Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
EXTRA CURRICULAR
Kassian turned back to his computer screen, grateful for the coffee and the apparent reprieve from Leif’s annoyance.
Not that he needed it, he reminded himself. He didn’t need Leif to like him.
He stretched and flexed his back muscles. There had been a lot of boxes. “Keep telling yourself that.”
The computer screen flickered at him, and he sighed. “I don’t need him to like me.”
“But you want him to.” He kneaded at his lower back a bit and adjusted the lumbar support of his chair.
“Whatever.” He was busy. He didn’t have time to argue with himself about if it mattered who liked him or not.
He had to, as Leif had said, do his thing.
He was well aware why the cyber near miss had happened. He’d been caught snooping on a server where he didn’t belong. He’d been snooping because he had to know where that file he was following landed. He had to know that because the file was full of names. His name. Roger’s, Sal’s. At least two of his three older brothers. Maybe even, because that would be everyone’s luck, those two pretty idio—fuck. He had to stop that. Maybe it even held Bjorn’s and Leif’s names, and he could not have that.
Not to mention the dozens of names of people who didn’t need to attract the attention of the government, the military, or worse, the MNR. He’d seen what happened to his brothers when that ministry had gotten hold of them, and didn’t like the idea of that happening to anyone else he knew.
He glanced over at their new office mates. Leif had curled both feet up onto the big oak chair and lounged, headphones on, staring at his phone. Bjorn’s brow knit into an adorable knot as he read one of the files, turning pages at an improbable rate.
Kassian wanted to remind him the information he was skimming might save his life some day, but he’d antagonized the guy enough for a Tuesday morning.
No matter how accepting he had seemed in the stairwell, who didn’t even bat an eye when someone else showed interest in their guy?
“I wasn’t showing interest in either of them. That was the other way round.”
His chair creaked under his shifting weight. “And you were clearly very opposed to it.”
“Jesus. Shut the fuck up.” He prodded at his keyboard, trying to get his brain engaged in his job.
He could hear Rog in the storeroom, bouncing his ball off a wall.
Sal had headphones on too, listening to who knew what. They spent a lot of time listening, most likely to conversations they had no business listening in on, but that wasn’t the glass house he was about to throw stones at. An early heads-up had saved them before, and probably would again.
Sal’s spying often gave them an edge they needed. Sometimes it left them pissed off or scared too, but even they knew that was the price to pay for knowing ahead of time when a threat might be too real to ignore.
None of these people were built of stern enough stuff to withstand what his brothers Rufus and Randolph had undergone in the hands of an institution that saw them only as weapons, tools to be pointed into situations no one should have had to deal with.
He turned his attention back to his task. He had to reconfigure his sniffer to look like something else, get back in, and find that file before it landed on the wrong person’s desk and put them all in jeopardy.
At one point, Leif came by, took away his coffee cup, but brought it back filled again with steaming liquid. Later, he left a bottle of water and a sandwich, neatly cut into bite-sized pieces speared with individual toothpicks that he could easily eat with one hand.
The office lights hummed overhead. Voices drifted in and out of his periphery.
Bjorn and Roger left for a time, but came back with more boxes, though Kassian didn’t stop to see what kind of boxes.
Leif brought him more coffee and a fruit salad.
The metal filing cabinet rattled every now and then.
Once in a while, the lights flickered. Each time that happened, he held his breath, but the wiring held, and the computers didn’t go out again.
Suit or no suit, he should probably get better-insulated wiring installed.
For an intense hour or two late in the afternoon, Sal’s terse tones snapped orders into their headset, and a flurry of activity told him whoever they were talking to might need backup.
Roger was gearing up to go out, but that, too, faded into the background, and eventually, petered out without him going anywhere.
Finally, his sniffer was ready, the path he wanted to set it on scoped out, and he let it loose. Either it would find the file again, or it would lead anyone who spotted it on a merry chase through enough phishing, pirating, and porn sites they would need a lot of brain bleach and a complete reformat to get over the trip.
Lesson learned. He was not going to get caught out again, and potentially lead anyone right back here.
He sat back in his chair, groaning at the kink in his neck, but satisfied.
“What did you find out?”
The voice made him jump, as soft as it was.
“Sorry.” Leif set a hand on his shoulder, and another cup of hot coffee appeared on the desk next to Kassian’s mouse pad.
He turned to face him, sadly dislodging his gentle touch, but picking up the coffee and bringing it to his lips with a sigh. The guy made amazing coffee. “Nothing yet.” Behind the small man, the windows were dark, the sun having long ago gone down.
He saw no sign of Roger or Sal. Probably Roger had left hours ago, and Sal might be taking a nap on the old couch in the back of the storage room. With nothing going on, they both tended to keep sketchy hours. Always, somehow, at their desks when it mattered, but otherwise, they tended to wander off unexpectedly and without word as to where they were going. Not that Kassian had ever seen Sal leave the office other than in the middle of the day. He supposed at night, they waited for everyone else to go so they could lock up.
“So, what is it?” Leif asked, bringing his attention back.
“What is what?”
“Whatever you’re trying to track down.”
“How do you know that’s what I’m doing?”
“I saw glimpses of the code you were working on.” He waved at the empty fruit salad bowl. “While I made deliveries.” He indicated the coffee cup Kassian was sipping gratefully from.
Kassian grunted. “You know coding?”
“Took electrical engineering in college. Thought I was going to design programs for mining machines and shit, so I learned a lot of different coding languages.” He shrugged. “Guess that’s not what I’m supposed to do.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“Not more than Bjorn.”
“So you worked hard to learn how to do something, then gave it up before you even tried it out to babysit.”
Leif glowered at him. “What are you chasing?”
Kassian nodded to himself. That had been an asshole thing to say. Why he couldn’t manage to keep that shit behind his teeth… he huffed. “It’s a list.”
“Of?”
“Us.” Kassian waved a hand to take in the office. “People like us.”
Leif frowned. “What do you mean?”
“People with powers. People who maybe don’t want to be public superheroes. People who just want to live their lives and stay under the radar.”
“Y’all work for a superpower agency,” Bjorn pointed out, approaching from behind Leif, holding his hands oddly stiff at his sides.
Kassian lifted an eyebrow. “So do you.”
“I didn’t know that when I signed up, did I?” He shot a look at Leif, who turned the tiniest bit pink.
“I told you to read it,” he muttered.
“I’m reading it now, aren’t I?”
“This isn’t a superpower agency,” Kassian cut their argument off before it got any heavier.
“What would you call it?”
“We’re the Special Processing and Management Unit.”
“But what does that even mean?” Bjorn asked. “Because it’s never really explained.”
“What isn’t?”
“What we do.”
Leif snickered. “We’re SPAM. “
Bjorn shot him a look.
“We Process and Manage,” he said, still grinning.
“But what do we process? What do we manage?” Bjorn was intensely serious, which made Leif’s little grin all the more incongruous.
“Come on.” Leif made a motion like he was going to smack Bjorn in the chest with the back of his hand, but he aborted the motion when Bjorn scrambled out of his reach. “Still?”
Bjorn held up his hands. “Been trying, but if I let go of too much at once I’ll probably blow a finger off, or fuse myself to the filing cabinet or something.”
“Yeah, that was no fun,” Leif muttered, and Bjorn shuddered.
“No, it was not.” He glanced at his fingertips, all red and some of them blistered.
Leif made a pained sound.
“It’s fine,” Bjorn said. “I’ll put that cream shit you got me on them when we get home.”
Kassian got up to get a better look at his hands. “What have you been doing?”
“Reading.”
Leif snorted. “He’s been putting some of the files into the cabinet as he finishes them.”
“So?”
“It’s metal,” Bjorn said. “Which…” He shrugged. “You know when you have static electricity and you get a little zap when you touch something?”
“Sure.”
“Like that.”
“But a thousand times that,” Leif added.
“If I stay really calm, I can let just a little bit of it go at a time. Like each time I open the cabinet. But too much, and it can get a little…” He wiggled his fingers. “Burny.”
“Use the fucking suit,” Kassian said, aggravated and exasperated. He’d stayed up most of the night making the damn thing and Bjorn rejected it for what? Fashion? He was wearing baggy jeans and a flannel shirt, for crying out Pete’s sake. Not exactly red carpet. “You can channel all that excess energy into the cuffs.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean, then what?”
“Then you have these really dangerous artifacts with a deadly electrical charge in them. How do you deal with that?”
“At least it’s contained.”
“How much can they hold?”
“I don’t—enough?” Because he wasn’t going to admit he didn’t know if they could hold enough. He’d expected Bjorn’s ability to be like the rest of them—weak to the point of being inconsequential.
“You think?” Bjorn took a fast step closer to him and grabbed his wrist.
“Bjorn!” Leif’s eyes widened.
Electricity snapped and crawled up Kassian’s arm, over his skin, up through his hairline, along his chest, tightening his nipples and clenching his gut.
His heart skipped and his skin tingled, and—Jesus. Who knew getting zapped would get his cock’s attention.
Before he could yank free, Bjorn released him.
“Come on,” Bjorn said, gripping Leif by a bicep and marching him towards the door.
“Wha—”
“Need…” Whatever else Bjorn said was cut off by the door swinging shut behind them.
Kassian glared at the closing door. “He could have killed me!”
The other part of his brain leered as he palmed his half-hard cock. “Yeah. Because that’s the takeaway here.”
Cursing at Bjorn and himself, he adjusted his jeans and stomped back to his desk.
Leif didn’t resist Bjorn’s hauling him off out the door. Truth be told, he’d been low-grade feeling the aura of Bjorn’s charge all day, and he was sick to death of the half-boner it caused. Not that the electricity made him hard, but knowing what Bjorn could do with it in the right mood sure as hell did.
And that’s exactly what he’d been telling himself all day because the instant reaction he’d had in the stairwell hadn’t happened because he’d been thinking anything at all. It had been automatic. He had Pavlov’s erection. Perfect.
Occasionally that day he’d wondered what it said about him that he wasn’t embarrassed by it happening, or by it happening in front of Kassian. But only occasionally.
Thankfully, they didn’t go far. Bjorn dragged him down one flight into the abandoned construction zone of the floor below the office.
“You gonna have angry sex with me now?” he panted as Bjorn backed him up against a wood-clad post and pinned him there with his body. “Because I sincerely hope that’s the plan here.”
Sparks flashed in the semi-darkness around them.
“He pisses me off.”
“Kassian?”
Bjorn grunted.
“I know, babe.” Leif ran his hands over Bjorn’s shoulders and got sparked heavily for his trouble. “I’m sorry I baited him. I get why you didn’t like the suit, but there were better ways to talk to him about it instead of escalating things.”
Bjorn backed off. “I could have hurt him.”
That… wasn’t what he’d thought Bjorn had been thinking about at all. “Babe. You had it under control.”
“Eh.” He wrung his hands, watching the arcs of light fly off into the deeper darkness beyond them. “Only because I was so mad. Why does he piss me off so hard?”
“You’re hard?” Leif asked, gripping his crotch to see, and because distracting him from Kassian would probably be better for both of them. At least until Bjorn had gotten rid of the rest of this build-up.
Bjorn groaned and rocked his hips.
Good. Leif locked his lips over Bjorn’s throat and sucked a little bit. The current was strong enough that even doing nothing, Bjorn’s skin made his lips tingle. He liked it.
“Wait,” Bjorn muttered, skimming his hands over Leif’s shoulders, but not actually moving him back. “I was in the middle of venting.”
Leif nuzzled at the collar of Bjorn’s shirt to get it out of the way. “Vent away.”
“What was I saying?”
“He makes you so mad.” He found skin again and started sucking.
“Right. Fuck.”
A bright shot of electricity met Leif’s tongue when he licked, drawing a groan from him.
“I mean, what does he think? Just because he looks like that, he can… what?” But it sounded like he’d lost the train of his thoughts, because for a few minutes, he simmered and mumbled and applied a lot of his weight to pinning Leif against the post.
The sizzle of the electricity dulled down to a soft hum.
“He thinks he can talk down—” Leif gasped. “—to us.”
“No.” Bjorn growled and the current amped up, sparked over Leif’s chest when Bjorn pushed himself away a bit. The shimmer of it through his muscles was delicious. “He cannot talk down to you. Does he even know how amazing you are?”
Leif grinned. “Tell me.”
Instead, Bjorn kissed him, hard, sending that heady charge deep into him when he invaded his mouth with his tongue. God, that was good.
Bjorn’s big hands, on both sides of his head and neck, were hot spots of zinging sensation that lit him up. He pushed his hips against Bjorn’s hard thigh. He was so close.
Separating from him, Bjorn laid his forehead against Leif’s. “He’s just so… so…” Apparently, he wasn’t done venting.
“So what?”
Bjorn leaned back to look at him. “I’m sorry. Fuck.”
Leif grinned. He should have cared more about Kassian being on Bjorn’s mind right that second, but… “He’s really hot,” he offered, because that was certainly true, and he knew they’d both noticed the big man’s appeal. Plus, the sooner they talked about this, the better. They’d learned that the hard way, and he refused to let another guy get between them without both of them agreeing they wanted him there.
“Wow. Really not the point.” Bjorn tried to look affronted, but there was a grin behind his words.
“Isn’t it?”
Bjorn’s eyes got big. “Oh. My God. Is it?”
Leif shrugged. “I’d hit that.”
“Fucking hell. Dude!”
“Well, I would. You wouldn’t?”
“I—maybe. If he wasn’t such a jerk.”
“He did carry half your boxes up for you.”
“I saw you looking at his ass, by the way.”
“Which means you were looking at it, too.”
“It means I was looking at you,” he confessed, and maybe it implied something about them, but he didn’t say any more out loud.
Leif didn’t ask. Feelings could not get involved here. They gave him too many insights into the other person’s brain he did not want and that always ended up derailing the entire relationship. Even after ten years, most of Bjorn’s inner workings remained a mystery to him, and he liked it that way. He wanted to keep it that way.
Shying away from those thoughts, Leif lifted one eyebrow. “You telling me you haven’t noticed his ass?”
“Fine.” Bjorn sighed, but he did twist his mouth into a reluctant smirk. “It’s a good ass.”
“Very.”
Bjorn studied him. “I think you may have traumatized him a little bit.”
Leif sighed. “I didn’t mean to. I—” He studied Bjorn right back. “Is it weird that…”
“That what? Talk.”
“Bossy.”
“Tell me,” he said more gently, the backs of his fingers trailing along Leif’s scar, though he was careful not to send sparks off. Just the low tingle of ambient energy was enough to make the scar sizzle uncomfortably.
“I just wasn’t expecting that strong a reaction in the middle of just—the middle of the day. It was a bit weird.”
“Bad weird?”
“No?” He tipped his head back against the post. “I don’t know. Unexpected.”
“Because of Kassian?”
“Maybe? That weird?”
Bjorn ran a hand down his throat, electricity sparking a trail behind his fingertips this time, and Leif sighed, because Kassian or no Kassian, he loved that sensation. Bjorn followed the sparks with his lips and Leif shuddered hard. The wet sparks of his tongue were even better.
“I’m gonna blow you now,” Bjorn whispered against his Adam’s apple.
“Okay.”
“Maybe we stop talking about him while I do that.”
“Well, you will, anyway.” Leif tugged on his shirt to let him know he should get down there and get on with it. “Hard to talk with your mouth full.”
Bjorn hmmmed, and knelt while Leif opened his jeans up, fished his cock out and stroked himself.
It wouldn’t be the first time they openly and mutually appreciated some other guy while they were together. It was the first time the subject of their mutual admiration and interest was more than just some random passing through, but that didn’t matter. Probably.
And then nothing really mattered, because Bjorn had his mouth on Leif, and the sparks flying were digging deep into his gut and his soul, and he was not going to take long enough.
There was too much of Bjorn applying his spark and his— fucking hell— tongue—there—and he’d been too close to the edge all day to last. Bjorn needed him to hold out, or this wasn’t going to do for Bjorn what it was designed to do. It would help, but it wouldn’t be enough.
Even trying to distract himself with the consequences to Bjorn after, when he still carried too big a charge to be comfortable, was not enough to keep the sensations in his balls from building, tightening, releasing in a strong, endless gush of bliss down his best friend’s throat.
Good thing he had the post behind him, because his legs were useless, and he didn’t dare touch Bjorn without the all-clear.
Bjorn rested his forehead in the crook of Leif’s hip and trailed his hands restlessly over his bare thighs and ass.
Sparks still flew. The zinging was less a turn-on now, and more a snap and zap and hairs standing all on end, but it was working for Bjorn. It was getting some of the charge out harmlessly, and it didn’t hurt that much.
Something beyond the layers of hanging construction plastic thumped and he glanced to his left.
A huge shadow lurked just beyond where he could make out a clear shape, but then, he didn’t need it to be clear to his eyes. He’d recognize that feel as easily as he would Bjorn’s, which in itself was a bit startling.
“Kas?” He barely whispered the name, and if Bjorn heard him, he didn’t budge from where he knelt.
The figure froze for a split second, then started backing away and in a moment, was gone.
“Hey.” Leif tugged at Bjorn’s hair. “Get up.”
Bjorn grunted.
“Come on. Up.” He tugged harder, glanced back where he’d seen Kassian, but there was no one there. No point mentioning it to Bjorn. If he hadn’t been aware of being observed, best not bring it up while he was still so volatile. He could get a bit protective of Leif when he thought Leif was too vulnerable.
Sweet. Unnecessary, but sweet.
Bjorn stumbled to his feet, and Leif kissed him. That brought his attention back where it needed to be. It also left his lips burning, so he broke off to turn around, back to his friend.
“Leif.”
“Do it this way.”
“You don’t even like this way.”
“I don’t mind.” It was a small fib. “Not when it’s you.” That was not a fib. He wouldn’t let just anyone fuck him. Just Bjorn. Just when it was bad.
“Babe.”
Leif smiled at the post, warmed by the use of the pet name he was usually careful not to utter at times like this. “Get me hard again.”
Bjorn spent long moments tracing his fingers up under Leif’s shirt, over his back and his abs, around his nipples, down to the hairs around his cock, and slowly, he came back to life.
One of Bjorn’s hands snuck back to trail over his ass and Leif shut his eyes.
“Can’t believe I did that for him,” Bjorn said against the skin of his neck. “For no reason. And he’s not even taking care of the aftermath.”
Leif chuckled a filthy chuckle. “He wishes.”
Bjorn kissed the spot where his complaint had landed, sizzling it off his skin with his power.
“Not that I would fuck him over you,” Bjorn said.
“God, I would love to spread him out like this.” Leif panted as one of Bjorn’s thick fingers entered him. “Be so… hot.” He gasped at the intrusion.
“He’d like it,” Bjorn predicted.
“Mmm.” He squirmed to get a better angle. “Know I’d love watching it.”
“You’d like doing it.”
“Not gonna—oh. Fuck.” He reached back to move one ass cheek aside for Bjorn. “Not gonna lie. I totally would.”
For a few minutes, Bjorn worked him open, stroking fingers in and out, stroking his cock, stroking power along his skin in all the most sensitive places. It was heaven, and Kassian would be so lucky.
They’d learned a long time ago to carry lube at all times. The feel of it, cool on his entrance, pulled another gasp from Leif, but it warmed quickly and eased the passage of Bjorn’s fingers.
“You ready?” Bjorn asked finally.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry about this.”
“Nah. It’s good.” And it was, because Bjorn always made sure it was. He always ended up enjoying it, once the initial penetration happened. Bjorn was big, and dangerous when he was so charged they had to do this, but he was also gentle. Kind. Patient with the prep Leif needed.
Bjorn’s lips closed around his earlobe and he shivered. The contact was somehow sparkless, just soft lips and warm breath and slick tongue, and Leif moaned, deep in his heart, because that almost never happened.
It was what distracted him from the burn of entry and the harsher, harder thrust of cock and electric bliss. It was what grounded him, hardened his own cock fully again, and focused him on why he ended up liking when Bjorn took him, when he’d never liked it from anyone else.
It didn’t take long. The electricity sizzled through them and out both their cocks hard, fast and hot. He had to wonder if the jizz he spurted onto the post steamed, but was too wrung out to open his eyes and check. When Bjorn flattened a palm over his stomach, and there was no zap and crackle of power, just the soft, general fuzz of low-grade static, he knew it had worked, and that was all that mattered.
Kassian hadn’t planned to follow them. He’d been on his way home, because damn it, Leif had been right. The suit wasn’t going to cut it, and the cuffs probably needed a heavy upgrade. He needed to figure that shit out.
Footsteps coming from behind the stairwell door on the floor below their office had caught his attention, though, and he had to check. They didn’t dare risk someone breaking into their space with all that sensitive material just sitting there in boxes waiting for anyone to come along and read it.
It was a stupid risk to take to accommodate one guy, but apparently, he was the only one who saw that.
Besides, Sal was still upstairs, and Kassian wasn’t about to leave them alone in the building with a lurker. There hadn’t been an actual construction worker on this floor since they’d moved in, so whoever it was had no business being there.
The footsteps were not, he quickly realized, conspiratorial intruders. He definitely recognized Bjorn’s heavy rumble, and Leif’s lighter, less brooding, lilt. And they were not having a casual conversation. There was too much panting and shuffling and grunting for that.
“Shit.” He backed to the door as quietly as possible and had his hand on the crash bar—which refused to depress under his pressure—when he heard his name.
They were having sex, practically in public, and talking about him?
“Jesus.” He needed out of there, yet still, the door refused to open.
Deeper in the recesses of the construction site, beyond the hanging layers of plastic, lights flickered, white and blue, and went out again.
Leif groaned and the lights came and went again.
“Seriously? He better not be zapping him.” Compelled against his better judgement, he snuck around a layer of plastic to see better.
Again, he was halted in his tracks by their conversation, which he was close enough to hear snippets of now, and the comment about talking down raised his hackles. “I do not talk down to Leif. Him, I like.”
Leif had noticed Kassian in a way most people never did. He saw past the brawn and noticed his brain, which to most people, was invisible, even when they were using it for their own ends.
He would never talk down to Leif.
Bjorn, on the other hand… Especially if he had a habit of hurting Leif with that stupid power of his. If that was the case, he’d happily use his brawn to take the man’s head off.
They were still talking about him between kisses and touches, and Kassian would have demanded they shut up, but then they weren’t talking about how annoying they thought he was. They were talking about how… hot they thought he was?
His inner geek snorted. “Don’t let it go to your head. Their brains are high on electricity.”
“Shut up.”
Still…
Peering around a curtain of plastic, he tried to make out what they were doing. He didn’t have a clear view—there were still a couple of layers of the construction plastic between him and them, but it was clear Bjorn was the one on his knees, and that, unexpected as it was, was hotter than Kassian cared to admit.
“You’re spying on people having sex,” he reminded himself, and that jolted him out of his compulsion. This was not okay.
Then the sparks and trails of light lit up Leif’s lean, tight frame for an instant.
Kassian jolted, knocking over a thankfully empty Timmy’s mug with his elbow.
Leif’s head snapped around and Kassian got the distinct impression the man saw him—not just a person standing there, but him .
He ducked back into the shadows, but how was he supposed to leave, knowing Leif knew he was there? That he’d watched them—do that?
Listening to the rest of their conversation about fucking—about him—listening to them actually fuck—he was so… fucked. He wedged himself into a corner near the door, mortified. And turned on. And fucking mortified . Sinking to the floor, he dropped his head into his hands. If he was still and quiet, maybe they’d leave without noticing him there, and he could wait until there was no risk of getting caught.
“I gotta get going,” he heard Leif half whisper. “Got my physio. Here’s cash. Stop at the convenience store for milk and bread, yeah?”
Bjorn grunted.
“See you soon.”
The next thing Kassian knew, Leif’s boots appeared in his line of sight, toes pointed directly at his hiding place.
“The whole watching thing is way less creepy if you’re not being sneaky about it.”
“I didn’t mean to. And then I?—”
Leif crouched. “I didn’t tell him you’re here. And I won’t if you don’t.”
To Kassian’s surprise, Leif gripped one of his wrists and pulled a hand away from his face with a tenderness Kassian didn’t think he deserved. “Neither of us mind if you do. But now you know that, I suppose.”
Kassian nodded, hoping Leif wasn’t going to demand to know how he felt about it.
Leif touched his cheek with his fingertips. “His power… I can’t even explain to you what it does to me.” He tipped his head to the side. “It’s worth experiencing, though. Trust me.”
Kassian expected his signature grin, but it didn’t come. He waited.
“Do me a favour,” Leif said at last.
“What?”
“Help him get home.”
“What?”
“If you think getting me off—twice—doesn’t take it out of a guy…” Now he grinned his crooked, dirty little grin that wasn’t without electricity all its own and winked.
“Wow. This has to be the extreme in ‘I don’t cuddle after’ behavior.”
“For the record, I don’t. Which hurts him.”
“So why not just –”
“Because I don’t.” The finality of the words stopped Kassian pushing. “But he will be tired. That was a lot of energy he had to get rid of, and that’s the part that drains him. I do have an appointment I have to get to, and he will be slow. And there’s no guarantee he won’t have built up enough static to short out the convenience store’s fridge by the time he gets there.”
“So you want me to babysit him while you?—”
“He doesn’t need a babysitter, asshole.”
“What then?”
“Company. While I go take care of me for half a minute. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but like I said, that was a lot.”
Kassian nodded. And Bjorn had been carrying that power around all day because of him. Maybe it was the least he could do to thank him. “Fine.”
“Thank you.” He stood and held out a hand.
Kassian shook his head. If he was going to help Bjorn, he’d own up to being there.
“Suit yourself.” And Leif turned and left.
The door didn’t hesitate to let him out, Kassian noticed.
After another minute, another pair of boots appeared in his line of sight. “You coming?” Bjorn asked.
Kassian looked up to his big hand being offered. He let Bjorn pull him to his feet, noting the distinct lack of sizzle. “Listen?—”
“We don’t have to talk about this.”
“As in you don’t want to, or?—”
“As in we don’t have to talk about it. And you don’t have to walk me home. I’m good.”
“I wasn’t going to walk you home.”
“Fine.” He squared his shoulders and started to turn his back.
“I could offer you a ride, though.”
Bjorn’s shoulders slumped slightly. “Yeah?” He sounded almost pathetically hopeful.
“Yeah.” Kassian studied him. His cheeks were pale, his smile lines etched deep at the corners of his eyes but missing around his mouth entirely. He looked like someone who’d just put in a hard day’s labour and was ready to drop. “Come on.”
When he reached the corner store on Bjorn’s block, Kassian pulled the car to a stop in a spot along the curb. For a moment after he shut off the car, he thought Bjorn was asleep, but after a heartbeat, the big man sighed. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Still, Bjorn didn’t move.
“Here.” Kassian undid his own belt. “Gimme the cash.”
“What?”
“Milk and bread, right?” He held out a hand. “Fork it over.”
For the barest moment, it looked like Bjorn was going to argue, but then he handed over the money and let his head fall back onto the headrest. “Thanks. Leif likes two percent and whole wheat.”
“Sure.”
When he came back out, Bjorn was leaning on the side of the car, arms crossed. Kassian handed him the groceries and change. “I can take you home.”
“It’s half a block. I’m good.” He tilted his had. “Unless you meant?—”
“No!”
One of Bjorn’s eyebrows rose. “Message received.” He pushed off the car.
“I mean…”
Bjorn paused, waiting.
“I just meant no, thank you. I… am flattered?”
“You’re not sure?”
“I’m… processing. Can I process a minute?”
“Process as long as you like. We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Are you interested at all? Or just because Leif is?”
For the longest, perhaps most excruciating minute of his life, Bjorn studied Kassian, like he could see inside him, into his head, what he thought—maybe even in his heart to what he felt, which was terrifying, because how the hell did he even know what he felt himself? What if Bjorn figured it out before he did? Because this guy had a knack for seeing things that shouldn’t be visible.
When Bjorn reached over and touched his cheek, then scraped fingers through his curls, pushing them away from the side of his face, he was too startled to move. “People tend to think I’m a dumb jock.”
“Tell me about it,” Kassian blurted.
Bjorn snorted out a chuckle. “I am not a jock,” Bjorn pointed out.
“Not dumb either, I bet.” Kassian couldn’t look away from his clear blue gaze. Simple, the man might be, but it had been a mistake to think he was an idiot, and he was sorry he’d ever said it.
“Jury’s still out.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Smart enough to trust Leif, though.”
“Meaning?”
Bjorn shrugged, and his wide grin made a flash appearance, dimple and all. “He says you’re good people. He asked you to help me. He wouldn’t ask just anyone.”
“And that’s good enough for you.”
“It is.” He tightened the curl of his fingers around Kassian’s skull for just an instant. A spark of electric fire raced over his scalp.
The kiss was so unexpected, Kassian didn’t return it right away. By the time he did, Bjorn was already pulling back from it. “See you at the office, I guess.” Then he dropped his hand and walked away.
Like an idiot, Kassian whispered “see you” to empty air. Then he touched his lips, like that would provide him with some kind of hard evidence that the kiss had happened. Something besides the continued static buzz and the hard-on in his pants, that is. “I see the appeal,” he muttered as he watched Bjorn saunter down the sidewalk. And he wasn’t just talking about the view. That electric zing could get addictive.
“I knew you would,” his asshole meat-head gloated.
“You can just fuck right the hell off.”