Chapter 18 Memento Mori #2
She sends me a sideways glance, unease etched in her drawn features. “Do you really, or are you just trying to get me alone, Dr. Night.”
The dark filaments stir, a devious lash against my fraying control. “If I admit to the latter, will you run?” I tighten my hold on her, her umbrella swaying between us.
She makes an amused, breathy sound that strokes my skin, dangerously arousing. “Unlikely.” The slow sweep of her tongue across her lips is torturous. “But only if you tell me why Banner calls you Rye.”
I suppress a smirk as I guide her down the shadowy corridor, the sound of the storm enveloping us. “I chose Orion for myself,” I tell her honestly, seeing no reason to keep secrets at this point. “After the accident, I wanted a new start.”
As we approach the observatory, my thumb settles over her inner wrist, brushing the stars inked there. I tap a soft rhythm against her pulse, each measured beat of my obsessive count syncing to the accelerating tempo of her heartbeat. My cadence, attuned to her melody.
Pausing just inside the entrance, I turn her way. “My legal name was Ryan before I changed it, but old habits die hard with Leo. He still uses his nickname for me.”
A spark of realization ignites within her eyes, a single glimmer of gold captured like a lone star. She blinks twice, breaking the spell, and then a beautiful smile unfurls across her lips.
I tilt my head. “What is it?”
She shakes hers gently. “Nothing.” Her free hand settles on my bicep, her warmth bleeding through the fabric of my sleeve. “Somehow, I just expected something more complicated. But I like this more.”
Control strained beyond its threshold, I pull her inside the facility.
Once I have her trapped in the dome, rain battering the sealed shutter overhead, the darkly lit interior bathing her in the softest glow, the last of my resistance snaps.
And in the seconds it takes to strip her of her jacket, I have her backed against the telescope pier, my gloved fingers speared into her hair.
I swipe my gloved thumb across her nude lips, hunger stirring the frenzied energy in my veins. I tilt her face up toward mine, a low growl emanating from deep in my throat.
“Every time I have you close, I can’t help but count the beats of your heart.” I edge another fraction closer, my free hand drawing her skirt higher as my knee presses her thighs apart. “Like how right now, your pulse is speeding past one-thirty, the beat climbing until your heart skips.”
Collins swallows, the broken cadence of her heartbeat accelerating wildly against my palm in defiance. She licks her lips slowly, seductively, a daring taunt. “Are you going to kiss me, Orion.”
My nostrils flare, the ravenous hollow inside waking. It takes all my fucking willpower not to collar her throat and seal my lips over hers, let gravity have its way.
When gazing into a nebula, you find these dark lanes—dense bands of cosmic, light-blocking dust, creating dark paths within the luminous cloud.
Staring into the depths of her eyes, those shimmering blue-green hues that reflect dust and starlight, I find those dark lanes there. Veils of shadow that obscure her light.
I graze the leather along the delicate skin beneath her eye, across the faint scatter of freckles. My voice lowers into an unyielding demand. “Remove your contacts, Collins.”
Her breath catches audibly, an involuntary sound that sends another surge of heat through my blood. For a brief moment, uncertainty and fear tangle within her. Then she reaches up, breaking my hold.
Her fingertips slip between her lashes, carefully removing one lens, then the other. She blinks to clear her vision, and when her unfiltered gaze connects with mine, it steals the air right from my lungs.
“There,” she says, rolling the lenses between her fingers before discarding them to the floor. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Dr. Night?”
She blinks again—once, twice—long lashes fluttering in a mesmerizing pattern to pull me deeper. I’m lost to the slate-gray depths, flecked with gold like the sky between dusk and twilight. In the liminal space around her pupil, a vein of shadow is spun through the molten light like a coronal flare.
A ragged breath escapes my aching lungs. “Very,” I say, my voice a gruff rasp as I capture her face, possessively tipping her head back as my lips defy the remaining span of air daring to keep us apart.
“Did I say you were beautiful,” I murmur, my body all but fused to hers. “I meant you devastate me, Collins.”
I study her like a fine work of art. The interplay of frail light and shadow washing her skin, captivated by the delicate contours, the intricate reliefs of her beauty. Nothing on this planet nor beyond has ever captivated me more.
“Were you happy these past months, even for a moment?” I ask her.
Those fleeting moments before the end—fuck, they’re beautiful. Every second spent with her has been breathtaking. I can only hope she’s felt even a fraction of what I have. That for her, it’s been enough.
She smiles, nodding slightly. “Yes, of course. I’ve been happy, Orion.”
I swallow down the aching chord that threatens to choke me. “Good.”
I know intimately the sounds she makes when she breaks with pleasure.
The way her thighs tremble, the slow, erotic tilt of her hips, the degree her spine arches in surrender.
I know the exact amount of tension to place at her throat to bring her to the brink, and how fragile she feels when she shatters in my arms. I know how seamlessly her body molds to mine when we lie on the floor beneath artificial stars, the breathy awe in her voice as she gazes on them.
I know the fury and sorrow she holds at bay.
The quiet desperation in the curl of her fingers when she begins to lose the fight against both.
I’ve memorized every moment, all of them, great and small. Every stolen second, every shared breath, every radiant smile, every wince of pain, every devastating frown—
every every every
—and I can’t be without them.
Without her.
Those lustrous eyes gaze up at me in anticipation, her lips parting, making my chest cave under the unbearable, torturous need for her. A rough groan escapes as I drag my thumb down the center of her mouth, knowing once I taste her, I won’t ever stop.
Like the ravenous void I’ve become, I’ll consume until there’s nothing left.
“But I did warn you, starling,” I whisper coarsely as I circle my fingers around her wrist and guide her arm toward the brass RA wheel, “that you should be fearful of celestial alignment.”
I flatten her wrist against the spoke and snap the cuff in place, locking her to the pier.
A flicker of confusion draws her features tight, twisting a sharp blade beneath my sternum.
“Orion, what—is this some game?” She yanks her wrist against the restraint. “We don’t have time for this. You’re going to miss your speech.”
I force myself to take a measured step backward. “I won’t leave you for long,” I assure her, retreating another painful step. “Just until it’s over.”
“Until what’s over?” she demands, testing the cuff again. “You can’t leave me like this. What are you talking about?”
“The eclipse.”
On reflex, she looks up at the sealed shutter. “I don’t understand—”
“This is the only way I can keep you alive, Collins.”
Her gaze falls back to mine, real fear breaking across her beautiful face. “Orion, please,” she breathes, her blinks coming faster. “You’re scaring me.”
The drum of rain grows louder in the tense silence between us. Collins jerks her wrist against the right ascension wheel, the harsh clank a strike against my bones. I fist my hands, tendons aflame as I fight the urges stretching my control.
“Whatever’s happening, you know I can help you. Just like the other night on the beach.” She licks her lips, desperation flaring behind her slate eyes. “But you have to talk to me. So we can figure out how—”
“I’ve tried,” I say, throat raw, another weak thread of control fraying.
“So many fucking times, in so many fucking ways. And, theoretically, I’m not sure this time will end any different.
” A bitter, self-deprecating laugh cracks as I drag a hand down my face.
“Fuck, Collins. You’ve consumed my every thought, become my every obsession.
My research—something that’s been my sole fixation—no longer even matters. ”
She stills, those intense eyes fused to mine, her chest rising and falling in rhythmic motion of the sea. “Your research,” she says slowly, unable to conceal the panic bleeding into her words.
“I swear,” I whisper harshly, “I’d destroy it all without hesitation if that would change anything, but—” I check my wristwatch, the creeping dials nearing position.
“But when the celestial bodies align in syzygy, I can’t be anywhere near you.
” I rake a hand through my hair, meeting her stricken gaze. “You just have to trust me.”
“Trust…that I won’t die.” The conflicted fear banked behind the turbulent swirl of gold and gray in her eyes doesn’t just devastate—it obliterates me.
A crushing reminder of my limitations, of my failures.
That the light I’ve been so utterly captivated by came from a star already gone, reaching me too late. A memento mori of the cruelest kind.
Yet death takes many forms. Even if I manage to keep her breathing, I’ve already lost her.
A chord of anguish thrums through my constricted veins. Fury strains my muscles as I shove a hand into my pocket and swipe my gloved thumb over the worn brass of the astrolabe, unable to smother the licking flames of regret.
I’ve contaminated everything.
And standing here before her, confronted with that undeniable truth, I know there’s no coming back from this. But I can live with that. I can accept this consequence, so long as she’s breathing.
It’s not enough.
“It has to be enough,” I say through gritted teeth.