Page 7 of Collision!
The obsidian centers of her eyes also constricted, but from the steadying of her breath, he assumed he had offered her comfort with the change.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
He gave no acknowledgment; he hadn’t intended her to notice his concession.“Keep your hand here.”He pressed her knuckles to the empty work counter and flattened her fingers to expose the tiny purple perforations.“This might sting.”
“What is—” She gasped again, an insubstantial vacuum pop in his ear, when he broke the gel ampule of antivenin across her palm.“Suvan!”
Though her sharp inhalation seemed to steal some of his air, it was his name in that trembling tone that inexplicably ratcheted his pulse.She’d said his full title when she greeted him, but her timbre now was different, lower and more urgent.
“This will neutralize the pain,” he told her as he worked the transdermal salve into her skin with firm, smooth strokes.
If only the numbing compound in the antivenin would work on his strange awareness of her, this prickle across his skin beneath his quill-scales, sinking like an ache into his bones.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered.“The tingles feel…” Another hissed breath seemed to contradict her stoic claim, and a shiver racked her, but she didn’t pull away from him.
He kept her hand pinned until the last hint of violet faded from the wounds and a tiny wisp of vapor curled up from her palm.
Her slow exhalation seemed proof the intervention had prevented any lasting harm from him.He used a steriwipe to remove the sticky ampule gel before spraying a sealant over the cleaned punctures.Then he let her go.
With the lights bright enough for her to see, he expected her to immediately make her escape.
Instead, she curled her hand between her breasts, her wide brown gaze fixed on him.“What…was that?”
The question hung in the air.Belatedly, he realized that in addition to the module being too dark for her, it was likely also too cold.It was cold for him too, but better for the engines.
He noticed because the protective contraction of her flesh had caused the fine hairs on her exposed forearm, crossed in front of her, to prickle like his own spines.
And on either side of her fist, her tightened nipples cast dim shadows that maybe only his sensitized eyes would perceive against the complicated, colorful weave of her sweater.
He refused to be ashamed.Shehad grabbedhim, after all.“Szauralithyn venom.It’s a highly volatile mélange of neuroactive nucleotides.Some vasodilation cascading and somatosensory hyperesthesia.But any bioelechemical effects are almost always transitory.”
She didn’t blink.“What…was that?”
He grunted.“I poisoned you.Only a little.”
To avoid her unwavering—condemning?—stare, he turned away to repack the med kit.
He’d told her the venom caused body-wide overexcitation and sensitivity, but that wasn’t supposed to be something that he would experience himself, only his accidental victim.
Yet despite her silence, hefeltthe moment she spun on her stockinged heel and fled.
Chapter 3
What.Was.That?
It was an orgasm, she was sure.A little one, like a tease.But it had shaken her to the core.
That was what they called it, right?Her core.The epicenter of her pleasure.The wet, throbbing heart of her release.
Her clit.
Oh.Just oh.
Mariah’s cheeks—and her palm and various other less exposed parts—burned as she scuttled out of the engine module, up the long, slanting passageway back to the passenger-approved public corridors of the ship.Okay, now her thighs and lungs were burning too, from the burst of exercise and adrenaline.
In one of the shallow alcoves along the main hall, she paused to catch her breath.
Closing her eyes, she box-breathed until the aftershocks faded from her body.Mostly, although a few tingles still emanated from her hand.
