Chapter 9 Antimatter
Antimatter
The soul came to being at the same time as the sky.
— PLATO
ORION
As the sun falls behind darkened clouds that keep Stonehurst shrouded in a perpetual melancholic gloom, the stream of students begins to dwindle.
Clusters of them split off through the colonnade, making their way to the library and professor office hours, while I wait for the one person who will ruin my day.
From where I’m parked, I have a clear view of the West Quad. In the center, a scattering of burnt-orange leaves dusts the ground around a dramatic concrete fountain of Urania.
Every evening like clockwork, Collins crosses through this courtyard. The anticipation to catch a glimpse of her hasn’t only derailed my routine for the past two weeks, it’s consumed my every waking moment as she incessantly invades my thoughts.
Reflexively, I curl my hand into a fist, inflaming the healing first-degree rope burn. Triggering the pain has become a compulsion to offset the torment of reliving that fragment of time where I lifted her into my arms, experiencing the feel of her body against mine.
The obsessive loops are a consequence of my defective gray matter. A glitch I’ve learned to coexist with. Yet this is the first time I want to take a surgical saw to my own damn brain and cut her out like an infectious disease to make the compulsive thoughts of her cease.
When I see her emerge from the arched walkway, I’m rewarded with the sweetest hit of relief. Like craving a drug for too torturously long, and finally getting that fix.
“Fuck me,” I mutter beneath my breath, scrubbing a hand over my face. She’s so beautiful, it physically hurts. She’s wearing a sexy, tight skirt, scarf and stockings. My black umbrella swings from her wrist, which sends another shot of satisfaction through me.
I keep waiting for the sight of her to become less startling, like if I subject myself to the torture enough, I’ll build up a tolerance—but I’d rather just mainline her straight into my vein.
It’s not enough.
Expelling the ache from my lungs, I cradle my helmet against me and crank my Triumph, drowning out the notes of her agonizing tune.
The loud rumble grabs her attention, evident by the little jump of her shoulders, and I can’t help the smirk stealing across my face as our eyes clash. I’ve been caught watching her, and I have no desire to stop.
While I’ve yet to confront Leo, I have zero intentions of participating in his bullshit assessment scheme.
I was sure Collins received this message when I failed to show in her office. But then there she was once again this afternoon, seated in the back row of my hall, a defiant smile twisting her pretty lips in challenge.
Stopping my fucking heart.
Watching me with those fierce eyes, absently licking those lips as if she’s oblivious to the havoc she wreaks. Her mere presence exerting a gravitational pull over me to affect the trajectory of my lectures, my thoughts.
Inescapable.
Balancing my weight on the bike, I shove the helmet over my head and knock the kickstand back, my gaze locked on Collins as she crosses the courtyard amid the stragglers of students.
I squeeze the clutch and shift into first, giving the engine a hard rev before I start to ease out of the spot. From my peripheral, I watch her abandon the sidewalk and stalk my way.
An unwanted warmth unfurls deep inside my chest. Pulse thundering, I kill the engine and lower the kickstand, the vibration of the motorcycle lingering in my veins.
“You never showed for our session,” she accuses as she reaches me.
I leave the tinted visor down. “I assumed saving your life earned me enough points to call this farce off.”
A trace of guilt touches her eyes before she blinks the emotion away. “And again, thank you,” she says. “But I thought we had an understanding. I can only be patient for so long. One way or another, I’m getting the evaluation done, which leaves me no choice but to attend your classes—”
“You’re beautiful.”
Her mouth parts, and I revel in the way her expression opens, wavering between stunned and offended, as though she’s battling which to feel.
“What I mean is…you’re a distraction, in my lectures,” I say, but my confession lacks the utter truth burning through me.
How a fucking quasar now pales compared to the bright bands I glimpse in her eyes.
How I’ve never, not once in my existence, been rendered speechless until I met those beautiful, starry eyes across my lecture hall.
“You really have no filter.”
“None,” I admit honestly. “When you’re sitting in my hall, I have a hard time focusing on anything other than you, Collins. This is a dilemma.”
The actual dilemma is the fact that, no matter how many times I rerun the algorithm or recalibrate the predictive modeling, the outcome remains unchanged.
In Shorehaven on November 30th, beneath the shadow of the solar eclipse, I will kill Collins Rayne Holbrook.
And while I’m under no illusion of the monstrous acts I commit in the name of science, being forced to spend time with her beforehand feels especially heinous, like some sick, twisted penance.
The palest blush dusts her cheeks as she tugs her gray scarf high around her neck. “This is highly inappropriate, and sexist. Blaming a woman for your inability to deliver a proper lecture.”
Beneath the sweet cadence of her voice is an edge that provokes me, rousing a desperate yearning to slice through this dull pretense between us and name whatever this infuriating feeling is so I claim it.
Smother it.
“You think my lectures are lacking.” Amused, I let a crooked smile frame my mouth.
Her only response is a slightly elevated brow.
“I suppose they are when compared to anything beneath a canopy of stars amid crashing waves. Life in peril, and all that.”
My ego soars when I earn a pretty smile. “Being charmed amid dangerous conditions by a devastatingly attractive astrophysicist does set the bar rather high.”
My whole body is one white-hot flame. “Damn, I’ve always been my own worst enemy.” I give a shrug. “Regardless, it’s more than your physical appearance. It’s just you, starling.”
She levels me with a vulnerable look that is so damn beautiful, I swear the air crackles with static to back my claim.
“Remove your helmet,” she says.
I hold her intense stare through the visor, waiting a painstaking three seconds longer before I relent. Pushing upright, I pry the helmet off and rest it on the fuel tank, then run my gloved palm over my disheveled hair.
She openly inspects the planes of my face, and I feel the press of her gaze as though she reaches out to touch me.
The breeze sends layers of her hair across her eyes to break the connection before she hooks the strands behind her ear, her cuff riding up to reveal the archer across her wrist. “Are you saying these things to make me too uncomfortable to return to your lecture?”
“Are you uncomfortable?”
She doesn’t answer right away. “No.”
I drape my arms over my helmet. “Then I hardly see any point in stopping.”
“You don’t?” Her gaze lowers to my gloved hand, and the sharp remark practically impales me. “What’s the point in seducing me if you’re unable to take it further.”
“Fuck, ouch.” My hand curls into a tight fist behind my helmet, agitating the burn. “Don’t need to spar in a game of chess when you can strike with a gambit like that,” I say, letting anger lick my wound.
Her nude lips curl into a gentle smile, and my heart clenches in my chest. “You need to be in my office tomorrow.” The way she says need digs beneath my skin. “If you don’t want me in your lectures, that is.”
“Not sure you’re in a position to threaten ultimatums.”
“Do you feel threatened?”
My tongue coasts across my bottom lip. “You don’t want to hear what I’m feeling right this second, Collins.”
My words provoke a shiver, and despite my best effort at restraint, my gaze hungrily tracks over her, rousing a buried desire.
I absolutely feel threatened by her.
“Intrusive thoughts are meant to be kept silent, Orion.”
“Trust me when I say, I’m holding the worst of them back.”
Those teal eyes blaze with intensity as a haunting chord trembles through me, and suddenly, this feels too dangerous.
When observing an event, the observer cannot interfere.
I break the hold of her gaze and grip the handle, leather stretched across my knuckles. “You can tell Leo his scheme failed,” I say, jaw tense. “No need to loiter in my lectures any longer, Dr. Holbrook. You’re relieved of your obligation.”
My words reek of a finality that bears down on my chest with a crushing weight. I pull in the clutch and start the engine, desperate to put distance between us.
She reaches over and turns the ignition off. I follow her arm up until I reach her face. My nostrils flare as I inhale the subtle vanilla scent and a spicy floral note beneath the exhaust fumes.
Her gaze lingers on my gloved hands, and I realize she deliberately avoided touching me. “That’s a dangerous thing,” I say, my tone dropping a register. “Touching a man’s bike.”
She pulls away and adjusts her scarf higher, and a flame licks through me at the deviant thought of gripping the fabric and wrapping it tight.
“Yeah, someone once told me words are less effective, or something like that,” she says, dragging me from my debased thoughts, and a devious smile curls my lips. “I’m not Banner’s puppet. I thought convincing him to agree to your terms would earn me enough points for you to trust me.”
I make a sound of amusement in the back of my throat. So Collins is behind Leo relocating the research team. I wonder if she realizes he’s only agreeing to her terms for the same reason he’s agreeing to mine—to get what he wants in the end.
The sudden thought that Collins might be trying to leverage him stirs something curious within me, and I drum my fingers against my helmet. “You’re a Sagittarius and you can’t swim. That’s all I know about you.”