“Say—” I thrust hard “—it. I want to hear my name, Collins. Who do you belong to.”
“Orion…fuck. Orion.” Her voice breaks on my name, spine bowing off the mattress and pulling me mercilessly toward the edge with her.
“That’s goddamn right, angel. No one else has claim over you. You’re mine.”
White-hot tension gathers at the base of my spine as I thrust once more—holding myself there, feeling the teasing pleasure grip. A broken groan tears free against the soft hollow of her throat, the sound guttural and ravaged, reverberating through muscle and bone as I fuck against her tight heat—hard, pulsing—with mindless, unhinged rocks of my hips as I release deep inside her.
Breath ragged, I shiver as Collins drags her nails down my back. A soft moan escapes her, and I surge up, lips finding hers to swallow that delicate sound with a groan. Starved, insatiable, as I kiss her to consume every last tremulous drop of her.
As I reluctantly break away, our breaths collide, mingling in the charged space between, our bodies still shuddering with aftershocks. Bracing myself on my forearms above her, I smooth the damp strands of hair from her flushed cheeks.
And in this shattering aftermath, our gazes find each other through the darkness. A profound, unspoken understanding sparks between us. Her heart pulses against my chest in flawless, echoing harmony.
“God, you’re beautiful.” The thought slips from my mouth unfiltered.
The strain lining her brow eases as a radiant smile breaks, and it’s like fourth contact, when the last lingering shadow finally retreats. The luminous gold threading the slate flares, dispelling the dark.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers, her fingers tracing paths over the taut planes of my back. “So painfully beautiful, Orion Night.”
Amid the starlit ocean of her eyes, I feel myself become something whole, something of light instead of void beneath her gaze.
Her fingertips drift upward, grazing the inked script across my throat—memento mori. Her gentle touch summons a raw ache, arresting my pulse. There’s a hesitant snag of breath before she says, “I know what this cost you?—”
My lips brush the trembling corner of hers, silencing her with a tender kiss. “Just say you’re mine.”
A vulnerable window opens inside her, an unguarded depth of emotion laid bare. “I’m yours,” she whispers softly. “I’ve always been yours.”
I tighten my grip around her thigh, keeping her bound to me, my other hand cradling the curve at the nape of her neck. Our bodies fused, held tight in this intimate pause. Where the silence fallsdeeper, pulsing with its own unspoken cadence, filled with everything we haven’t yet dared to say.
This tension strung in the quiet spaces between.
It’s her breath held.
Her heartbeat suspended.
My anticipation for her next note.
Awaiting our shattering rise?—
Our inevitable fall.
And until those next crucial beats unravel, I experience her wholly, savor her thoroughly, my lovely dark note, my haunting refrain. My beautiful, shattering collision of shadow and starlight.
Cassiopeia was a queen in Greek mythology whose hubris angered the gods. As punishment, they placed her among the stars, setting her forever in the night sky as the constellation Cassiopeia.
—HYGINUS, ASTRONOMICA; PSEUDO-ERATOSTHENES, CATASTERISMS
23
Cassiopeia’s Gambit
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
—MICHELANGELO
COLLINS
The number of heartbeats in a lifetime feels immeasurable. Billions of heartbeats, each one capturing a single frame of a life. So immeasurable, we take them for granted—an infinite number comparable to the stars in the night sky.
