When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  For this handful of weeks they had, she didn’t have to carry it all alone.

  She grabbed at him, curling a hand around his wrist before he could retreat any farther. She held him there. He went still.

  “Jo?”

  “She died. When I was really young.” When she was negative seven minutes old, if you trusted the birth and death certificates. “I don’t remember her at all.”

  “Oh God.”

  “It’s fine. It’s just…” What?

  Just the precipitating incident that had led to the rest of her life.

  “It doesn’t have to be fine.” He turned his wrist inside her grip, getting his hand around hers, making it so she was the one being held on to. Maybe so they were holding each other. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. I wouldn’t have brought it up if—”

  “No, really.” She lifted her head and turned so she was facing him, because… because it was fine. She wasn’t lying. She felt okay. Way more okay than she’d ever thought she would when she’d imagined someone prying this from her.

  She managed a half-smile as she gazed at him, and the tension in his shoulders deflated by a fraction. Grasping her hand, he brought it up to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. “I am so sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.”

  One side of his brow quirked up. “That’s a phrase people say when they’re expressing their condolences. You know that, right?”

  “Of course.” The words came out a little shakier than she wanted them to.

  Lowering their hands, he cradled her palm in both of his, there in the space between their knees. Rubbed his thumbs across her knuckles.

  And she could almost taste the decision he was making about whether or not to press—about how many assumptions he should make.

  Finally, he settled on, “That must have been so hard for you.”

  A raw ghost of a laugh bit at her throat. He had no clue.

  After another long moment, he asked, voice careful and calm, “So how did you grow up, then?”

  She could’ve kissed him. The phrasing was so neutral. No implicit questions about a father or a family, no expectations about a kind of life he must’ve thought she should’ve led.

  She restrained herself. Kissing would be easy; kissing would be fun. It’d just be a distraction.

  Shrugging, she unfurled her hand, stroking her fingertips over the exposed lines along the insides of his wrists. “It was just me and my dad.” Ripples of low, subverted anger crushed against her ribs, but she kept it in. Kept it just to the facts. “He was… not around a lot, honestly. When he did show up, it was mostly to tell me I was doing something wrong. He’s a scientist, too. A professor.” And they both knew plenty about what that kind of life was like. “It was a lot of nannies and day care. But none of them stuck around for very long.”

  His thumbs dug into her skin even harder, but it wasn’t like being constrained. It was… grounding. Nice.

  “That sounds lonely.” Nothing about his tone said he was surprised.

  It opened up a tattered place in her heart, one she’d always curled around, teeth bared, biting and ready to defend. She’d never imagined it was anything but obvious. She was such a cliché. Daddy issues and mommy issues, and all of them meshing into the savage scar that was her way of holding the rest of the world at bay.

  Right up until now. Until this man—this boy, the one who was so intent on holding on—gently teased her edges apart.

  It hurt, trying to keep them closed. All the same, she took a deep breath and stilled her hand inside of his.

  He didn’t need to know the sad, bitter details. He’d never look at her quite the same if he did. Even her summary statements, the conclusions she’d come to after years and years of living with it all, gave away too much.

  But he could have them.

  “I think he was really angry is all,” she said.

  With that, she tried to pull her hand back, but he closed around her, declining to let her go. “About your mom?”

  “About everything.” His career that was never good enough, and his child who would never be the one he wanted. The life he’d lost on a delivery room floor. “But yeah. I guess…” She worked her jaw and throat, willing the words to come. Because this had been the hardest conclusion of them all to draw. “He must have loved her a lot.”

  She wasn’t sure if she believed it, because it was hard to imagine him loving anybody. But it had sounded good. It had fit the models of families and marriages she’d seen portrayed in movies and on TV. The bereaved widower, silently drowning in his pain while he let everything around him go to hell.

  And so she’d told it to herself. That story.

  That once upon a time, the hard, cold man she’d shared a house with had been capable of a love so fierce it had destroyed him.

  And so what if he hadn’t had any of it left for her?

  Her eyes burned as she stared down. They were painfully dry, and thank fuck for that much, at least. She didn’t need to be putting on some kind of hysterics, and she hadn’t cried in such a long, long time. She wasn’t sure she still knew how.

  “Well,” Adam started, consolation pouring from the softness in his tone.

  But she didn’t want to be consoled. Not with platitudes, not with anyone trying to make the best of the shitty story she’d just served up the barest scraps of. As a child, in her bed alone, she might have been comforted by the idea that her father had once loved the woman she shared half of her genes with. But it didn’t change… It didn’t stop…

  “He always wanted a son.” Her throat croaked, because this part hurt. “So badly.” There wasn’t anything to brim over, no dam to break or tears to shed, but her vision swam all the same. “And all he got was me.”

  The silence of the room echoed in her head. The ventilation system whirred, and computers hummed, and far off in the distance, the nighttime chorus of frogs and other wildlife sang their song. But here in this space, where this man held her hand, everything was eerily, impossibly still.

  And then Adam stood. He pushed his chair out and ascended, all the power in those muscles of his making itself known in one graceful movement that left her reeling. She tipped her head up to look at him towering over her, and for a second, an eerie chord of uncertainty twisted in her gut.

  But he tugged at her hand, his gaze intense. Not menacing, though, just focused entirely and fully on her. Maybe that was scarier than anything.

  “What?” she said as he pulled her from her chair.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?” She hung back as he turned to go, pointing at the monitor. “Your experiment—”

  “Still has thirty-two minutes to go.”

  But seriously, what the hell? Her mind skipped through the evening, and he wasn’t… he didn’t mean—

  She halted him with a firm jerk on his arm. In a hiss, she breathed out, “I am not going to go fuck you in the bathroom.”

  That stopped him all right. He twisted around to look at her with something like horror on his face, and what was that? What did any of this mean?

  “Jesus Christ, Jo.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face. “Look.” He stepped in closer to her, and it was too intimate, too near for this sterile space. “We have time. Just. Please. Come get some air with me, okay? Just air. I promise.”

  She glanced at the monitors like they could save her. But then she stopped herself. This was Adam.

  What exactly did she think she needed saving from?

  Trepidation making her skin feel too small, she followed him, not to the rear of the observation area that led toward the offices, but forward. He nodded at the booth where, crap, she hoped Miguel hadn’t been watching that entire ridiculous display, and called, “Back in a minute.” And then he was pushing through the door onto the deck that looked out over the telescope.

  In the distance, far up above, the dome that housed all of the optics and electronics was lit up against the blackness of the sky, s
ilently slewing through the night. And behind it lay the stars.

  So many stars.

  “Come here.”

  Adam led her into the shadows, away from the light of the door. She wanted to make another crack about not intending to screw him out here either, but he stopped her with a look. With a hand on her arm.

  Putting his back to the wall, he drew her in close to him, her spine to his chest. His arms came up around her, his chin resting on top of her head. It almost made her feel claustrophobic, being tucked in against him like this, surrounded by him and his scent and his warmth.

  But it didn’t.

  “Adam—”

  “Just let me hold you. For a minute.”

  The question came out before she could second-guess it. “Why?”

  A low tremor went through him, and he squeezed her tighter.

  She closed her eyes. She was missing something here—she was always missing things, and fuck. What would it be like to be a real girl? One who understood this kind of stuff?

  But then he spoke, voice as raw as her lungs felt. “If you don’t know why a person who—a person who cares about you would want to hold you after you said those things…”

  She wanted to fill in the blanks. Then there’s no point having this conversation. Then there’s no hope for you at all.

  “Then I’m even sorrier,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to grow up like that. That you didn’t get to know your mom. I’m sorry your dad… I’m sorry he couldn’t see how amazing you are. Exactly the way you are.”

  Opening her eyes, she stared up into a brilliant sky, full of science and distance and things too big for her to understand. And for a moment—one incredible moment—her chest cracked open, and she felt like she was just like those stars.

  Infinite, and worth looking at and trying to comprehend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Shh.” She turned into him, burying her face against the warm solidity of his frame. And she did exactly what he’d asked of her—the only thing he’d asked of her since she’d begun to speak. She let him hold her.

  She’d given him such a tiny glimpse into her history, and he offered her all of this.

  What would it be like if she ever told him everything?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Occasionally, even Jo could appreciate the irony in her behavior.

  She eased the front door of the girls’ house shut, taking care it didn’t make a sound before she stole across the lawn. Adam’s light was on, just like he had promised it would be, and flutters went off inside her chest.

  Ridiculous. She shook her head at herself and quickened her pace.

  Ever since she’d opened up to him the other day, there’d been this restlessness to her limbs, this itch just under her skin. Sharing even as much as she had had left her feeling exposed. Naked.

  And here she was. Planning to gain the upper hand again by… well… getting naked. Literally, this time.

  She snuck into the guys’ house and crept through the deserted living room, past the sliver of light peeking out from under Jared’s door. Pausing there for a second, she listened for voices, and maybe that was him and Kim? Either way, it was muffled enough. She kept on going, down to the end of the hall. Adam was expecting her, so she didn’t knock.

  She found him sitting on his bed in nothing but a pair of shorts, the muscled flesh of his chest and abdomen gleaming in the low light of his bedside lamp. He looked up from the book in his lap as she closed the door behind her, and his eyes went dark.

  In a flash, he set aside the book and clambered off the mattress. Warm hands landed to either side of her face, and his mouth was all eagerness against hers. Something inside her went soft and easy at the heat of his kiss. A girl could get used to a welcome like this—especially the growing ridge of him in his shorts, pressing against her belly and making tingles shoot straight up her spine. Sparking off a low throb of want in her cunt.

  She bit down hard on his lip and ate his groan.

  Except she couldn’t get used to this kind of welcome.

  If she did, it’d hurt way too much when it was gone.

  When she pulled away, he let her go, but not far. His eyes were huge, his pupils blown, and the wet, red fullness of his mouth just made her want to kiss it again and again.

  “Hey, there,” he mumbled, palms still cupping her face.

  “Hey yourself.”

  “Was starting to wonder if you’d stand me up.”

  “Never.” The word just slipped out, but she didn’t even have time to regret it. His answering smile was too gorgeous and too wide.

  He slid his hands down her neck, skated them over her arms and to the curves at her sides before resting them firmly on her hips. Sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, he made a soft little hint of a growl. “I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you all day.”

  Longer than that, if his antics during their observation run had been any indication. Her mouth went dry. She liked that he didn’t try to hide how much he wanted her, how delighted he was by every inch of skin and every touch she gave him.

  Heart beating harder, she put her palm to his chest and pushed him a little farther away. Damn, she hoped she was reading this right. She hoped he’d be dying for the touches she didn’t give him, too.

  Releasing his lip, he honest-to-God pouted at her, but he let himself be moved.

  “I brought you something,” she said as she retreated to his bed. Avoiding his gaze, she dragged her bag into her lap.

  “Oh?”

  She undid the zipper and pushed her binder out of the way. Her fingertips connected with the velvet pouch she’d smuggled out of her underwear drawer while Carol had been in the bathroom. She took a deep breath and pulled it out. She shook the best little buddy money could buy into her palm and finally looked up. Arched a brow.

  “I seem to remember somebody expressing some interest in this.”

  Jesus, it was hot the way his throat bobbed, the hard line of him swelling beneath his shorts. “Is that what I think it is?”

  She pressed the button on the base, and the vibrator hummed to life. Eyes widening, he licked his lips.

  She barely recognized his voice, it dipped so deep. “You gonna show me how to use that on you?”

  She shook her head, and his eyes actually went wider. “I’m gonna let you watch me use it on myself.”

  “Fuck.” He bit off the word, head falling forward, and he rubbed the heel of his hand over himself. “Jo—”

  “Strip.”

  He didn’t hesitate. The button on his shorts popped beneath his fingers, and then he was shoving both them and his underwear down. His cock pulsed, the tip shining, the thick flesh hard enough it looked like it had to hurt, and her clit gave a needy twitch.

  All her plans, the things she’d been daydreaming about all goddam day, threatened to waver, because she wanted that in her. Now.

  Then again, what kind of plans would they be if they couldn’t be adjusted on the fly?

  “Don’t,” she said, when he made to wrap a hand around himself. “I’m going to want that later.”

  He moaned aloud, fingers curling into fists at his sides. “You’re killing me here.”

  And it was a rush, his letting her take the lead like this. The restlessness that had been plaguing her faded away. She might not be good at feelings, but sex… sex she understood.

  “Come on.” She motioned with her head toward the spot on the bed beside her.

  As she wriggled out of her own clothes, he came to join her, lying down on his side, propped up on one elbow. Vibrator in hand, she lay down, too, flat on her back. Absently, she tugged at the barbell through her nipple and sighed.

  Adam cleared his throat. “Is that how you usually start?”

  “When I’m by myself?”

  His voice was thick. “Yeah.”

  “Depends.” She shrugged, trying to act unaffected, but it was a losing proposition. It had been a couple of days, and
all her plotting had gotten her motor running well ahead of time, and now this man was here, all smooth muscle and hot skin.

  Really, really hot skin. Sweat prickled at her brow and at the small of her back. He was just pouring off heat against her side, and the fan in the window didn’t seem to be doing anything at all.

  And then he lifted a hand. Broad fingertips traced the centerline of her body, through the valley between her breasts and lower. At her navel, he turned around, though, and it didn’t matter that it was sweltering in here. She shivered into the touch.

  “How do you get started, then?”

  She plucked harder at her tit, twisting the metal and the flesh and letting out a breath. “Breasts are good. If I need to get myself warmed up. Other times I just go straight for…”

  Trailing off, she drifted her hand lower, and her eyes fluttered shut. Fuck, she was soaked. The first glancing touch of her fingertip over her clit had her arching up.

  Hot lips pressed to her shoulder, and he swore beneath his breath. “That’s even hotter than I thought it would be.”

  And the man was a genius, because she barely had to twist to the side before his hand was cupping her, the warm flesh of his palm a perfect pressure against her nipple. She dipped a finger inside, spreading her wetness around before going back to her clit. All gentle, circling strokes at first. And then firmer ones.

  Adam groaned. “When do you turn it on?”

  “Soon.” This felt too good right now, this steady rise, this low, rolling pleasure as she got herself primed.

  She forced her eyes open, and he was close. Gaze raking over her body, up and down, from his own hand on her breast to hers between her legs.

  And she wanted his voice.

  “How about you?”

  “Me?”

  Vibrator still clenched in her fist, she reached over to the side and glanced the backs of her knuckles over the long line of him. The hot, silky flesh. It bobbed toward her, and he let out a shaky breath.

  Pushing her hand away, he kissed his way up her neck, to the tender spot beneath her ear where he sucked.

  “Well, typically,” he said, voice wet, “I find some time to myself. I get myself naked. Maybe slick.”