Chapter 21 Sound of Space #3
I can be what she needs.
“It does matter,” I tell her, impatience bleeding into my tone.
“You should’ve told me.” I catch the hem of her shirt, prying the material open once more and possessively splaying my hand over the length of her scar.
“You should’ve made me aware before you asked that of me in the observatory, knowing what could happen.
” The memory is a visceral assault of her body collapsing against mine, breath and heartbeat faltering.
“How could you tempt me to strangle you, knowing—”
“You wouldn’t even touch me,” she interrupts, chest rising against my palm.
“You wanted to. Yet you couldn’t, wouldn’t.
Shouldn’t.” Her tone turns mocking. “This entire time, you’ve been suffering these violent thoughts of me, and if you’d known about this—” She breaks off, lips trembling.
“Would you have ever allowed yourself to even look at me?”
At my intense silence, she nods knowingly. Then she tentatively lifts her hand to my chest, fingertips tracing the ink scored across my skin, the lines of the constellation—her constellation. Her eyes spear mine in haunting revelation. “Your mind must’ve truly been a tortured place.”
“And what if I had hurt you…or worse?” A fierce ache scalds my throat, and I swallow painfully as the warmth of her skin seeps into my palm. “How tortured do you think my fucked-up brain would be then?”
“God, Orion. If you think I’m so broken, why even bring me back?
” Her accusation slices through me, deep and anguished.
“Why drag me back to this? The constant pain, the relentless struggle, and the—” She draws a shuddering breath, eyes blazing.
“Do you even understand how fucking exhausting it is? Why not just let me go?”
The raw misery behind her demand levels me. As the fire fades behind her eyes, fury coils beneath my ribs—at her scars, at the answers they hold, at the terror of what they mean. And I’m viscerally enraged that, right this moment, I have no one to kill.
We stand beneath the fall of water, each drop a catalyst. Her hand braced on my chest, mine fused to hers, the silence between heartbeats stretching. Waiting for the next note, the next shattering revelation.
This space between us spans as eternal and infinite as the darkest void of space, terrifying in its utter silence.
And yet, even in the deepest reaches of these cold, dark places there is friction, vibration, heat—collision that births stars.
Her pulse, my breath. The shared current of touch. What’s needed to eliminate the distance and fear across this chasm of silence.
Her eyes burn with those heated bands of gold, bright enough to ignite my blood. A storm of desperation and desire churns within her eyes of dust and starlight. They beg something of me.
And god-damn, it reduces me to a wretched, base creature.
I grasp the waistband of her skirt with my right hand, pulling her flush against me.
“Fuck,” I hiss, immediately relinquishing my grip.
With a harsh exhale, I slap my hand against the tile and lean over her, letting the broken cadence of her heartbeat against my palm ground me.
“You can’t look at me like that,” I say near her ear, voice roughened by need. My thumb brushes a tender sweep across her skin. “You have no idea what you’re asking of me. I can’t deny you anything—so please…fuck, angel. Don’t ask this of me.”
Her head tips back, throat bared defiantly as her shimmering gaze meets mine, fierce and unyielding. “I know exactly what I’m asking,” she insists, though this time, her lips quiver with the challenge. A contradiction that rends my composure. “And I’m not that breakable.”
Her beautiful breasts rise with her quick breath as her hand slips down the wet plane of my chest, across my tense abdomen, slender fingers hooking beneath my waistband.
“Jesus—fuck, Collins. Don’t make me fuck you up against this shower wall.” Tendons corded in fire, I brace my hands on either side of her, caging her in and holding myself back in the same desperate move. “Don’t make me risk hurting you.”
I close my eyes against the intoxicating vision of her beneath me as her fingertips find the leather belt, making every muscle in my abdomen tighten. She needs proof—proof that I can see past the scars, beyond the broken places. To prove her accusation false.
With one word from her, I’ll surrender to this insatiable hunger. Becoming something more vile and depraved, even as I’ve just stolen her from the brink of death. Only there’s a crushing vise locking my ribs, the fear that this is where she exists, perpetually balancing on this hazardous edge.
She works the buckle loose, and I capture her arm, driving it above her head. Anchoring her to the tile, I press my fingers to the pulse point of her wrist, synching my internal count to each racing beat.
And fuck—
I’m ruined.
Just the feel of her restrained beneath me shatters any illusion I had of redemption.
“If you look at me like I am…” Her voice breaks as she tenses against my hold. “Like I’m just something damaged, something broken.” A sob catches in her throat as her fingers curl into a fist against my chest before she brings it down in a weak strike. “I have a bad heart, but I’m not…”
The anger fractures inside me, stripping away another layer of my defenses. Gently, I cover her fist with my hand, holding her there. I find her gaze, letting her anguish tear through me. All her pain, her exhaustion, her resignation.
“I have a bad heart, but I’m not broken,” she says, her voice faltering as she slips along the shower.
I drop to my knees and catch her, bracing her between my body and the wall.
Framing the back of her head, I cradle it against the tile, my other cupping her waist as I look up into her face.
“I know you’re not, baby. Fuck.” I press my forehead to her stomach, breathing her in deeply.
“You’re not broken. You’re mine,” I murmur the words fiercely.
“Your heart isn’t bad. It belongs to me.
” Pulling back just enough, I press a kiss to the soft space beneath her navel.
“You’re not broken. You’re mine. Your heart isn’t bad,” I utter this to her as my lips leave tender, desperate kisses as I trail upward, mapping a line of devotion along her body.
I continue to whisper these words, branding them into her skin, imprinting each one like a vow over every scar.
“You’re mine.” I kiss the pale line cleaving her breasts, dropping fervent kisses across her collarbone, her throat, her jaw, until I’m towering above her, killing the distance between us as I tip her head back.
“You are mine,” I murmur against her trembling lips. “And I will never let you go. Never lose you. I will always bring you back.”
She shakes her head lightly, eyes shimmering with aching vulnerability in the steamy low light.
“How can you say any of this when…” Her voice frays softly.
“I’ve been standing under the spray, half-naked, and you’ve barely looked at me.
Ever since you saw the scar, you don’t—” Her throat tightens visibly. “You don’t look at me the same.”
“Goddammit.” I grip her wrist and bring her hand to the front of my soaked pants, pressing her palm right against my aching, rock-hard erection straining beneath the zipper. “Does this fucking feel like I don’t want you?”
Her swallow is audible, her gaze flashing bright and needy as she meets mine, and god-fucking-dammit, I’m helpless as I surrender to her entirely.
“Use me,” I tell her, voice worn with desperation. “I don’t fucking care. If it means I get to taste even a drop of you—that I get to see your mouth go slack with pleasure, those beautiful eyes glaze with satisfaction…then just use me, angel.”
I grasp the high slit of her drenched skirt and drag it aside, my bare palm seizing the soft curve of her hip. I let my fingers taste the tempting, silky feel of her skin, making me goddamn feral, before I tear the thin fabric of her panties away.
“Spread your legs.” I issue the demand even as my thigh presses between hers, parting her open to me.
Her hands find leverage on my shoulders, blunt nails digging into muscle as I grip her hips, guiding her soaked heat into a slow grind against my thigh.
My left hand grasps the nape of her neck, fingers threading into her wet hair as I bring my mouth to her ear.
“Just don’t tempt me to do something worse… something I can’t take back.”
Controlling the motion of her hips, I rock her body in a slow, torturous rhythm, my jaw clenched against the sensual feel of her.
She shivers against my caged arms, her breathy moans dissolving into the saline rinsing between us, charged and electrified, becoming a flowing current.
We’re locked here, held captive within this quantum dance.
Molecules vibrating, frantically seeking connection.
An energy exchange between our bodies that demands more movement, heat, friction.
Touch.
A torn sound vibrates from her throat, and fuck—I know it’s not enough.
“It has to be enough,” I grit out, an involuntary, ardent demand falling from my mouth, and her answering whimper drops right to my groin as she drives a weak fist against my chest—as if trying to push me away and pull me closer in the same, bruising motion.
Her fury and pain and need all collide, fragmenting beautifully into raw, surrendering hunger.
I grasp her face, thumb sweeping her jawline as I stare down at her, our lips separated by a breath.
Her fingers dig into the drenched fabric of my open shirt, the smallest gesture pulling me inexorably closer.
Her touch drifts, fingertips tracing across my chest, tracking the stars of her constellation.
“I was always yours,” she whispers against my mouth. Beneath the steam, heat unfurls, almost unbearable. “And you’re mine,” she breathes. “You’re mine, Orion.”