Chapter 13
Nadia POV
The air in my lungs was hot, thin, and tasted of him.
When Killian’s mouth finally tore away from mine, the sudden vacuum of cold air against my swollen lips sent a violent shock through my nervous system.
I sat stranded on the high lip of the stainless-steel diagnostic table, my legs still parted around the heavy frame of his hips, my boots dangling inches above the rubber floor mats.
My chest rose and fell in ragged, frantic heaves. The fluorescent tubes overhead burned into my retinas, spinning in pale white halos.
Every nerve ending from my collarbone to the soles of my feet was firing at once, overwhelmed by a dizzying, liquid heat that made my head tilt back against the concrete wall.
My fingers were still knotted into the damp cotton at his shoulders, my knuckles aching from the force with which I had been clinging to him.
What did you just do?
The clinical armor I had spent four years constructing—the detachment, the diagnostic boundaries, the rigid calculations—lay shattered on the floor like dropped glass.
I pulled my hands back as if the fabric of his shirt were electrified. My palms hit the cold metal counter on either side of my thighs, the chill biting through my skin, grounding me just enough to realize how thoroughly exposed I was.
"Castaneda," I managed to say.
The syllable was a broken rasp, devoid of authority, scraping past a throat that felt parched.
I pushed against the steel, trying to slide backward, trying to drop my feet to the deck and put three feet of sterile air between our chests.
Killian didn't let me move.
His large hands, calloused and burning hot, shifted from the counter to clamp firmly over the tops of my thighs, right above my knees.
His fingers sank through the denim of my jeans, holding me anchored to the steel table with an unyielding, deliberate pressure that made my breath catch in my windpipe.
He didn't step back. He stayed wedged between my knees, his broad chest rising and falling in heavy, shuddering surges that brushed the front of my shirt with every exhale.
"Hold on," he grated, his voice a low, ruined rumble that vibrated against my sternum.
"Let me down," I whispered, my voice trembling with a panic that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the fact that my knees were shaking against his hips. "Session fifteen. We have thirty hours remaining. We have to calibrate the force plates."
* * *
Killian didn't look at the monitors. He didn't look at the closed laptop.
He lifted his head. His dark eyes were dilated into black pools, the amber flecks drowned in raw, unchecked hunger. A dark flush stained the sharp angles of his cheekbones, his jaw locked tight as he tracked the frantic, erratic rise of my chest.
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
My lips were bee-stung, wet, burning with the friction of his stubble.
Then, his eyes traveled lower. He tracked the furious pulse hammering in the hollow of my throat, beating so violently against the pale skin that the tendon was visibly twitching.
He looked at the way my hands gripped the cold steel behind me, knuckles white, fingers trembling in tiny, microscopic spasms I couldn't suppress.
His brow furrowed, the silver scar through his left eyebrow pulling tight.
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his right hand from my knee. His palm was broad, rough from years of composite hockey sticks and heavy iron bars, but when he brought his fingers to my neck, his touch was impossibly light.
He laid his thumb flat against the side of my throat, right over my carotid artery.
The heat of his skin against mine sent a jolt straight down into my belly. An involuntary gasp hitched in my chest; my shoulders locked, my thighs tightening around his hips in a sudden, defensive reflex.
Killian went stone-still, utterly motionless.
The heavy rise and fall of his chest hitched. He felt the wild, galloping terror of my pulse, felt the rigid tension locking my spine, felt the way my entire body was vibrating like a plucked wire under the simple weight of his hand.
His dark eyes snapped back to mine, sharp and dissecting.
"Nadia," he rasped.
The gravel in his voice had softened, stripped of its cruel mockery, replaced by a sudden, dangerous focus that pinned me to the table.
"Look at me."
I tried to turn my face toward the wall, shame burning hot along my jawline, but his fingers slid up, cupping the angle of my mandible with firm, unyielding pressure, gently forcing my chin back toward his face.
"Stop," I breathed, my eyelids fluttering as I tried to blink away the sting of sudden, overwhelming vulnerability. "Don't."
"You're shaking," he murmured, his thumb brushing slowly across the burning skin of my cheekbone.
"It's cold down here," I lied, though my skin felt like it was on fire.
Killian leaned in closer, until his mouth was inches from mine, his dark gaze boring straight through the fragile remains of my pride. He looked at my parted lips, at the rapid, shallow breaths escaping my chest, at the way I flinched when his knuckles brushed the hollow beneath my ear.
The realization hit him like a blindside check against the boards.
His pupils flared. The muscle in his throat worked on a heavy, dry swallow, his breath hitching in his chest.
"No one's ever touched you like that," he said.
It wasn't a question. It was a blunt, quiet statement that landed between us with the weight of an anvil.
* * *
A suffocating rush of heat swept up my neck, scorching my ears, my cheeks, my forehead. I dug my fingernails into the metal edge of the counter, desperate to find some shred of my usual razor-sharp defense.
"That's none of your business, Castaneda," I snapped, but the words were weak, breathy, devoid of teeth.
"Jesus Christ," he whispered.
The arrogance that usually armored him vanished, dissolving into a dark, terrifying reverence that took the air right out of the room.
He didn't mock me. He didn't laugh. He looked at me as if I were something sacred, something fragile and dangerous that had just been dropped into his scarred, violent hands.
His left hand rose, joining the other, his palms gently framing both sides of my face. His calloused thumbs swept across my cheekbones, catching the hot flush of my skin, tilting my head back until I had no choice but to look into the dark storm of his eyes.
"You've never done this," he rasped, his voice dropping into a register so low and rough it vibrated straight through my bones. "You've never let anyone get this close."
"Killian, please," I whispered, not even knowing what I was begging for—whether I wanted him to let me go or drag me right back into the fire.
"Look at you," he murmured, his forehead lowering until it rested against mine, his hot breath washing over my mouth in slow, heavy waves. "Sitting here looking at me like you're terrified, and you took my mouth like you were starving for it."
A broken whimper escaped the back of my throat. I hated the sound, hated how small it made me feel, but Killian’s thumbs only pressed firmer against my jaw, anchoring me in place.
"Good girl," he rumbled, the praise thick and dark, dripping with a raw, possessive authority that made my lower stomach knot in a violent, aching spasm. "Don't hide from me. Look at me."
My eyelids dragged open. My eyes locked onto his, wide and helpless, reflecting the dark intensity burning in his face.
"You're mine in this room, Nadia," he whispered, his lips grazing the corner of my mouth with agonizing slowness, testing the trembling softness of my skin without taking it. "Every reaction. Every breath. You give it to me."
My fingers reached out on their own accord, betraying my mind, curling into the black cotton of his shirt, bunching the fabric over his ribs. I didn't push him away. I held on, my forehead pressing harder against his, my breathing falling into the heavy, measured cadence of his own.
"We can't do this," I whispered against his lips, even as my body leaned into his warmth, seeking the heavy, solid weight of his chest against mine. "The grant. Your draft. Palmer—"
"Fuck Palmer," Killian growled softly, his hands sliding down from my face to wrap around my waist.
He pulled me forward, lifting me off the cold steel of the table, holding my body flush against his chest as his boots settled on the rubber mats.
He held me suspended for two long, dizzying seconds, letting me feel the absolute, unshakeable strength of his arms, before he gently set my boots onto the floor.
My knees buckled the instant my weight hit the deck.
Killian caught me effortlessly, his arm banding around my lower back, his other hand coming up to support the back of my neck. He held me pressed against his side until the trembling in my thighs eased, his mouth hovering against the hair at my temple.
"Session fifteen is done for the day," he commanded quietly, the gravel in his voice thick with a strange, fierce tenderness that terrified me far more than his anger ever had.
He didn't let go. He kept his arm locked around my waist, his thumb tracing the seam of my jeans, holding me inside his perimeter as the fluorescent lights hummed in the cold room.
The line hadn't just been crossed.
It had been rewritten in his voice, and there was no going back to the dark.