Her beautiful smile hits me right in the chest. “I’m no longer in need of a distraction, thank you.” Her teeth begin to chatter, and she hugs her arms around her wet blouse as she moves past. Gripping one hand on the railing, she starts the ascent up the steps of the bluff.
I frown at her slow progress. Catching up to her easily, we reach the landing together, where an iron gate opens to a winding path that leads toward the university grounds.
Collins pauses before the gate, fatigue weighing her shoulders. The breeze whips around her body to steal my breath at the ethereal sight of her framed by the Gothic tracery.
“It’s a shame, though,” she says, and I cock my head curiously. “Out there on the ocean, with the dark secluding us, a canopy of stars above. You missed a prime opportunity to impress me with tales of the constellations.”
“Hmm…” I step close. “If I wanted to seduce you, Collins, I wouldn’t resort to something as cliché as the stars.”
“I said impress, not seduce.” She turns, but pauses to say, “What would you use?”
Gaze drifting slowly down her body, I drag my tongue across my bottom lip. “Not words.”
A challenge crackles in the condensed air between us, daring me to take another bold step forward, finding it exerts more energy to stay apart from her.
The chemical attraction blazing between us burns hotter than colliding atoms in the heart of a star. A pang of caution flares in my chest, and I know I should stop this—but standing here, clothes soaked, wind freezing my skin to ice, my body is on fire.
Her throat works with a swallow. “Before you confront Dr. Banner, allow me one session,” she says, the appeal softening her tone.
Leaning in, I rest my hand on the gate latch. “Ah, but if you can’t get inside here”—I tap my temple— “there’s no chance you’ll find me a danger.”
A shiver rocks through her at our proximity. “If you’re not a danger, then you have nothing to worry about.” Her shimmering gaze searches mine. “So are you, Orion—a danger?”
She shouldn’t look at me like that, so enticing—like tempting a starved animal deprived too long of a meal. My fingers grip the latch. Hard. “That depends entirely on what you consider dangerous.”
Something destructive fires through my veins. Before I act on impulse, her beautiful smile unfurls, and she says, “Goodnight, Orion.”
Hearing my name in her breathy voice… Fuck, the damage is done.
It will never be enough.
I press a measure closer and unlatch the gate, lifting it three timesto offset the disturbing urges lashing at my skull. “Just so we’re clear,” I say, drawing her gaze once more. “I see how you look at me, Collins.”
There’s the faintest hitch in her breathing. She brings a hand to her chest, and I catch sight of the delicate constellation along her wrist.
Playing with fire.
She makes me feel more than reckless as she gazes up at me, expectant, waiting. I force a hard swallow, lost in those eyes full of dust and starlight.
“Goodnight, Collins,” I whisper roughly near her ear and push the gate open, allowing her to escape.
Chest tight, I watch her drift away, the night stealing her from my vision until she’s absorbed by the dark.
In astrophysics, anything dark is simply unknown.
And Collins Holbrook is a dark, dark unknown.
The warning banging furiously inside my skull cautions just how fucking hazardous this is, yet it doesn’t stop me from wanting to chase this feeling right over the steepest cliff.
Hell, long before she called out, I was already on the edge, barely hanging on by the tips of my fingers.
? | ? φ ?
It’s late by the time I return to the observatory. Everything is exactly how I left it, and yet nothing feels the same. Irrevocably altered by one single moment, an event powerful enough to distort space and time.
I set the astrolabe on the desk and peel off a worn glove, abruptly halted as the monitor catches my attention.
The screen has gone dark—all except for a pale line of text. An illuminated name that stalls my breath.
