—JOHN MILTON,PARADISE LOST
ORION
The only light in the otherwise darkened telescope room comes from the backlit viewing table. It washes over the scattered instruments and screens, casting a soft white halo around Collins as she curiously wanders toward the table.
She’s more inside the room than I am, infusing every atom with her scent—the sweet notes I can detect and the ones I can’t. She stares down at the glass slides, her gaze slipping over images of constellations and nebulae projected on the table surface, illuminated like an angel.
“Are you really interested in a tour?” The deep sound of my voice breaks the quiet.
I want her to say no. The coating chamber, where lenses are treated with reflective materials, is farther down the corridor in the space where the team that once occupied these stations is now sequestered with the RC telescope—and it’s not sanitary.
Collins peeks up at me, a mischievous slant to her nude lips. “Not really. I just wanted to get you alone in here.”
I swipe a hand over my mouth to cover my smile. “You used Prescott against me.”
“Yes,” she confesses, shameless. “How does that make you feel?”
Like I desperately want to discover what gets under her skin the way she slinks right under mine. “Impressed,” I say instead. “And admittedly, a little wary of your therapeutic approach.”
“We can implement a safeword,” she suggests. “If you need one.”
Something starved and untamed claws at me from the inside, tearing its way through to get to her. She needs to understand that if this goes too far, it won’t be me who needs protection. And there’s nothing that will stop me once that line is crossed, let alone any word.
“I’ll take my chances,” I tell her.
A sexy smile graces her lips, and I’m reminded that, just moments before, I held her throat in my hand. She followed me in here knowing the debased and violent nature of my thoughts. Despite the fear I see glinting in her beautiful eyes, she followed me in here alone, regardless.
An itch flares, my mind uselessly trying to scratch at the infesting, forbidden thoughts of having her all to myself.
Where no one else knows she is.
I unconsciously tap my fingers against my thigh, keeping count.
“So where’s this diabolical particle accelerator?” she asks.
A smile tips my mouth. “In the lab.”
She nods. “This is the control room,” she says, and I nod, because it’s mostly correct. “This isn’t where you work, though.” Her perceptive gaze darts to the spiral staircase that leads to the observatory dome.
I stuff my hands into my pockets, letting my silence sink us further into this moment. Her fragrant scent overtakes the cool, sterile air. Her fingers touch objects, leaving remnants of herself behind. I’m giving myself time to adjust, but she presses against my restraint just by breathing.
“This is as far as most people get.” I give her an honest answer.
Drawn to her, I take a few steps toward the table, but halt to stare down at a glass plate on the floor. When I glance at her, a blush tinges high on her cheeks.
“I dropped it,” she says, confirming the clinking sound I heard earlier from the atrium.
I pick up the plate, my thumb gliding over the Orion constellation before I place it on the table where it belongs.
“Do you always wear gloves, even alone?”
Employing patience, I entertain her questions. If indulging her curiosity makes her happy, I can do that. “Most of the time.”
“Due to fear of contamination,” she says decisively.
I consider how to explain this to her. “That, and when I wear them, I’m not as burdened by the neurotic need to adjust what I touch until it feels right. It’s a barrier, something to dull the senses, so I can focus on a task without succumbing to my need for balance.”
Collins studies me closely. “That’s a form of OCD-related magical thinking,” she says, analyzing. “It’s not rational, but you’ve tricked your mind enough to allow you to have this workaround.”
