Chapter 12 #2
The weight of my stare should frighten her. “I am.”
“Show me.”
The way she says it—so fearless, unflinching—stirs my blood hot with a vicious temptation. The glow of the viewing table bathes her, casting faint light over the constellation inked along her wrist, the archer’s arrow trained on me.
Like an event horizon surrounding the singularity of a black hole, once Collins and I cross this threshold together, we enter a point of no return.
My gaze narrows on her, predatory. “What if I can’t let you go after you know my secrets,” I say as I maneuver around the table.
She watches me, mirroring my steps, moving forward until we’re on a slow collision course. “Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
My pulse slams through my veins. An electric charge arcs between us. My little fire sign is fucking determined to incinerate me right on the spot with the seductive way she licks her lips, the sinful gleam igniting her beautiful eyes.
Fire is such a destructive force.
Accepting my torturous fate, I say, “Never claim I didn’t warn you.” Then I lead her toward the spiral stairs and anchor my hand to the rail, letting her ascend first.
Once she reaches the dome, she stalls on the landing, her gaze sweeping across the instruments. “Orion. This isn’t what I was expecting.”
A reluctant smile tugs at my mouth. I clasp the back of my neck, my chest tight at the awe in her voice. “You were expecting a madman’s laboratory,” I say, moving toward the central console.
She doesn’t remark, her attention drifting over the brass orrery, watching the orbit of each planet and moon. Then she glances at the armillary spheres near the blackboard covered in tensor equations. Archaic relics contrasted against modern equipment.
“You really are determined to preserve the past,” she says absently.
Having her in my space should trigger every single compulsion, yet it’s curiously arousing.
I flex my fingers, tempted to remove my gloves, let her sink into my skin.
A warning spike of adrenaline crashes through my veins.
The gloves are also necessary to prevent observer interference.
I hike the cuff of my glove higher instead.
Leaning over the controls, I input the coordinates, and the telescope emits a hum. From the edge of my vision, I see Collins flinch at the sudden sound. She spins toward the telescope as it repositions and locks into place.
“This is where you conduct your research?” she questions.
“Most of it.” I collect the aluminum ladder and wheel it around, bracing my foot on the bottom step before I extend my hand to her.
Her gaze drops to my gloved palm. “Have you always been left-handed?”
A deep chuckle escapes. “Have you always been this inquisitive? Hurry up before it’s gone.”
Sliding her palms down the length of her black skirt, she casts a look up at the Hand of God and takes a wary step closer. Collins places her hand in mine, allowing me to bring her onto the ladder.
“Wait—” She uses her free hand to slip off her heels, tossing her shoes to the concrete floor. “All right, Dr. Night. Where do you want me?”
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.
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.
That’s its nature.
Fear can be a catastrophic deterrent of our desires. Behind that fear I see warring within her is something fierce—want. Heady, unadulterated need. She craves something desperately. Maybe even bad enough to rival my own maddening pursuit.
She tips her head back farther, baring the enticing column of her throat, and my pulse riots. “No safewords,” she whispers, eyes locked with mine. “I trust you.”
Goddamn. That trust sings in her eyes, golden striations blazing like coronal flares despite the trembling waves of fear cresting over her—and that might be what finally wrecks me.
Whatever twisted entanglement responsible for our collision, it no longer matters. Whether it was my doing or hers that brought us to this point of no return.
There’s no escape—for either of us.
And yet, maybe it’s possible that here, with her melody infusing my head, in the one place where I maintain some sliver of control, I can test the boundary.
The thought burns to ash as she arches her hips. All it takes is the slightest brush of her body against my erection, and my restraint snaps.
“Fuck it.” I lower myself over her and lock my forearm around the small of her back, hauling her off the ladder. She instinctively locks her legs around my hips, annihilating the last of my control. “Let’s test the fuck out of your therapeutic approach, Dr. Holbrook.”