Page 108 of Stardusted

Like he’d registered my blazing green light, Sky tilted his head, deepening the kiss. I met him in it. Sparks spread and heated my blood.

Iknewthere was a reason not to do this. An extraterrestrial reason.

But right now, it couldn’t hurt to just…try it out.

You know, for science.

Tentatively, I brushed my tongue against his.

With a muffled curse, he pulled back. An invisible bucket of ice water dumped over my head, and I collapsed against the wall, breathless, gaping.

Holy crap. He’d justkissedme.

Like he, too, was shocked by it, Sky backed up a step. Mouth slack, eyes wide. I flattened my marked hand over my pounding heart, as if that’d stop it from leaping out and chasing after him. My lips tingled.

“I’m sorry,” Sky muttered huskily, dragging his fingers through his hair until it stuck up in wild tufts. He sank his teeth into his bottom lip again and turned his head, closing his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that. I…I crossed the line.”

I was struggling to form coherent thoughts. My attention kept wandering back to his mouth, captivated by the way it moved. It’d been so soft. “Line? What line?”

“What line?” he echoed, breathing a laugh that sounded a little pained. That mouth twisted as he turned an incredulous stare on me. “Rae, I just told you I’m analien. That I’m the reason you’re being hunted by the Enil.”

Oh. Right. That.If only that did anything to silence the Marvin Gaye chorus coming from my nether regions.

When I didn’t reply, only gazed up at him, he frowned. Nobody should make confusion look that good. But with that flush riding his cheekbones and his kiss-swollen mouth, here we were.

I could still taste him. I was having trouble thinking around it.

And I wasn’t the only one affected. His breathing was a little ragged. His pupils were blown. The stairwell’s shadows played over the dips and swells of his lean upper body and his taut face as he studied me almost warily. Like he didn’t trust me—or maybe himself.

God, I hoped it was the latter.

Screw it. I pushed off the wall, and he stiffened.

I had Sky Acosta half-naked in my stairwell, thick hair mussed, eyes glassy with what I was praying was lust, and this would probably never happen again. After this, I’d go back to being sane, careful Raven. The logical one. I’d remember that he was an alien and I was possibly radioactive just from touching him.

Butright now? Holding back felt like a waste of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

His eyes widened as I threw my arms around his neck and yanked him toward me. He stumbled, caught himself with a hand on the wall, and started to speak, but I didn’t let him. I lifted onto my toes and pressed my mouth against his.

This time, there was nothing tentative about it.

No slow burn. No teasing.

Just a woman who’d been crushing on the hot bartender for a year and now had him up against her in a stairwell.

I thought he’d resist, but he didn’t.He responded immediately, his fingers tangling in my braid, a raw groan catching in his throat and tumbling past my lips.

That sound lit me up like a supernova.

I touched his jaw, fingertips scraping over stubble then gliding lower, down his chest. Beneath his open shirt, he was all warm skin and hard, twitching muscle. Synth-skin or not, hefeltreal.

His soft exhale wasn’t quite steady as his hand slid deeper into my hair, tipping my head back. My belly flipped as his tongue tangled with mine. His heart pounded against my palm, matching the frenzied cadence of mine.

In a night that’d been filled with impossibilities and nothing short of the unbelievable,hefelt real.

And I very much needed something real.

Like he agreed, he sank deeper, kissed me harder. An embarrassingly needy whimper slipped out of me, one I hoped he translated correctly as:yes, more of that.