The chemistry overwhelms my nerves until I’m breathing through it like it’s leather.
It stretches taut across my skin, wraps around my lungs and spine, binding every twitch and tremble until I don’t know where fear ends and want begins. I’ve never wanted like this. Not clean. Not safe. Not like a slow realization. This feels like freefall—full-body terror laced with something hotter, heavier, meaner.
He watches me like he knows.
Like he’s already decided I’m a fixed point in his world, whether I asked to be or not. His eyes don’t leer. They claim.
And my heart, the traitorous little bastard, stutters in my chest like itagrees.
“What?” I ask, my voice rough with too much bass, too much tension. I’m not even sure I heard him right. Not over the noise.
He leans in closer.
The air between us tightens like a held breath.
“You wanna get out of here?” he says again, low and calm and laced with something that shouldn’t be gentle but is.
The words slice through the last of my caution like a clean knife. There’s no flirtation in them. No suggestion of what “out of here” means. And somehow that’s worse.
Because my brain fills in the blanks.
I assume sex, of course. Because what else could this be?
I mean—look at him.
Look atme.
Whatever game we’re playing, it started the second my palm cracked across his jaw and he didn’t break me in half for it.Everything since has just been buildup. Or foreplay. Or a slow-burn dare we’re both too stubborn to fold on.
I nod.
Not too fast.
But fast enough to meanyes.
CHAPTER 7
VROK
Ikeep my body between her and the rest of the club as we move, scanning the crowd like they’re all waiting for a chance. Because some of them might be.
Tickled Pinkdoesn’t empty out so much as pulse around us—music still pounding like it’s trying to shake memories loose, lights still strobing hard enough to blur faces. I see every potential weapon, every potential threat, every glance that lingers too long.
She doesn’t.
That’s the first thing that jars me.
Her head’s high but she’s not watching her corners. No check over the shoulder. No eyes on exits. Her posture isn’t wired for survival—more like resignation, like she’s already decided what happens next and isn’t interested in dodging fate. It doesn’t track. Not with the kind of history that earns a title like hers.
Unless this is part of the performance.
We push out the side door, and the night air hits hard. Thinner, cooler, sharp with ozone and the metallic tang of nearby shuttles baking down their cores. She flinches, just slightly, like she didn’t expect the world to be waiting.
I don’t speak. She doesn’t either. Our steps are loud on the asphalt.
I guide her through the back alleys—narrow service routes that keep us out of view and out of reach. I watch every shadow, every shape that doesn’t move right. I clock three drunks, two workers, one teen with a data wand who decides real fast that we’re not worth scanning. My ship’s exactly where I left it—nose pointed toward the stars like it’s daring me to do something reckless.
She hesitates as we approach. I don’t slow down.
