“Oh. Fucking. God.” I toss my head back as pleasure overtakes me. Orion’s body bands tight around mine, holding me immobile against him as I fall apart. The climax spirals through me so intensely, I hear as much as feel the last violent pound of bass. The punch of the final note rocks through my bones, rhythmic aftershocks flutter over my nerves.
Then I’m suddenly weightless, adrift in an ocean of sensation. The canvas disappears, the dirt with it, leaving only soft waves licking over my skin.
The sparking vibrations slowly fade, leaving us in a charged silence broken only by the labored sound of our breath. I push back slightly, just enough to feel the hard length of him—still erect.
“Don’t move,” he says, issued in a low, guttural warning.
My breath catches, and I hold still, my exposed skin drinking the cool air, my neck throbbing with the lingering leash of the tie. I lick my lips, tasting salt, and I remove a shaky hand from the speaker and wipe numb fingers across my cheek, smearing the trace of tears over my damp skin.
Orion’s strained breaths slow, his body gradually relaxing around mine. As he lowers his leg to release me, my thighs come together, and I’m unable to suppress the quiet moan at the tender ache.
“Fuck,” he mutters, muscles racked with shivers as he draws away. His warmth vanishes instantly, leaving a chill in his place.
The dome shutter begins to groan open. Faint starlight filters into the observatory. Harsh reality creeps back, driving all that was depraved and sacred into the shadows once more.
In a panicked rush, I tug my blouse closed and quickly fasten the buttons. “I assume this wasn’t what you intended when you composed your music,” I say to break a layer of tension.
His rough chuckle thrums across my sensitized nerves, provoking a low flutter in my belly, yet it sounds forced.
I sense his proximity like a sparking current, raising fine hairs along my skin. I turn to face him, and he’s now standing beneath the pale ray of moonlight, shirt and gloves back in place.
God, he’s devastating. After everything that transpired between us, I should feel self-conscious, vulnerable. Yet as he prowls closer, all I feel is hunted. Ruined.
Endangered.
He hooks a gloved finger around the center of the tie draping my neck, slipping it free like a ribbon, the silk blades whispering against my damp skin. Then, stepping close, he says in a low voice, “Completely unintended.” He gathers my hair in one hand, stealing every last bit of my breath as he secures it gently in a ponytail with his tie.
My pulse tangles in my veins as he draws back, just enough to settle his hands at the base of my neck. His palms roam up the curve of my throat, thumbs gliding over my skin. And I realize he’s searching for marks, inspecting for damage. His gloved hands far too gentle where, just moments ago, they strangled with brutal demand.
I swallow, emotion knotted tight beneath my ribs at the feel of his tender evaluation. He notices, tilting his head above me. “But seeing that look on your face right now,” he says, his tone lowering into a rough cadence, “completely intended.”
A fever burns through my skin.
“You’re breathtaking when you’re flushed,” he says, unable to curb the satisfaction in his smirk. It lasts only a flicker before a shadow descends over his features, a hint of anger sharpening his expression.
He halts, his hands folding around my neck possessively. “You had me worried.”
“I’m fine. More than fine,” I assure him, bringing a sinful curl to his mouth. “But you didn’t?—”
“I got what I wanted,” he interrupts, answering why he didn’t find release. “Seeing that look on your face—fuck. It’s more than enough.”
A flush forces my gaze to drop, landing at his parted collar, to where the inked script along his neck hints to secrets below. Tentatively, I rest my palm against the solid plane of his chest, fingertips grazing the parted edges of his shirt—a silent dare, a test.
“Stay here while I turn the system off,” he says, his muscles tensing beneath my palm before he steps back. My hand falls away. “Then I’ll walk you to your place.”
I offer a quiet nod. Folding my arms around my waist, I use the few seconds alone to bring out my case and swallow down a pill, then search his private habitat. My gaze drifts over the monitors, the console, looking for a camera. “Should you erase the recorded feed?”
“No cameras here. I don’t trust them. Someone could hack the feed. They’d be fucking stupid to try, but it’s a risk I won’t take. You don’t have to worry about privacy.”
“Good to know.” A gleam catches my eye, my breath snatched by the sight as a trail of dark red streaks down the speaker. The metal mesh is caved in, crushed beneath the violent impact of a fist. The smeared imprint evidence of a losing battle.
Throat raw, I swallow past the ache as I swipe my fingertips through the stained surface. Orion’s blood coats my fingers, and I realize that, to stop himself from hurting me, he caused himself pain.
I look his way, heart twisting at how easily he could’ve unleashed that violence—yet he held back.
I’ve barely scraped the surface of the violence he’s capable of.
He stalks toward me, and whatever was raw and intimate just moments ago is shaved away under sharp moonlight, bringing a weight of reality. I’m left painfully aware of how fragile, how vulnerable I allowed myself to become in his arms.
