She bites the flesh of her lip before she says, “We should probably get down from here.”
Collins turns to start down the ladder, and I repress every intrusive thought as I move down another rung. “Shit,” she mutters as she misses a step, losing her grasp on the railing.
I reach up in time to catch her, my hands closing around her thighs. The moment suspends, stretched taut between each shallow breath. I can’t tear myself away—my gaze fixed to where my gloved fingers bunch the hem of her skirt, risen just high enough to reveal the lace edge of her thigh-highs. The sliver of exposed skin right above.
Daringly, I raise my eyes to meet hers.
The air condenses between us. I feel a tremble coast through her, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t remove my grip, doesn’t lower her skirt. “You said you shouldn’t touch me,” she breathes.
“I shouldn’t.” My voice is rough, scraping raw against the tension. Like a summons, my gaze falls to the faint pattern of bruises lining her throat, lured to the basest pit of my soul.
“But you want to,” she says, the softest whisper to lure me closer.
Jaw clenched, I ease upward, my palm dragging the hem of her skirt along with me. She tips her head back, eyes locked to my predatory gaze, never breaking contact as I shift over her. Her thighs part instinctively to allow me room, and I’m one fucking second away from losing the last tether of my willpower.
“I want to,” I hear myself confess. In compulsive, rhythmic count, I press my gloved fingers into her hip.
She licks her lips, and I’m helplessly drawn in by that lurid act, ensnared by the torrid mix of carnal need and apprehension swirling behind those vibrant eyes. Right beneath the apparent arousal, fear brims in shimmering waves.
Something nefarious coils the base of my spine at the sight. Right now, tasting her sweet scent, her skin humming at a frequency that demands a connection, I’m barely restrained.
Deliberate, controlled, I withdraw my left hand from her and grip my necktie. I pull the knot loose, slipping the silky material free from the collar. She tracks the movement, pupils dilating as the sharp sound cleaves the charged silence.
I drag the fabric along her throat, over the rapid flutter of her pulse,slowly guiding the tie around to cradle the nape of her neck. Then I wind the slack around my gloved hand, drawing her toward me. She shivers at the creak of leather.
“Tell me the truth,” I say, my uttered words falling across her parted lips. “How scared are you.”
This close, her swallow is audible. “Enough,” she whispers.
A low sound vibrates in my throat. “Good.”
Before I release her, she circles a hand around the tie. “But I’m more scared of pushing you too far.”
A smirk carves my face. “I have six years’ worth of pent-up sexual frustration, and you’re worried you’ll break me.”
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to reach the bounds of the universe. I’ve pursued it maddeningly, passionately, never tiring.
There is no limit.
With Collins, the only terrifying certainty I need to contend with is that I won’t stop even after I’ve found hers.
A sultry smile curves her mouth. “I think you’ll find I’m not that breakable, Dr. Night.”
“Fuck,” I mutter darkly. A savage pang of hunger twists low in my gut at her reckless dare. The black waters surge, violently battering the crumbling walls of my restraint.
A delicate balance has to be maintained. To give her this—this fleeting pleasure, this stolen moment—without surrendering to the depraved hunger that craves to annihilate her.
My gaze drops to the enticing bruises, the marks of her own hidden deviance, and a vile part of me wants to devour all of her just so the agonizing torture of maintaining this impossible balance mercifully ends.
As I find her starry eyes once more, I’m falling at the speed of light. Time slows, reality fractures, the entire universe bending around us.
Captivated as I toe the edge of the horizon.
Collins relinquishes her grip on the tie, the small act one of surrender. The light I glimpse within her begins to dim, and I’m suddenly desperate to chase it, to catch sight of it once more before it’s swallowed whole.
The life of a star is a constant fight against gravity.
But eventually, gravity wins. Its force can’t be escaped. And once the star collapses, it consumes everything around it.
