Page 22 of Stars in Aura

Stroke-fokkin-worthy.

Matching iridescent silver, gold, and metallic hues flashed on his beard, squared jaw, and mustache.

She raked her eyes over him.

Imagining what lay under his scrubs.

Fokk, the man had muscles for days.

He didn’t just have them; he wielded them. His entirety of him appeared sculpted for precision, just like his annoyingly meticulous surgeries.

His hands hinted at the patterns of his meta-infused, stunning, abstract, and gleaming tattoos, which were in the shape of evocative astral constellations.

She imagined them weaving and encircling his body like a map to the stars.

However, she didn’t need her mind’s eye to appreciate his facial features.

His lips were full, his cheekbones high, and his nose prominent and flaring as he glared at her.

His forehead was a fortress, his brows dense and unyielding, but it was his eyes that snatched her breath and stilled all movement around her.

Holy Sivania, she thought every time their eyes locked, and her entire freakin’ soul fell into pools of molten silver flecked with flashes of even more gold.

Each spark in his deep-set eyes appeared charged with a wild star-like band.

They pulsed with electrified centers that graduated in color and frequency, glowing as they seemed to flow from his corneas toward her.

His life force was potent and irradiated from him in waves.

Twas unfair. No man was allowed to be that gorgeous and equally insufferable because his surgical approach, one of cold, demanding scientific rigor, grated on her.

To her, practicing medicine was part art, part instinct. It was about knowing when to push, pause, and trust beyond numbers and brutal, rigid facts.

With Ki’Remi Sable, everything had to be measured, calculated, and surgically exact, and he was a pain in the ass about it.

An over-analytical, micromanaging, control-obsessed ice block.

A walking complication with a superiority complex.

The most unbearable, boorish man in the entire accursed fleet.

A scalpel-wielding black hole where bedside manner went to die.

Yet now, here she was, stuck with him for this surgery.

It’d taken some maneuvering, but earlier, she scored the spot with effort, only to find Commander Sable was the lead after the fact.

The universe freakin’ hated her.

‘Don’t screw this up,’ he muttered.

Issa rolled her eyes, ignoring how her pulse spiked at the sound of his bass timbre.

‘Charming as always, Sable. Ever consider leading with encouragement instead of condescension?’

Ki’Remi didn’t even glance at her. ‘Encouragement is for people who need it.’

She huffed. ‘Right, and you emerged from the womb knowing everything.’

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