Page 18 of The Sterling Acquisition
Instead, something about the way Dante said it—like he was lying to both of them—made heat curl low in Orion’s belly that had nothing to do with his approaching he cycle.
Dante moved closer, reaching for the bruises forming on Orion’s throat. His touch was clinical but gentle as he assessed the damage. “These need to be treated.” His fingers were cool against the overheated skin, and Orion leaned into the touch before he could stop himself.
Dangerous. This is dangerous.
Chapter six
Damage Control
Dante
TheshowerinDante’scompany-issued apartment had three temperature settings: arctic, scalding, and “please hold while we determine what fresh hell the building’s plumbing has in store for you today.” He’d been standing under the scalding setting for twenty minutes, letting water hot enough to strip paint cascade over his shoulders, and he still couldn’t wash away the memory of Orion’s tear-filled eyes.
Yesterday’s “aftermath management” had been a masterclass in professional composure meeting primal instinct. After Leo’s humiliating exit, Dante spent forty minutes in Orion’s room with a first aid kit, tending to split lips and bruised ribs while trying to maintain the professional distance expected of a Gensyn consultant.
It had been the most erotically charged medical assessment of his career.
Listen to yourself. ‘Erotically charged medical assessment.’ All that training and you’re developing a fetish for playing battlefield medic.
But that’s exactly what it had been. Orion, stripped to the waist so Dante could assess the damage to his ribs, his skin flushed with pre-heat and marked with evidence of Leo’s violence. He hissed when Dante’s fingers probed for fractures. His back arched when the antiseptic hit the scrapes on his shoulder blades.
His eyes held Dante captive. Furious, vulnerable, watching every move with the intensity of someone solving a dangerous equation. When Dante cleaned the blood from his split lip with careful precision, Orion’s breathing went shallow and uneven, his scent shifting to something that made Dante’s fingers unsteady with the effort of maintaining distance.
The most unsettling moment came when Orion’s defenses cracked. Just for an instant, while Dante checked the bruises on his throat with gentle fingers, Orion’s eyes filled with tears he refused to let fall. Not from pain. From recognition. The simple shock of being touched without violence.
Pathetic. You’re aroused by an Omega’s trauma response.
Except that wasn’t quite right. What made Dante’s pulse spike wasn’t Orion’s vulnerability—it was the trust. Orion stilled under his hands, letting Dante touch him, tend to him, despite every rational reason to expect more violence. His gaze tracked Dante’s movements with a flicker of possibility buried under layers of caution.
Dante’s hand moved down his own body, water streaming over his shoulders as he surrendered to the fantasy that had been driving him slowly insane since yesterday. Orion looking up at him, that filthy mouth that had been spitting profanity and defiance silent for entirely different reasons.
What would it take to make you quiet, beautiful? What would it take to replace that angry fire with something else?
In his imagination, Orion was on his knees in that sterile little room, hands bound behind his back, lips parted around Dante’s length. His eyes were bright with want instead of fury, tears streaming down flushed cheeks—not from pain or fear, but from the overwhelming sensation of being completely, thoroughly claimed.
“Please,”imaginary Orion would whisper when Dante pulled back, voice wrecked and desperate.“Please, I need—”
“What do you need?”Dante would ask, threading his fingers through that dark hair, controlling the pace, the depth, everything.
“You. I need you.”
Dante’s grip tightened on himself, water and steam creating the perfect environment for a fantasy that was probably classified as a humanitarian crisis by several international treaties. Orion’s smart mouth put to better use, those challenging amber eyes looking up at him with submission instead of defiance, the sound of his name falling from bruised lips like a prayer—
His orgasm hit him like a corporate restructuring—sudden, devastating, and leaving him questioning all his previous life choices. He braced his free hand against the shower wall, breathing hard as release washed over him in waves that had nothing to do with hot water and everything to do with storm winds and defiant eyes.
The post-orgasm clarity was immediate and brutal.
Well. That’s concerning.
Dante stood under the spray, letting the water cool while his rational mind catalogued how many professional, ethical, and possibly legal boundaries he’d just violated in his imagination. He was supposed to be conducting espionage, not developing elaborate sexual fantasies about a colleague’s traumatized Omega.
Keep using clinical terms. Maybe if you dehumanize himenough, you’ll stop wanting to—
No. That line of thinking led nowhere useful. The truth was that Orion had stopped being a “subject” the moment Orion met his gaze with intelligence and calculation and absolutely zero submission while wrestling Leo in public.
Dante turned off the water and reached for a towel, catching sight of himself in the bathroom mirror. He looked marginally more human than he had yesterday, but there was still something in his expression that had nothing to do with professional efficiency. Something hungry and possessive that would have triggered an immediate psychological evaluation if anyone at Gensyn headquarters could see it.
His phone buzzed on the bathroom counter with a message from Amalie:
