The liminal space between now and when the sun eclipses thins dangerously with each ticking second.
“I threaten your sense of order, your control. It’s the uncertainty you fear.” Her voice softens into a gentle coax. “But we don’t have to rush this, Orion. We can take it slow.”
I swipe a gloved hand across my mouth, stifling a groan. “And what would I get out of this,” I demand to know.
Her lips curl in a suggestive taunt, as if the answer should be obvious. “I can help you safely explore those darker, intrusive urges. The ones I know you’re becoming exhausted from constantly fighting.” She licks her lips, wetting them with a tempting tease. “Satisfy your impulses, find some relief without consequence.”
My answering smile is callous. “And when you’re not satisfied with the results, you sign your form to have me removed.”
She tilts her head, a daring challenge surfacing amid the defiant glint of her eyes. “Then don’t leave me unsatisfied.”
Fuck.Playing with fire.
A blistering heat threads my spine, my jaw locking tight.
Beneath my insatiable hunger lies another, more insidious fear that, once I start touching her, I won’t have the strength to stop. Unable to deny the desire to find that perfect symmetry with her body, to touch every inch of her, to discover that rightness over and over until I’ve driven myself maddeningly past the brink—breaking her by sheer, brutal need.
Hell, I could fuck us both into the grave, surrendering the will to care once I’ve thoroughly ruined her and whatever remains of my fractured humanity.
She has no idea how dangerous this is.
Reflexively, my grip tightens around the astrolabe in my pocket. “Furthering your research, testing your therapy. This is what you need.” The question is achingly familiar, an echo of what I once asked her before, stranded together on a rock. And now, just as then, I cage my breath, waiting.
A well of relief floods her eyes. “Yes,” she says simply.
The soft admission ricochets around the hollow of my chest. And I wonder if I can give her this—what she’s asking of me. If I can offer her more than a mere distraction. Some form of comfort, pleasure. Make her happy, even. For however fleeting. At least, until the moment she expends her last breath.
If nothing else, Iwantto give her this.
“I don’t know why you’re fighting it,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s not unethical if we both consent.”
I can’t help the low chuckle that escapes, harsh and humorless. Nothing is more unethical than fucking the woman you will annihilate.
A violent pang resonates deep in my chest, and I drag a hand down my face, defeated. “You don’t know what you’re consenting to,” I mutter beneath my breath.
A tremble rolls through her slight body before she clears her throat. “Communication is important—” She breaks off as I turn abruptly and walk away. “Orion, you can’t leave.”
“Stop me.”
“You’re scared you’ll hurt me,” she says, and it comes out a little breathless.
My steps falter. I hang my head, take a measured breath. Knowing I’ll regret looking at her, I’m torn as I’m forced to turn her way.
She tosses her head, clearing the strands from her eyes. Her teeth scrape over her bottom lip, a nervous tell. I let the silence stretch, forcing her to fill it. “I know you’re scared you’ll hurt me,” she says again, “but I’m not. You won’t.”
Dammit, she’s so achingly beautiful just standing there, daring me to imagine how much pressure to apply as I map her body. To discover the sounds she makes as I test which spots make her shiver and the ones that make her breath catch.
I let my eyes fall over her as I drag my thumb across my bottom lip, at war with my own mind.
I want her.
I can’t remember ever wanting anything so badly. My cells ache to consume her the way gravity consumes starlight, extinguishing it all at once in one violent collapse.
And that’s what terrifies me.
The shadows encroach, staining my gray matter with a dark residue, creeping in at the edges and corrupting every thought.
“Orion.”
