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The crack in his voice broke her, and Kaia was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. “Is that why you told them to Upload me? You felt guilty?”
“Mostly I just felt selfish.” He shrugged. “I wanted to be able to find you again.”
Kaia swallowed the lump in her throat. “I was lying to you the entire time, Orion. How can we ever do this again? How could you ever trust me? And how… how could I ever trust you not to kill me if I screw up again?”
Orion cocked an eyebrow. “Planning any more long-term suicide attempts?”
“No, but—”
“What about your brother?” Orion’s eyes searched hers, pinging between them.
“When he died, I swore I’d find a way to Upload and be with him someday. I just imagine him all alone out there, because of me. I wanted to do it as soon as I could. It was so fucking selfish.” Kaia wavered. “Finding New Earth and escaping the hellhole of Artega Seven was Ahton’s dream. He’dwantme to do it. Find a way to help the others left there too. Hell, he’d want me to helpeveryoneliving like we were. I think part of me always knew that. I’ve just been ignoring it since it seemed so unobtainable. So much harder than just dying. Butyoucan find it, Orion, I know it. I just don’t know that it can be with me.”
“Look.” Orion pressed both hands firmly on her shoulders, halting the protest rising on her lips. “I get what you did now, and why. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking destroy me every time I think about it. But you tried to tell me. I kept brushing you off because I was preoccupied. We have a lot of shit to work through here. We both know how to twist a good knife in each other, but I was the one who hurt you the most. That regen chamber… That wasn’t all for what Loran did. Canyouever forgive that?”
Kaia returned the look he'd given her earlier. “Planning any more violent outbursts?”
He clenched his jaw, not indulging the joke that really wasn’t one. “I… You know what I am, Kaia. Being with me is never going to be without certain pain points. But I guarantee it won’t be likethatagain. I won’t let myself be like that again.”
There was sincerity in his eyes, and nothing inside her could find a hint of doubt to latch on to.
“On top of all that,” he continued, “we’re in the middle of goddamn nowhere, having just forcefully embarked on what may be a suicide mission. I don’t want to do it without you, Kaia. I don’t think I can. Can you?”
Kaia brought a hand to his chest, nervous fingers picking at a thread in his synthleather suit. She realized the most painful thing that had happened since their wedding was the thought of destroying this twisted thing they’d built. Like no one else, Orion understood her, and she thought she understood him, too. He put himself on full display for her; unapologetic, raw, sometimes brutal. She didn’t yet know how much of Orion stemmed from his fucked-up upbringing and how much was his uhyre blood, but suspected it was more of the former than he would admit… Maybe more than he even knew.
“I don’t want to do it without you either,” she said.
They stared at each other, seeing each other for the first time in this new light. His fingers whispered from her collarbone along the line of her goo-slick throat, trailing goosebumps in their wake. His eyes followed their path, pausing at the pulse point stuttering at the side of her neck. That was the spot he kissed first, pulling her wet hair aside to make space for his lips. By the time the heat of his breath was at her mouth, each nerve was hypersensitized, waiting for that contact.
Kaia shifted up on her toes, closing the minuscule buffer of space between them.
As soon as their lips connected, sparks bloomed behind her eyes, the rush of it making her dizzy. It was the Neurosync, she realized, heightening positive sensations as it scanned her brain millions of times per second and calculated her ideal operating state.
“Can you feel it?” Orion rasped, nipping gently at her lower lip before returning to luxurious exploration of her mouth with his tongue.
“Yeah,” Kaia gasped, blinking through the kiss as it thrummed through her with a heady undercurrent. She recognized that she should find it disturbing, having an artificial implant manipulating her senses like that. It just seemed so unimportant in the moment compared to the way her skin tightened under his touch. The implant’s work felt so natural. It wasn’t creating sensations that weren’t already there, but heightening existing senses in the most delicious way.
Orion lowered them both to their knees on the floor, his hold on her firm lest she slip in the regen fluid that still coated her skin. He shucked off his suit and undershirt until his torso was bare. Kaia reached up to trace a familiar line from the underside of his chin down the side of his neck.
“It’s still there,” she mumbled, looking at the faint pink slash that marked the path of her knife weeks ago. “I didn’t think it’d scar.”
“I'm glad it did. I want your mark on me.”
Orion leaned forward, fingers splayed on Kaia’s slippery back as he pulled her towards him. His head dipped to her breast, and she sighed as his mouth grazed her nipple, then latched on to suck the delicate flesh. She tensed when she heard his hands on his belt. Kaia got a taste of what sex with Orion would be like, and she knew to expect the most delicious pain. She was healed and ready for him. But just then, she wished they'd keep this tenderness between them for a little while longer.
The delicate way with which he lapped at one nipple, then the other, and the softness in his hands as he slid them up her thighs surprised her. She had forgotten he could read her mind.
Even when Orion was restraining himself before, there was always a thread threatening to snap. Now his hands weren’t shaking. His eyes, when he looked up at her from his ministrations of her breasts, looked soft. Instead, it was her hand that trembled as she cupped the back of his neck, caressing the sloped spikes there. Kaia tested running a palm down the ladder of his abs, then along the length of his exposed shaft. The spikes at the base and underside were already hard, beading exorin onto her fingers.
He groaned against her breast, the sound of his satisfaction making her core clench. Kaia didn’t want to wait anymore. She gripped his shoulders and scooted closer. They slipped a little against each other as the regen gel rubbed off on him, but he held her firm as she straddled his kneeling lap. She wanted to take him now, before the aggression in his blood took over. She wanted to feel him inside her while he held her just like this, like she was porcelain.
Kaia tipped her forehead against his as she lowered herself on his shaft. She watched his eyes. Any second now, they’d harden. Any second, he’d force her to her back and fuck her just like he wanted. Hell, she'd want it too, when it came to that. He might hurt her again, but at least they were right next to the regen pod.
She was frozen atop him, craving his friction, but afraid to move.
“I’m scared,” she confessed, searching his eyes.
Orion cupped the back of her head.
