This is what she desires from me,needsfrom me—and god help me, I’m powerless to deny her.
Even as her shiver tears at my feeble restraint, I keep count. Fingertips compulsively tapping against her skin, marking pulse points as her melody thrums in my veins. An intoxicating rhythm falling somewhere between the golden symmetry of phi, the spiraled perfection of Fibonacci, and the untamed tempo of her heartbeat?—
Where each breathless pause stretches into an empty, terrifying infinity. A space suspended between dread and awe, hope and devastation. Waiting in excruciating silence for that next critical beat to strike.
And yet, we can’t rush to fill this silence, no matter how agonizing. It’s the tension before a note is struck, the breath held right before release.
And the exquisite relief when her heart beats once more against mine.
Fourth contact is an ending, and a beginning. The moment when we return from shadow to sunlight, forever changed by what we have witnessed.
—DR. KATE RUSSO, PSYCHOLOGIST AND ECLIPSE CHASER
22
Collision
In music, a heartbeat tempo is a musical pace that aligns with a pulse.
ORION
There’s a moment where anticipation fractures into surrender, where desire collapses into defeat. A reckless instant suspended in freefall, powerless against gravity. That dangerous edge where longing ignites into madness.
It’s the destruction of the boundary.
At this terrifying brink, hunger sears so viciously, so ravenously, that pain itself becomes a necessary shackle.
Until restraint snaps, and you fall willingly, helplessly, into ruin.
Staring down at the ethereal angel in my bed, my gaze roaming over her beautiful, alluring body, I’m past the point of famished. I’m a goddamn frenzy of atoms, hellbent on annihilation.
With one last reverent sweep of my thumb over her cheek, I savorher softness. Trailing my knuckles across the tender bruise, my touch is a careful brush against her abraded skin. This is where gentle dissolves into rough. Where the tremble in my strained muscles from holding resistance gives, and sinew and tendons harden into steady force.
It’s a surrender so pleasurable, it’s almost orgasmic.
Collins blinks up at me through her captivating lashes, her mouth parted in invitation, as my hand settles at her throat. The shocked breath that slips past her lips urges my palm close to her jaw, fingers firm against the delicate column.
I glide my tongue over my bottom lip, tasting her delectable scent in the air before I lower my mouth to hers. I lick into her mouth, goddamn feral as I taste her slowly, thoroughly, before I deepen the kiss.
“Spread your legs.” The demand is delivered in a deep timbre against her mouth, and her pulse flares in wild revolt against my fingertips.
Her hesitation brings a dark, crooked smile to my lips. I let my body fall heavy over hers, securing my grip around her neck.
She swallows hard, the flutter beneath my fingers quickening.
“Have it your way, angel.” My legs invade between her knees, the soaked fabric of her skirt a restrictive barrier that only heightens my desire to shred it. In an urgent move, I wrench the wet material up her thighs and force her legs apart.
A flash of fear ignites behind her darkened eyes, and fuck, it’s as intoxicating as her scent. “I can practically taste your arousal,” I say, my voice all friction and groan.
My elbow digs into the mattress as I let her feel my weight. Hips flexing in painful need to be inside her, I drop a tender kiss to the slope of her shoulder, tongue delving out to further torture myself.
This next part I make quick for her. Shoving my hand between us, Iyank open the buttons of her skirt. She releases a clipped curse, and the breathy sound of it winds hot through my muscles as her fingers curl into the blanket. I skim my fingers beneath the waistband, and the reactive flutter of her abdomen unleashes a guttural groan.
I brush my lips across the joint of her shoulder and neck, scraping my teeth over her pulse, before I fist my hand around the band, and—pushing back—drag her skirt down her hips.
Dim light streaming from the other room bathes her in a contrast of shadow and light, revealing the sexy contours of her body. And I visually trace every intimate curve. A shiver racks my spine, and the motion elicits the softest gasp from her.
I drag my hand over my mouth as I hungrily take her in. “Fuck, you are so beautiful, I don’t know where to begin.”
