not,” he purrs, “they actually trust a bastard like me.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then rises again. “That trust is the only reason they can fully shut down and rest, recover, and be ready to fight another day. You can’t track down murderers if you’re not sharp. And you’re not sharp without real sleep.”
“Weird,” I say. “That part where they trust you, I mean.”
Talon’s smile widens, slow and razor-edged. “Isn’t it just?”
His hands are still braced on the table, but the tension in his arms shifts, like he's holding something back. His thigh brushes mine, and I feel the friction of his gear: smooth leather, abuckle, the edge of something hard. A sheathed blade, maybe. Or something else.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” he murmurs, lowering his head. “You’re still weak.”
“I don't feel that weak,” I lie.
His eyes gleam. “You will soon.”
And then he moves, his lips finding mine, his hand sliding up my spine.
I tilt my chin up instinctively, breath hitching. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” he murmurs.
If Cassian saw him right now—if he sawus—I don’t know what he’d do. He’d probably get up from that bed, throw Talon off me, tell him to fuck off with that gruff voice of his. I don’t even know why my mind goes there, but it does. Maybe it’s the contrast between the two of them. The difference I can’t stop craving.
“You’re not going to stop me,” Talon says, like it’s already decided. “Am I right, Little Grim?”
His fingers trail down my back, past my hips, lower, until the pad of his thumb finds the hem of the ugly neon orange scrubs I’m still wearing.
“No,” I say quietly. I don’t even know which part I’m denying. That he’s right? Or that I’m not going to stop him?
He leans in, just a little.
“I might be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid,” he murmurs. “I know why you got up and came here. You could’ve just ignored me and gone back to sleep.”
His hand slides up—slow, open-palmed—skimming under the edge of my shirt. My breath hitches. I should stop him. I should. But his touch feels too damn good.
“Correction: you are stupid,” I breathe, though there’s no bite to it. “And I was just curious about what you’re reading.”
“Mhm.” His voice dips into a low purr. “Had nothing to do with that little proposal I made earlier? The one that made you blush so pretty in the car?”
“Not even a little.”
He chuckles softly against my ear. “Come on, where’d that hungry little thing inside you go?” A teasing note slips into his voice. “Don’t make me beg.”
I press my thighs together, annoyed by how much that line does to me. “You’re supposed to be on watch,” I whisper, a last-ditch effort at reason.
“Iamwatching,” he says, voice roughening. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. But now... now you’re real. Now I cantouchyou.”
