Page 17 of Orion Ruined

“Yes, you did say that.” He sighs. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a long day. And you… you’re just, you. Let’s start again. What did you do this week?”

I don’t need dull conversation. “Watched TV. I just finished watching The Mandalorian.”

“Huh. You like a man in a helmet,” he remarks.

“Keep me alone for longer and I’ll like–” I stop myself. I shouldn’t say such things.

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Sorry. It was gonna be rude.”

“You don’t think I can take rude? I invented rude.”

“It’s not that. It wouldn’t be conducive to, um, our relationship. Forget about it.”

“Our relationship?” He raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know we had one.”

I ignore his comment and nod toward the kitchen counter. “Are you going to cook, or what?”

He chuckles at my awkwardness. “I was hoping you would.”

“Me?” Can I cook? Barely. Only so I don’t die from hunger.

“Make something, anything. I’m starving.”

“How about pasta?” I ask.

“At this time of night?” He’s surprised, maybe even shocked. I’m just used to eating whatever there is. I never choose the food, the food chooses me.

“Why not?” I smirk.

“Great. I love a good pasta. I have a ready-made sauce in the cabinet.” He crouches, opens a cabinet door, and pulls out a tomato and mascarpone pesto. “Would this do?”

“Yes, I love pesto. Any kind.”

“Good. Now, where’s the pasta?”

He starts searching every cabinet, and I remember seeing a packet at the back of the shelf where the coffee cups were. I open the cupboard and spot it. I push myself onto my tiptoes and try to reach it, but no luck. I reach again and as I turn my head to tell him I’ve found it, he’s behind me, reaching for it himself.

My breath hitches when our eyes meet, and he grinds into my behind. Or so I think. The muscles deep in my belly clench. My mind plays tricks on me as his eyes, dark like the night and determined, stir something inside me.

Orion isn’t moving. He pins me there, our bodies almost glued together, when he takes a lock of my hair and tucks it behind my shoulder. His touch is all I’m aware of. He does something to me; on purpose or not, I don’t know. It’s the power he has.

I look away, anywhere but his eyes. “Please, take a seat, I got this.” My face is burning.

He smirks. “Sure.”

I place the pasta in a pot with water and put it on the stovetop in the middle of the island. It’s one helluva high-tech stove. Figuring out how to turn it on would require a master’s degree.

Just as I’m thinking that, his masculine scent overpowers me yet again. I sense him behind me, not pressing against my body but standing a few centimeters away. Close enough for his gravity to work. He lowers his head over my left shoulder, past my face, to look at the stove. I turn to him and my lips graze his cheek.

“This, here–you press for two seconds, and the stove comes on. Once you’re there, it’s easy. And over here…”

He points at something with his finger, but I’m still looking at him. Why is he doing this to me?

He turns to me without skipping a beat, as if he enjoys torturing me. “Hey,” he mumbles, his breath warming my lips. We’re so close he could practically kiss me. He lifts my chin and angles my face toward the hob. “Over here’s where you choose which ring you want to turn on.”

I breathe silently. “Okay.”

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