Chapter 11 Frozen Stars #2
“I told you to leave, Collins,” I say, my voice a gruff echo in the hollow corridor. “That means I definitely don’t want you sneaking around my observatory.”
The darkness is physical, thrumming with an electric chord pulled taut between our bodies. Concealed beneath the shadows, the temptation to do bad things doesn’t feel so reckless.
Reining in my impulses, I grit my teeth against that very need and slowly lower my hand from her mouth, just enough for her to drag in a breath. Now that I have her trapped, it’s impossible to release her.
I slide my gloved fingers along the delicate curve of her jawline until I reach the back of her neck. Thumb braced to the soft space beneath her chin, I tilt her face up to mine. “Why are you still here.”
“Because you need me,” she says in a rush of breath. Her strained swallow works the digastric muscle of her jaw against my palm, and it’s entirely too arousing.
The heat of her skin reaches me through the sheer fabric of her clothes, and my nostrils flare. “The truth,” I demand.
“Jesus, Orion.” Her voice cracks softly.
“That is the truth. You need me. And I need—” She breaks off.
Her gaze searches my face, a hint of vulnerability slipping into hers.
“I need this to work. I’ve spent years studying compulsions in the darkest minds.
I came here because of you, because I thought you might be the one person who’d understand this obsessive drive.
I just need the ideal patient to prove my approach. ”
My jaw tightens as I assess her, my gaze drifting lower as I ease my hand aside. Even in the dark, I can make out the faded pattern of bruises lining her throat. A feral anger grips me as I imagine her conducting her approach with someone else.
“The ideal patient,” I repeat, dry amusement lacing my tone. “And your method involves you spreading your legs on a desk, tempting me to tear my fucking glove off with my teeth and sink inside you. Is that it?”
She releases a shaky breath. “Is that what you wanted to do?”
Her thighs squeeze together, and I make a rough sound. “Fuck me.” Helplessly compelled, I skim my gloved fingers along the column of her throat. “Tell me who put thse bruises on you,” I demand, voice lowering to a seductive pitch.
Her lips tremble. “That’s personal.”
“Mmm.” Tenderly, I sweep her hair aside, dropping my mouth dangerously close to her ear. “When I find out, I’m going to make it very fucking personal, little archer.” Pulling back, I align my fingertips with the marks. My hand is too large—but not hers. They’re self-inflicted.
“God damn,” I mutter harshly. I breathe her in until my lungs ache, letting her arousing scent and fiery defiance sear. “You’re also a little twisted, Dr. Holbrook.”
She holds my gaze, and as I fall deeper into her, a dark vein threads the golden arc of her teal eyes. “I prefer unafraid. Daring. Challenging convention.”
I nod slowly. “Cunning. Manipulative. Torching those incorruptible ethics to the ground.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Her eyes search me, and I’m arrested by the way those captivating lashes feather her cheekbones as she settles that branding gaze on my mouth.
A low groan betrays my conflict. “So, working with someone gifted in their field really meant you needed a deviant with a ruined reputation. That’s your ideal patient.”
She arches an eyebrow. “You’d rather I lie to you?”
A wild flame lashes through me, every muscle strained as I hold something feral back. Collins flinches with a wince of pain, just a small clench of her features, and I realize how tight my grip has become along the sides of her throat.
I loosen my hold a fraction and turn my head, latching onto where I have her arm pinned, to the inked constellation peeking above the web of my glove. Fixated, I tenderly rub my thumb over her inner wrist.
“Are you experiencing a physical reaction, Orion?” She arches her back, her breasts making contact with my chest and setting off a riot inside my body.
“Collins—” I say her name in warning, my cock straining against the closure of my pants. I swear, if she pushes her hips forward even another inch, I’ll come undone right here.
On instinct, I release her and retreat a forceful step back. Her cautious eyes remain fused to mine as I slip my hand into my pocket, seeking the instrument there that demands my attention every bit as much as her consuming stare.
She touches her neck, gingerly feeling the echo of my rough touch. “I know what happened in my office…things got intense.” The hesitation in her voice alludes to more than the heated exchange between us.
With a guarded step forward, she continues, “You had a right to question my method. I admit, I expected more resistance from you. And the way I handled it…” She pauses, bites her lip. “That wasn’t exactly ethical on my part.”
I huff a derisive breath, my gaze descending to the fitted curve of her skirt, traitorously wondering if she’s wearing panties right now. No one’s ever challenged my goddamn sanity more.
“But then I realized,” she presses on, “your anger wasn’t fueled by any threat to have you removed, or even committed. None of that truly threatens you.” She swallows, the subtle motion revealing her vulnerability.
Teeth gritted, I resist pressing a hand to my forehead, where the aching pressure builds. Goddammit, I’m trying to show her some mercy here—trying to preserve even a sliver of humanity by not hurting her before I’m forced to.
Everything about Collins is unknown. And a selfish part of me wants it to remain that way.
The liminal space between now and when the sun eclipses thins dangerously with each ticking second.
“I threaten your sense of order, your control. It’s the uncertainty you fear.” Her voice softens into a gentle coax. “But we don’t have to rush this, Orion. We can take it slow.”
I swipe a gloved hand across my mouth, stifling a groan. “And what would I get out of this,” I demand to know.
Her lips curl in a suggestive taunt, as if the answer should be obvious.
“I can help you safely explore those darker, intrusive urges. The ones I know you’re becoming exhausted from constantly fighting.
” She licks her lips, wetting them with a tempting tease.
“Satisfy your impulses, find some relief without consequence.”
My answering smile is callous. “And when you’re not satisfied with the results, you sign your form to have me removed.”
She tilts her head, a daring challenge surfacing amid the defiant glint of her eyes. “Then don’t leave me unsatisfied.”
Fuck. Playing with fire.
A blistering heat threads my spine, my jaw locking tight.
Beneath my insatiable hunger lies another, more insidious fear that, once I start touching her, I won’t have the strength to stop.
Unable to deny the desire to find that perfect symmetry with her body, to touch every inch of her, to discover that rightness over and over until I’ve driven myself maddeningly past the brink—breaking her by sheer, brutal need.
Hell, I could fuck us both into the grave, surrendering the will to care once I’ve thoroughly ruined her and whatever remains of my fractured humanity.
She has no idea how dangerous this is.
Reflexively, my grip tightens around the astrolabe in my pocket. “Furthering your research, testing your therapy. This is what you need.” The question is achingly familiar, an echo of what I once asked her before, stranded together on a rock. And now, just as then, I cage my breath, waiting.
A well of relief floods her eyes. “Yes,” she says simply.
The soft admission ricochets around the hollow of my chest. And I wonder if I can give her this—what she’s asking of me.
If I can offer her more than a mere distraction.
Some form of comfort, pleasure. Make her happy, even.
For however fleeting. At least, until the moment she expends her last breath.
If nothing else, I want to give her this.
“I don’t know why you’re fighting it,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s not unethical if we both consent.”
I can’t help the low chuckle that escapes, harsh and humorless. Nothing is more unethical than fucking the woman you will annihilate.
A violent pang resonates deep in my chest, and I drag a hand down my face, defeated. “You don’t know what you’re consenting to,” I mutter beneath my breath.
A tremble rolls through her slight body before she clears her throat. “Communication is important—” She breaks off as I turn abruptly and walk away. “Orion, you can’t leave.”
“Stop me.”
“You’re scared you’ll hurt me,” she says, and it comes out a little breathless.
My steps falter. I hang my head, take a measured breath. Knowing I’ll regret looking at her, I’m torn as I’m forced to turn her way.
She tosses her head, clearing the strands from her eyes. Her teeth scrape over her bottom lip, a nervous tell. I let the silence stretch, forcing her to fill it. “I know you’re scared you’ll hurt me,” she says again, “but I’m not. You won’t.”
Dammit, she’s so achingly beautiful just standing there, daring me to imagine how much pressure to apply as I map her body. To discover the sounds she makes as I test which spots make her shiver and the ones that make her breath catch.
I let my eyes fall over her as I drag my thumb across my bottom lip, at war with my own mind.
I want her.
I can’t remember ever wanting anything so badly. My cells ache to consume her the way gravity consumes starlight, extinguishing it all at once in one violent collapse.
And that’s what terrifies me.
The shadows encroach, staining my gray matter with a dark residue, creeping in at the edges and corrupting every thought.
“Orion.”
With just the use of my name, she pulls me out of my conflicted thoughts.
A flash of something hot and aroused courses through her, and I’m drawn to that blazing current of my fire sign, even more curious why she’s so desperate to convince me that she’s not frightened when I can sense her fear.
Beneath those buttons that fasten all the way to the top of her collar.
Beneath the brave, fearless mask she wears is something so intoxicating it threatens to strip me of all reason.
Her fear is tangible.
Delectable.
Collins is quivering with it, the same way she was in her office. Even if the violent and deviant facets of my nature intrigue her, they very much terrify her.
With a quick move to conceal her nerves, she swipes the rest of her hair off her shoulder. “I heard a piano earlier, from down the hallway. Was that you?”
A knowing smirk twists my lips at her obvious tactic. Her question is tentative yet devious, prodding me. My sexy archer just doesn’t miss.
“Tell me how you got the bruises,” I counter with my own demand as I eye her neck. We share a similar hunger, and I want to hear her say it.
She wets her lips, rolls them. Each action slow, her avoidance deliberate, bringing my undivided attention to her mouth. Whatever unknown force she commands, it affects my matter, it affects me, charging the space between us with our own dark electromagnetism.
A hint of a smile touches her lips as she holds her ground. “Some answers are best discovered through arduous research. Wouldn’t you agree, Dr. Night? That is, if you’re up for the challenge.”
Once again, she’s tempting the demons to come out and play. And fuck, I’m weary of holding them back.
My muscles corded tight, I’m barely restrained as I say, “And if I do hurt you.”
A defiant spark ignites her eyes. “I’ll stop you.”
Fuck.
The illicit image of Collins fighting me torches whatever shred of restraint I held fast to. I see the fire come to life in her, that fury—and I’m ravenous to taste it.
All this time, I had no idea how frozen I’d become. Empty, desolate. Suspended in a void of darkness. Until the heat of her fiery, consuming nature cracked the confining layer of ice.
I need the danger, the rush.
Now I need her.
Nothing has ever felt more dangerous.
To my own fucking detriment, I take a step forward, then another, gradually lessening the distance to her. The sliver of air separating our bodies animates, molecules begging to be brought together.
I hold her gaze, and something heady passes between us as her seductive melody stirs my atoms into a frenzy, the moment between us magnetic.
The willpower to fight this force goes up in flames.
It’s fucking written in the stars. From the moment Collins entered my orbit, there was one thing I understood unequivocally:
She was mine.
She belonged to me.
I take her hand in mine and lead her into the depths of my observatory.