Jesus, the filthy thoughts she provokes with those simple words. I want to cage her on this ladder and prowl over her body like the starved beast she makes me. Let her use me as her willing test puppet and torture me with whatever sadistic, experimental therapy she wants.
I swallow and nod toward the eyepiece. “All the way up.”
A flicker of a smile teases her lips before she turns and braces her hands on the guardrails. I wait until she’s in position before I climb the steps, coming up behind her. I bracket my forearms on either side of her hips, my hands safely secured to the bars.
“Just place your eye right up against the lens,” I instruct, nodding to the custom eyepiece attached to the optical tube.
Collins leans over the rail and looks directly into the lens. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see.” She adjusts her position to lean farther out, and the sinful sight of her bent over the bar wreaks havoc on my composure.
“Oh, my god,” she breathes. “This is… I don’t have words. What is it?”
Easing closer to her side, I study her profile, taking in her awed expression. Wanting to keep it there as long as possible. “The constellation Ophiuchus,” I say, voice lowered to a gruff whisper. “Its position near the core of the Milky Way makes it ideal for observing the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, one of the most captivating interplays between bright and dark nebulae.”
“I don’t know what any of that is,” she says, intently focused.
A slight smile curves my lips. “It’s a stellar nursery where new stars are born from the gas and dust of dying ones, creating the glowing cloud you see. What you’re observing is the fusion of destruction and creation happening all at once.”
The rise and fall of her chest quickens, and I hear the small hitch in her breath. Her gaze flicks my way briefly. “Are you dumbing it down for me, Dr. Night?”
I lick my lips, fighting back a full smile. “As for my research…” My voice trails as I lean in to adjust the scope, guiding her to the shadowed edges of the nebula. “Those faint rings around stars are diffraction patterns. Interference caused by the telescope’s aperture bending starlight. Some of my work involves gravitational lensing, where massive celestial objects curve spacetime, bending the path of distant light. This visual is the closest example I can offer you right now.”
I pause, the ache beneath my sternum deepening as I watch her stare into the heart of her constellation. “It’s how we glimpse the memory of light,” I say, my thoughts consumed, “what’s hidden in the darkness behind stars.”
Slowly, Collins pulls away from the eyepiece and lifts her gaze to mine, and I read too much in the starry depths of her eyes. “Ophiuchus,” she whispers reverently. “It’s beautiful. Are you going to look?”
I let my ravenous gaze fall down her body, shamelessly lingering as I take my time roaming back up to trace her divine features. An angel in my scope. “I’m already observing something beautiful.”
Her hand comes to rest at the center of her chest. “I thought if you wanted to seduce me, you wouldn’t need to use words.”
“Are you seduced?”
A blush sweeps high on her cheeks. “That depends on intent.”
I draw in closer, towering over her now. “Collins, I’ve stared into the vastness of space. I’ve witnessed phenomena I can only attempt to explain. Yet I’ve never encountered anything as beautiful, or as terrifying, as you.” My chest blazes with the confession. “That’s simply the unfiltered truth.”
A hint of vulnerability opens her expression. “I have a confession,” she says, her voice breathy. “It wasn’t just about my therapy work…why I came to find you tonight.”
My grip tightens around the rail, a swallow working the tendons of my throat. “I know.”
The atmosphere of the dome charges, the scent of ocean drifting through the open shutter where the night burns with stars above us, offering a mere glimpse of infinity.
The current between us pulls too dangerously strong—a tidal force I can no longer resist. Soon, there will be no escaping the irresistible pull of her gravity.
Silence strains the moment until I’m forced to break it. “I’m leaving soon,” I say, dispersing a layer of tension. “I have to travel to a dark-sky preserve to gather data before the solar eclipse.”
Confusion knits her brows at my abrupt shift. It’s just a glance, but her gaze darts to the mechanical solar system, where the rotations mark the countdown to the celestial event.
“You’re leaving Stonehurst,” she says slowly, weighing the words.
I scrub a hand through my hair. “Just for a day or so—a few days before the eclipse,” I confirm, dropping down a step to widen the space between us. “The moment of totality offers a rare chance to observe the corona, to measure the heat and motion as the friction ignites until it flares brighter, hotter.”
Almost as if in response, those elusive golden rings I glimpse amid her eyes blaze, striking something deep in my chest.
She swipes a hand across her forehead. “Too much information, Dr. Night.”
I let a smile form. “Simply put, Dr. Holbrook, I’m heavily focused on black-hole accretion signatures—observing changes in luminosity through anomalies.” My gaze holds hers, a hard knot lodging at the base of my throat.
Something entirely too dangerous sparks behind that burning gaze, and I crave to know how painful it would be to touch it.
