Page 188

Instead, his mouth touched mine almost cautiously. Once. A half-second pause. Then again, slower, still careful, as if I might break or as if he might.

A question.

I answered before I could think about it. My fingers caught lightly in the front of his shirt, and I pulled him closer instead of away.

He inhaled—a short, sharp intake through his nose—and the sound went through me.

His mouth opened against mine, a slow, deliberate yielding. The pressure changed, a fraction more, and my own lips parted in answer. His thumb stroked a slow arc along my jawline, a touch so precise it felt like a mapped coordinate. Heat bloomed under my skin, a flush that had nothing to do with the ship’s climate controls, and I was leaning into him before I knew I’d moved. His other hand settled on my waist, his palm a firm, warm weight through the fabric of my shirt.

Beneath the skin of his wrist, a silver-white light flared—not a flash, but a slow, rhythmic pulse that matched the sudden hammering in my own veins. I felt it then, not as a shock, but as a deep, resonant hum where his hand met my side, a current that seemed to travel into my bones. We went still simultaneously, a shared cessation. Not breaking apart. Holding.

Our mouths were still connected, breathing the same air. The light beneath his skin brightened again, a soft, answering glow that climbed his forearm. It was slow. Deliberate. I could feel the tension in him—a wire pulled taut through every muscle, the rigid control of a man who had spent years mastering every impulse. It was in the careful stillness of his hand on my waist, the measured pace of his breath against my cheek.

And then I remembered Darev’s voice in the medical bay, explaining the biological pull, the potential for a bond. Recognition.

This wasn’t fate. It was physics. Chemistry. A choice waiting to be made by both of us.

I opened my eyes.

Veyr’s were already open, and for a long second neither of us moved. He blinked once. Twice. His mouth stayed parted, and his hand on my waist had gone slack, fingers loose against my shirt instead of holding.

That scared me more than the energy.

I stepped back.

Only a step.

His hand dropped from my waist the instant I moved, falling to his side like he’d been burned. The silver light under his skin dimmed and was gone, leaving only the pale gray of him in the ship’s light.

Silence.

My pulse beat in my ears loud enough that I wondered if he could hear it. His chest rose and fell once, slow, and I watched it happen.

I had just kissed a gray man whose pulse points lit up like Christmas lights…and I liked it.

I pressed my fingers to my lips before I could stop myself.

Brilliant.

Very subtle.

Veyr looked toward the window. Of course he did. Escape route.

The corner of my mouth twitched.

A laugh climbed up my throat, sharp and out of place. I pressed my lips together and swallowed it.

“This was a bad idea,” he said.

He pitched it low, aiming for detached, the same register he used to read a map legend.

He missed. There was a rasp at the edge of it, like his voice had been filed down on the way out.

I stared at him. “You almost sounded like you believed that.”

His jaw flexed once. “It complicates the situation.”

“There it is.”