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The inches of space between them were thick with the pull of him, crackling like live-wire. Like the sunrise on Artega Seven, when a person could feel the weight of the sun coming to destroy everything under its glare. Oh, and did he glare. He glared at her like he was hungry. Like she was food.
The heaviness between them shattered as he pushed her back against the cool, sloped wall. She normally had good reflexes, but her head was sluggish. Her first instinct was to shake it off, to reach for the knife in her thigh pocket.
No. This was good. This was the goal. His greedy eyes flashing in the shadows, fixed to her lips. His throat bobbing as he swallowed. His lips parting as he slid a hand along her jutting collarbone and up to her jaw.
Pressing for her to turn her still-smarting cheek toward him, he leaned in close, breath with an odd metallic taste caressing the raw skin.
“Who did this?” he asked, his voice low and full. His fingers grazed the injury and his eyes flashed when she winced. “Did you like it?”
Kaia tried hard to catch up, to react with the appropriate offense instead of this excited little lurch in her chest. But he had already moved on, hooking a forefinger beneath her chin. Her face lifted to him as though it was no longer her own, but a puppet whose strings thrummed with helpless anticipation.
God, he’s beautiful.
He crushed his mouth to hers without further warning. It was messy and impatient, already licking expectantly at the seam of her lips. Entitled, like the rest of him, for when she was hesitant to open for him, he stiffened his grip on her ribs and pressed harder.
And his thigh… He had already kicked open her legs and wedged it between them. Kaia shifted her hips back, trying for more space. She was drunk, compromised, and this was bad.
But he was persistent, and fuck if her body didn’t betray her—when he shifted his knee up further, applying firm pressure where her traitorous body wanted it most, Kaia choked out a small moan. Orion took the win, dipping into her parted mouth. When their tongues finally met, his kiss deepened and slowed. He licked against her lazily, exploring her with a satisfied decadence even as his leg continued to work at her center.
Kaia melted against the wall. Maybe this was fine. Maybe it was how she got the job done. Her muscles unwound as she relaxed into the kerogel-tinged kiss that made her lids heavy and her belly full. She curled an arm up to his muscled shoulder, sliding a hand beneath the fabric of his jacket. Kaia wondered how far she could push it—how much she could give without surrendering too much of herself so soon. She felt compelled to find out.
Until her fingertips, having strayed up to the back of his neck, recoiled from the sharp sting they encountered there. It took a while for her mind to catch up, but realization cascaded when she became aware of the less sharp but far more disturbing protrusions on his tongue. Spikes, hardened and engorged.
She lurched away, hissing as the back of her head hit the wall and bright white splotches sprouted in her vision.
“Shit,” he grunted, sliding his hand behind her head. “You good?”
Kaia flinched from his touch. “You’re… you’re an—”
“An uhyre.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Well, part, of course.”
How could he be admitting this so nonchalantly? And how could she not have figured it out earlier? The features fit, that contrast of masculinity and beauty. And the fucking eyes. Shit, she was a complete moron. A drunk, stupid, stupid moron.
She slid from the wall and backed away, staring at her mark. Of course she saw it now. Orion’s face was a mess of contradictions. Narrow, elongated eyes that were nothing but hooded shadows above her in that moment. Pitch black hair and full brows sloping into a straight nose, a little flat. His generous lips and the refreshing mint of him were almost delicate. But the rest of him was all male. The angled, heavy bone structure. The bitter coffee. The predatory hunger that zeroed in on her and the firm, insistent fingers that had marked their territory along her skin. It was in the way he moved, taking up space in a way only a man could, an all-consuming vortex that owned everything and everyone around it.
Turns out it wasn't just his fancy rich boy lines—he was part murderous alien.
And with an uhyre to seduce, the spiky fucking tongue was the least of her problems. Kaia pressed her own tongue flat against the roof of her mouth. She didn’t taste anything strange… No exorin. She had to think. Decide if this entire plan was even worth it now. Most importantly, she had to get away because her skin was still on fire from the kiss, his vortex still tugging at her edges.
“How much?” Kaia rasped, fighting down panic. There was no exorin, she reminded herself. None of the liquid secreted by uhyre spikes when aroused. The addictive shit she’d heard in horror stories of when the aliens first came to Old Earth and ripped it apart.
“Ten percent. Mother’s side. You didn’t know?”
Was it the kerogel? Did Kaia miss the part where he disclosed being an alien monster at some earlier juncture? She took a beat to race back through the evening—no, he definitely didn’t.
“How was I supposed to fucking know?”
“It was common knowledge on Mars.” Orion shrugged. “I’m heir to colony shipColossal, like I said. My mother’s part uhyre. Dad’s human.”
“And he’s alive?” Kaia cursed at herself as soon as the words left her mouth, but Orion gave her a wry smile.
“Physically, very much so.”
What did he think? Everyone in the fucking known galaxies knew all about his family’s genetic makeup? She hadn’t even heard of him until that day, and she would hazard a guess most people outside of colonies didn’t bother keeping up with presumptuous colony assholes’ lives either.
“Great,” Kaia rushed. “Well, I should go. Your place is just at the end of this hall, couple hundred meters. You’ll come out to a residential ring, and it’ll be on your right.”
“Want to see it?” Orion tried.
