"Wait," he commanded behind her, and Kaia's first and only instinct was to stop in her tracks and obey the assured steel in his voice and the tightening of his grip on her hand.
She'd almost forgotten that the hand, large and warm around hers as it stroked lines of fire along her skin with a thumb, was attached to an entitled asshole who waved his chips around, looked down on her and everyone at the station, and didn't listen to a word she said at the bar. She saw the way his eyes had glazed over even as he plied her with more H2O. She accepted it: if he wanted to not-really-listen to her rambling for an hour in exchange for free water, she'd take it.
But when he yanked her backwards, spinning her toward him, and she was faced with the solid expanse of his chest and that coffee-and-mint scent, something deep in her belly contracted. And when she glanced up through her lashes and got a glimpse of the column of a strong neck and straight jaw and chiseled cheek in the shadow of the narrow passage, something lurched between her legs for just a moment.
She must've been drunk because Kaia suddenly found her back pressed against the cool, sloped wall, hard hands driving her up a few inches with the wind knocked out of her. She normally had good reflexes, yet there she was. She forced her hand, which had instinctively shifted to the knife sheathed in her thigh pocket, to remain still. This was good. This was what she was working towards. His hungry eyes flashing in the shadows, pinned to her lips. His Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. His lips parting as he raked a hand up her side, barely brushing the side of her breast through her jacket, fingers sliding along her jaw to touch her chin, which she instinctively lifted toward the man hovering over her before dipping her head at the terrifying view.
God, he’s beautiful.
Orion's face was a mess of contradictions: narrow, elongated eyes which she knew were blue even though they were nothing but two black shadows above her now. Pitch black hair. Full brows. A perfectly straight nose, a little flat. His full lips, flawless skin, and fresh mint scent were almost delicate... exquisitely designed. But the rest of him was all male. The angled, heavy bone structure. The bitter coffee overpowering that mint. The predatory hunger that zeroed in on her mouth and the firm, insistent fingers that kept pressing, tracing along the line of her throat.
