Not gentle. Not tentative. Just direct and sure with her mouth against mine and her hands coming up to my face.
I kissed her back. Tasted chocolate and sothing sweeter underneath, sothing warm that made my brain go quiet.
She pulled away. Breathing slightly faster.
"Okay. That was. Good."
"Yeah."
"Want to do it again?"
"Obviously."
She laughed and kissed harder. Her body pressed against mine. Soft and warm and curves that made thinking impossible, made everything else fade to background noise.
My hands found her waist. She made a small sound, halfway between surprise and approval. Then pulled back.
"We should. We should probably slow down."
"Probably."
"I don’t want to slow down."
" neither."
"This is a problem."
"Big problem."
She stepped back. Put space between us. Ran her fingers through her orange hair while her breathing evened out.
"Okay. New plan. We go back to the field. Eat the rest of the food. Talk like normal humans who aren’t about to make terrible decisions. Then I decide if I want to. Continue this."
"Works for ."
We walked back through the trees. Sat on my jacket again. The sunset painted everything gold and orange, turning the grass into sothing out of a painting, the kind you see in museums and don’t really understand until you’re sitting in it.
Aurora ate chips. Drank water. Looked at with those sharp green eyes while I tried not to think about how her lips tasted.
"Tell sothing true."
"Like what?"
"Sothing you haven’t told anyone else. Sothing real. Not the surface stuff everyone shares."
I thought about the system. The death tir ticking down in the corner of my vision. The extraction network I was building like so kind of harem protagonist. The bet with Blair. The way Naomi looked at this morning like I’d hung the moon. Belle’s increasingly flirty texts. Hikaru’s three percent attraction that sohow felt more dangerous than the others combined.
"I’m scared," I said. "All the ti. Every day. That I’m going to run out of ti or make the wrong choice or hurt soone who doesn’t deserve it."
"Because of the dying thing?"
"Because I have to keep choosing survival over being a good person. And eventually that’s going to cost everything. Everyone I’ve gotten close to, everyone who’s trusted , they’re all going to find out what I really am. What I’ve been doing."
She was quiet for a minute. Ate another chip. The crunch sounded loud in the evening air.
"You killed an alpha to protect Belle. You could have stayed in formation. Let Misato handle it. But you didn’t."
"Instinct."
"No. Choice. You chose to risk dying so soone else wouldn’t. That’s not nothing."
"Belle’s on my squad. Of course I’d help her."
"Most people wouldn’t. Not really. Not when it ans actually risking sothing, putting your own neck on the line." She set the chip bag down. "They’d do the math. Calculate the odds. Decide she’s not worth it."
"I’m not most people apparently."
"No. You’re really not." She smiled. "You’re weird and complicated and you make terrible jokes at bad tis and sohow that makes you interesting instead of annoying."
She finished the water. Set the bottle aside. Looked at with an expression I couldn’t read, sothing between curiosity and decision.
"I’m going to kiss you again. And then I’m going to decide if I want to do more than kiss you. Is that okay?"
"Yes."
She moved onto my lap. Straddled . Her dress rode up high on her thighs. Her hands found my shoulders and squeezed.
"You’re sure about this?" she asked. "About. being part of whatever you have going on? Whatever weird situation you’ve got with Belle and Naomi and whoever else?"
"I’m sure."
"Even though I’m ranked 23 and you’re 141?"
"Especially because of that. You’re way out of my league. Everyone knows it. Makes it more fun when they figure out you picked anyway."
"Good answer."
She kissed . Slow and deep this ti. Her tongue traced my lower lip. I opened for her. Tasted chocolate and sothing warm underneath, sothing that made my whole body wake up.
Her hips shifted. Rolled against . I made a sound I didn’t an to make, sothing between a groan and a curse.
She pulled back. Smiled like she’d won sothing, like she’d just proven a point she’d been thinking about all day.
"You’re fun. I like fun."
"I’m noticing."
"Want to see sothing cool? Sothing I don’t usually show people on first dates?"
"Always."
She touched my face. Her fingers warm against my jaw, gentle in a way that contradicted everything about this mont.
The world. Changed.
Everything I tasted beca strawberry cream, rich and sweet and impossible. The grass beneath us slled like ocean salt and vanilla, clean and intoxicating. The evening air felt like silk against my skin. Aurora’s voice when she spoke sounded like music with layers I’d never heard before, harmonics that shouldn’t exist.
"That’s my ability," she said. "Sensory Hijack. I can control what you taste, sll, feel, hear, see. All of it. Everything your body tells your brain about reality. I could make you experience anything."
"That’s. Incredible."
"It’s dangerous. I could make you taste poison when you drink water. Make you see monsters that aren’t there. Make pain feel like pleasure or pleasure feel like agony. I could convince your brain you’re dying when you’re perfectly fine."
"But you’re not."
"No. I’m making everything better. Sweeter. More intense. Because I want you to feel what I feel when I’m with soone I actually like, soone I want to be close to."
She kissed again. The taste exploded across my tongue. Layers of flavor that shouldn’t exist, combinations that made my brain short-circuit. Her mouth felt like heaven and honey and sothing divine, sothing beyond normal human experience.
I pulled her closer. My hands slid down her back. She arched into and made a sound that went straight to my cock.
"Jace."
"Yeah?"
"I want. I want to do this. With you. The. Extraction thing. Tonight. Now."
"Aurora."
"I know what it ans. Belle explained. Three orgasms. You finish inside. I get the buff. You get my ability. And we both get what we need. It’s transactional but it doesn’t have to be just that."
"We don’t have to. Not tonight. We can just. This is good. This is already good."
"I know we don’t have to. I’m saying I want to. I’ve thought about it. I’m choosing this."
She kissed my jaw. My throat. The sensation felt amplified beyond normal human experience, every touch electric.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you spent 200 points on cake. Because you showed up early to find the perfect spot. Because when I asked you to tell sothing true you said you were scared instead of pretending to be brave. And because I really. Really want to see what you can do with that ability of yours. Euphoric Feedback, right? Belle said it was insane."
"It’s. Intense."
"I’m counting on it."
She stood. Offered her hand. I took it and let her pull up.
"Where are we going?"
"Your room. Where you took Belle. Where you took Naomi. Where we can do this properly without an audience, without risking soone walking by and ruining everything."
"My roommate might be there."
"The scary Japanese kid who never talks?"
"Yeah."
"I don’t care. I want you. Right now. While I still feel brave enough to actually say it out loud, before I lose my nerve and talk myself out of sothing I know I want."
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