She had no idea what he was talking about. Didn’t know what was gone or what buzz he could no longer hear. All she knew was that he needed her. That whatever had scared her in that statement before now rocketed through her chest and clamped onto her heart like a vise.
He dragged her up from the table so she was sitting on the edge. She wrapped her legs around his hips, took him deeper. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and slid his arm around her waist with the other as if trying to get even closer.
“Sotiria…” he mouthed against her lips.
She answered by kissing him with all she had in her, tightening every muscle. And when he groaned, when he grew impossibly hard, when she knew his release was consuming him, then she let go. Electricity raced down her spine, exploded in her pelvis, arced out to every nerve ending in her body, blurring her vision, stealing her breath, draining the strength from every single muscle.
Her body quaked against his as she held on, as she struggled to breathe through the aftershocks. Against her, he began to relax, but his heart still raced just as fast as hers. And she loved the strong, steady thump so close to her own.
It had never been like that for her. Never as good. Never as hot. Never as soul-shattering as this had just been. She closed her eyes and rested her head in the curve between his neck and shoulder, tried not to read too much into what that meant. Tried not to laugh at how quickly things had changed.
“I…” he managed in a raspy voice, his sweaty chest rising and falling with his fast breaths. “Gods, that was so much better than I imagined.”
A smile twined across her lips. Just the fact he’d imagined, that he thought of her…No one else ever did.
His legs buckled. He slipped from her grip. She tried to grab him but was too limp to stop him from going down. “Gryphon!”
“Mae—”
His arms tightened around her, but all that did was drag her down with him. She landed with a grunt against his chest. His head cracked the bench on the opposite side of the small space. Panic replaced pleasure as she quickly pushed up. “Gryphon?”
He blinked twice. A dazed look passed over his face. One that definitely wasn’t rooted in drugs. Or sexual gratification.
Oh shit. “Gryphon?”
His eyes rolled back in his head. His hands fell from her waist, landed against the floor of the boat with a thwack. Then his head lolled to the side and stilled.
And in the silence that remained, all she could think was Holy gods, I just killed him.
Chapter Fifteen
Titus crossed his arms over his chest and watched as Lena, one of Nick’s healers, flashed a light in the redhead’s eyes where she sat on the exam table.
“Do you have panic attacks often?” Lena asked, studying the female’s pupils, then feeling her throat.
“Sometimes,” Natasa answered, those green eyes of hers flicking in Titus’s direction, then quickly away. “I’m claustrophobic.”
A trickle of irritation rushed through Titus. It was more than claustrophobia that had sent her into a panic attack. But just what, he didn’t know. All he’d managed to get out of her on the way down to the colony’s clinic were more lies that she’d known Maelea before, from Seattle.
Who the hell was she? What did she want with Maelea? And why the hell couldn’t he read her?
“Well.” Lena dropped her hands, stepped back. “You look pretty good now. Heart rate’s normal, lungs sound okay. You have a slight temperature, but it’s not high enough to worry me. If I were you, I’d take it easy for the rest of the day and try to avoid confined spaces.”
A weak smile spread across Natasa’s face. Her lips were plump and pink, her teeth white and very straight. A blush ran up her cheeks, making that flame red hair of hers look even redder. “Okay.”
Lena moved to the sink, washed her hands, and reached for paper towels as she turned. “And you, big guy. How are you feeling?”
Titus dragged his attention away from Natasa and looked toward the healer.
“Yes, you,” Lena said with a chuckle when he didn’t answer. “You’re sweating.”
Titus swiped at his brow, looked at the moisture on his fingers. Yeah, he was sweating, but not from his injury anymore. He could feel his body healing. In another day he’d be totally back to normal, thanks to a blessing from the gods. All the Argonauts healed fast. But this sweat had nothing to do with what had happened to him. His gaze cut to Natasa again, who was now watching him with careful and very interested eyes.
No, right now he was sweating because the redhead was throwing off heat waves he’d have had to be blind, dumb, and deaf to miss. All of which he was definitely not.
“I’m fine,” he said, dropping his hands, eager to change the subject. Whatever she was, he didn’t want to discuss it in front of Lena. “So she’s good to go?”
“Yes.” Lena tossed the towels in a recycle bin. “If anything else happens, Natasa, just come right back down and we’ll take a look.”
“Thank you,” Natasa said.
Lena cast a speculative glance between the two, then stepped out of the room and closed the door at her back.