“None,” I admit honestly. “When you’re sitting in my hall, I have a hard time focusing on anything other than you, Collins. This is a dilemma.”
The actual dilemma is the fact that, no matter how many times I rerun the algorithm or recalibrate the predictive modeling, the outcome remains unchanged.
In Shorehaven on November 30th, beneath the shadow of the solar eclipse, I will kill Collins Rayne Holbrook.
And while I’m under no illusion of the monstrous acts I commit in the name of science, being forced to spend time with her beforehand feels especially heinous, like some sick, twisted penance.
The palest blush dusts her cheeks as she tugs her gray scarf high around her neck. “This is highly inappropriate, and sexist. Blaming a woman for your inability to deliver a proper lecture.”
Beneath the sweet cadence of her voice is an edge that provokes me, rousing a desperate yearning to slice through this dull pretense between us and name whatever this infuriating feeling is so I claim it.
Smother it.
“You think my lectures are lacking.” Amused, I let a crooked smile frame my mouth.
Her only response is a slightly elevated brow.
“I suppose they are when compared to anything beneath a canopy of stars amid crashing waves. Life in peril, and all that.”
My ego soars when I earn a pretty smile. “Being charmed amid dangerous conditions by a devastatingly attractive astrophysicist does set the bar rather high.”
My whole body is one white-hot flame. “Damn, I’ve always been my own worst enemy.” I give a shrug. “Regardless, it’s more than your physical appearance. It’s just you, starling.”
She levels me with a vulnerable look that is so damn beautiful, I swear the air crackles with static to back my claim.
“Remove your helmet,” she says.
I hold her intense stare through the visor, waiting a painstaking three seconds longer before I relent. Pushing upright, I pry the helmet off and rest it on the fuel tank, then run my gloved palm over my disheveled hair.
She openly inspects the planes of my face, and I feel the press of her gaze as though she reaches out to touch me.
The breeze sends layers of her hair across her eyes to break the connection before she hooks the strands behind her ear, her cuff riding up to reveal the archer across her wrist. “Are you saying these things to make me too uncomfortable to return to your lecture?”
“Are you uncomfortable?”
She doesn’t answer right away. “No.”
I drape my arms over my helmet. “Then I hardly see any point in stopping.”
“You don’t?” Her gaze lowers to my gloved hand, and the sharp remark practically impales me. “What’s the point in seducing me if you’re unable to take it further.”
“Fuck, ouch.” My hand curls into a tight fist behind my helmet, agitating the burn. “Don’t need to spar in a game of chess when you can strike with a gambit like that,” I say, letting anger lick my wound.
Her nude lips curl into a gentle smile, and my heart clenches in my chest. “You need to be in my office tomorrow.” The way she saysneeddigs beneath my skin. “If you don’t want me in your lectures, that is.”
“Not sure you’re in a position to threaten ultimatums.”
“Do you feel threatened?”
My tongue coasts across my bottom lip. “You don’t want to hear what I’m feeling right this second, Collins.”
My words provoke a shiver, and despite my best effort at restraint, my gaze hungrily tracks over her, rousing a buried desire.
I absolutely feel threatened by her.
“Intrusive thoughts are meant to be kept silent, Orion.”
“Trust me when I say, I’m holding the worst of them back.”
