Chapter 7 Chemical Attraction #3
I can’t resist being lured in by the pattern, attempting to count the dark fringe of her lashes every time they sweep her high cheeks. There’s a symmetry there that quiets the vicious stirring, a temptation to get lost to it.
As the celestial bodies burn in the black sky above, the ocean takes a calming breath, momentarily weary of its assault on the shore.
That weariness is reflected in the woman next to me, in the way her chest struggles to rise with every inhale, her eyes fight to remain open after each slow blink. Though hypothermia isn’t a real concern, it’s cruel to keep her out here much longer.
Expelling a lengthy sigh, I slip down from the boulder.
She watches me cautiously, panic flaring at the fear of being left alone.
The cold water rises around my waist, and I hold out my hand to her. “Come here.”
Another wave crashes, sending a spray across her face, yet she remains frozen. “I really am terrified of water.”
“I’ll carry you.”
Her gaze shifts to my hand held outstretched. There’s a weighted beat of hesitation, where she battles to leave the obvious unsaid, before she’s inching carefully toward me and slipping her trembling hand into mine.
“Where can I touch?” The unsure, breathy cadence of her question detonates between us the moment my arms wrap around her.
As her weight settles against me, the feel of her soft curves molding seamlessly against my rigid frame—Christ, I swear the adrenaline rushing my heart has enough force to tear my atoms apart.
The darkest of energy at play.
Every vertebra in my spine locks into place, bracing as I wait for the inevitable alarm to rattle my bones before I take my next breath. Jaw clenched tight, I haul her away from the rock, my senses assaulted by the onslaught of sensations rising more furiously than the tide.
“Just link your arms around my neck,” I tell her through gritted teeth as I curl her toward my chest.
Feet sinking into the sand, my body planked against the rushing water, I’m struck by the rightness of her in my arms, unable to move. Yet somehow, when her arms gently curl around my shoulders, I take that first step out of the quicksand.
She rests her cheek against my shoulder, and fucking matter ceases to exist. Everywhere her body touches sets off a riot of sparks, a frenzy of heated currents chasing adrenaline through my bloodstream.
All I hear is the harmonic sound of her breath blending with the chorus of waves. The chords of her soft exhales become a tender caress over my neck, her shivers an aesthetic prelude echoed in the hollow of my chest.
The waves lash and batter, breaking against our bodies with each violent swell. We’re nearly rocked under, but I keep her bound in my arms, refusing to lose her to the dark waters.
Like navigating a treacherous maze, I wade through the narrow chasms between boulders until we surface clear of the ripping tide.
The darkness howls around us as we cross the shore, my course guided by the pale light cast from the looming structure atop the cliff. I continue to cross the beach, the ocean a muted roar beneath whipping wet wind, mercifully silencing my very dangerous, diverting thoughts.
Even after I hit the loose sand, I keep her clutched against me, convinced we won’t reach the pier in her weakened state. Ahead, I can just make out the Eventide—the Zodiac research vessel—bobbing near the tall pilings extending over the cresting waves, and I slow my steps.
“You can put me down,” Collins says, and I’m acutely aware of her hand placement. How, if she shifts her wrist even a millimeter higher, her skin will make contact with mine.
My breaths saw through my constricted lungs. “Are you staying at the residence hall?”
I think of her trekking through town in the dark. Wet, alone. Defenseless. And that irrational flame of anger licks through me, hot and violent.
“I can stay in my office,” she says. “I have a change of clothes there and a sofa. It should be fine for tonight.” She tips her head back, offering a concerned glance. “Dr. Night, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I bite off the lie as I climb the steps onto the pier. “What unit is yours?”
Astonishment lights her eyes. “You can’t carry me all the way there.”
“Is that a challenge?” I curl her tighter to my chest and look down into her face, a sly smirk slanting my mouth.
I swear, I would’ve fought the fucking ocean to carry her across if that’s what it took.
“Please don’t make this more awkward,” she says under her breath. “I’m already embarrassed enough.”
Relenting, I lower her bare feet to the weathered planks of the pier.
She slips out of my reach to adjust her clothes, and I take a step back where I can make her out clearly, shamelessly imprinting a visual of her in that havoc-inducing blouse.
“Don’t feel embarrassed,” I tell her. “If you haven’t spent time around the ocean, you can’t be expected to predict its behavior.”
She swipes the tangled strands of hair from her face, taming the wild tresses over her shoulder. “Predicting behavior is typically what I’m good at, but thank you.”
“Oh, don’t thank me,” I say, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “I’m not chivalrous. Saving damsels in collusion with Leo has a price, and I plan to collect.”
She arches a delicate eyebrow. Whatever buoyant relief she may have felt a moment ago vanishes from her expression. “Information I’m sure to regret sharing with you, Dr. Night.”
“Call me Orion.” I fold my arms over my damp chest. “We can drop formalities, given we escaped near death together.”
Despite her exhausted state, a fleeting smile touches her full lips before she levels me with a suspicious look. “Out there—” she nods toward the dark shore “—I’d like to believe that was all just to rile me on purpose.”
“You did ask for a distraction,” I say, not wanting to give her a complete lie. “It was a choice between boring you with ocean tides, or risking your cute fist smashing my face.”
She narrows her eyes, and I send her a wink.
Her beautiful smile hits me right in the chest. “I’m no longer in need of a distraction, thank you.” Her teeth begin to chatter, and she hugs her arms around her wet blouse as she moves past. Gripping one hand on the railing, she starts the ascent up the steps of the bluff.
I frown at her slow progress. Catching up to her easily, we reach the landing together, where an iron gate opens to a winding path that leads toward the university grounds.
Collins pauses before the gate, fatigue weighing her shoulders. The breeze whips around her body to steal my breath at the ethereal sight of her framed by the Gothic tracery.
“It’s a shame, though,” she says, and I cock my head curiously. “Out there on the ocean, with the dark secluding us, a canopy of stars above. You missed a prime opportunity to impress me with tales of the constellations.”
“Hmm…” I step close. “If I wanted to seduce you, Collins, I wouldn’t resort to something as cliché as the stars.”
“I said impress, not seduce.” She turns, but pauses to say, “What would you use?”
Gaze drifting slowly down her body, I drag my tongue across my bottom lip. “Not words.”
A challenge crackles in the condensed air between us, daring me to take another bold step forward, finding it exerts more energy to stay apart from her.
The chemical attraction blazing between us burns hotter than colliding atoms in the heart of a star. A pang of caution flares in my chest, and I know I should stop this—but standing here, clothes soaked, wind freezing my skin to ice, my body is on fire.
Her throat works with a swallow. “Before you confront Dr. Banner, allow me one session,” she says, the appeal softening her tone.
Leaning in, I rest my hand on the gate latch. “Ah, but if you can’t get inside here”—I tap my temple— “there’s no chance you’ll find me a danger.”
A shiver rocks through her at our proximity. “If you’re not a danger, then you have nothing to worry about.” Her shimmering gaze searches mine. “So are you, Orion—a danger?”
She shouldn’t look at me like that, so enticing—like tempting a starved animal deprived too long of a meal. My fingers grip the latch. Hard. “That depends entirely on what you consider dangerous.”
Something destructive fires through my veins. Before I act on impulse, her beautiful smile unfurls, and she says, “Goodnight, Orion.”
Hearing my name in her breathy voice… Fuck, the damage is done.
It will never be enough.
I press a measure closer and unlatch the gate, lifting it three times to offset the disturbing urges lashing at my skull. “Just so we’re clear,” I say, drawing her gaze once more. “I see how you look at me, Collins.”
There’s the faintest hitch in her breathing. She brings a hand to her chest, and I catch sight of the delicate constellation along her wrist.
Playing with fire.
She makes me feel more than reckless as she gazes up at me, expectant, waiting. I force a hard swallow, lost in those eyes full of dust and starlight.
“Goodnight, Collins,” I whisper roughly near her ear and push the gate open, allowing her to escape.
Chest tight, I watch her drift away, the night stealing her from my vision until she’s absorbed by the dark.
In astrophysics, anything dark is simply unknown.
And Collins Holbrook is a dark, dark unknown.
The warning banging furiously inside my skull cautions just how fucking hazardous this is, yet it doesn’t stop me from wanting to chase this feeling right over the steepest cliff.
Hell, long before she called out, I was already on the edge, barely hanging on by the tips of my fingers.
● | ∥ φ ★
It’s late by the time I return to the observatory. Everything is exactly how I left it, and yet nothing feels the same. Irrevocably altered by one single moment, an event powerful enough to distort space and time.
I set the astrolabe on the desk and peel off a worn glove, abruptly halted as the monitor catches my attention.
The screen has gone dark—all except for a pale line of text. An illuminated name that stalls my breath.
“Goddammit,” I breathe, pulse crashing through my veins.
For a long, numb beat, I can only stare, disbelief and dread freezing me in place until an incredulous laugh scrapes free of my throat.
Doubt claws at me, questioning chemical attraction and gravity and my own fucking mind.
Whether what I felt was even real, or only this ravenous void that devours everything that dares to get too close.
Fury coiling my muscles, I lean in and kill the screen.
Tearing off my other glove, I reclaim the star-taker, its comforting weight settling into my ruined palm. Tempted for the first fucking time not to turn my eyes to the hunter in the sky, I keep my gaze trained down to where Ophiuchus rises.
The thirteenth constellation.
My thumb sweeps the empty groove where the rule should rest on the star-taker, noting the absence with a vicious pang. My grip tightens on the instrument as the echo of her melody fuses with crashing waves and howling winds and the staccato rhythm of her heartbeat.
In search of some order, my fingers tap a rigid count against the brass. Twelve beats in sequence. I start to repeat the compulsion—until the twitch of my ring finger adds a faint tap.
Thirteen.
The undeniable presence of an anomaly, syncing to that fractured cadence.
Brass bites into my flesh, and I invite the pain as blood spills hot into my burning palm.
It’s a bittersweet truth of astronomy, that we can gaze into the brilliance of a star, observe its endless beauty, only to realize that its light is a mere echo, reaching us long after the source has burned away.
“Fuck,” I curse as the fiery ache consumes.
If all I can think about is kissing Collins whenever she’s near, how the hell am I supposed to kill her.