Chapter Twenty-One
If there was one thing Kalila was aware of, it was the amount of pride a scientist had to swallow before admitting they needed something explained to them. Although she’d offered to guide Oliver through her theories before, he’d never taken her up on it.
Until now.
Now, he stood before her with a hopeful look on his handsome, perfect face, awaiting her response.
“Yes,” she breathed. She felt a smile take hold, wide and uncontrolled. “Yes, of course I will.”
Oliver returned her grin with a charming, crooked one of his own. “Are you quite sure? You’ll have to hold my hand through every single one of your theories.”
“I don’t mind.” Folding her arms across her chest, she assessed him with an analytical air. “You won’t argue against them, will you?”
“Now, I didn’t say that,” he responded, his grin widening. “But I do promise to be a good pupil.”
Kalila made her way to her desk to retrieve a sheaf of clean paper. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”
“Why, Kalila, it’s almost like you don’t trust me,” he said in mock offense, joining her as she sat on the floor and spread the papers between them.
“It’s almost like I know you,” she said, trying and failing to mask her delight at having been asked to teach. Picking up a pencil, she drew an arbitrary shape. “This is a cell.”
“I know what cells are,” Oliver said, this time sounding like he was actually a little bit offended.
“I know,” Kalila said. “Focus.” She drew two more shapes underneath the original one. “These are daughter cells. My interest,” she said, tapping her pencil to the mother cell, “has to do with the properties of the parent.”
Oliver was absorbed in an instant, the perfect picture of serious concentration.
Encouraged, Kalila continued to draw, explaining the intricacies of each one of her theories.
Pleasure spiked through her at Oliver’s every nod and murmur of agreement, and she realized that this was the first time she’d had a rapt audience.
It was wonderful.
Hours slipped by without notice, and Kalila was pleased that her lecture was going by without incident.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, she stood and stretched with the intention of lighting a few candles.
While illuminating the room, she heard the distinct sound of papers shuffled behind her.
“There’s something missing,” Oliver said, almost as if he were speaking to himself.
Kalila turned, eyes narrowing. “Missing?”
“Not missing, I suppose.” His tousled golden hair glinted in the candlelight, almost distracting her from the oncoming critique. “It’s just that this can’t apply to every organ.”
“I didn’t say it does,” Kalila said, returning to her spot on the floor. “I said it likely occurs in the majority of organs.”
“But which ones?”
How would I know?
“I don’t think it matters in the context of my work,” she said instead, folding her arms across her chest.
“Perhaps not.” He let the sheet he’d been holding float to the floor. “But it is something you should consider.”
“Consider?” she echoed. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been asked to consider no less than two hundred different questions in the years it’s taken me to craft these theories. I’m quite at my limit.”
“What’s one more?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
She spluttered. “One more? Why don’t you tell me which organs these theories apply to, Oliver? In the spirit of collaboration, that is.”
He laughed, the sound rich and almost musical.
She refused to be dazzled by him. “Is something funny?”
He shook his head. “It’s—you’re so passionate about all this, Kalila. It’s very—charming.”
“Charming?” she huffed. “That is not my intention, I assure you.”
“I don’t think you can help it,” he said, twinkling at her in amusement.
“I notice you didn’t answer my question.” Kalila sniffed in disdain. “Why don’t you grace me with your theories as to which—”
“Here’s a theory,” he interrupted, his words tumbling out. “I think I might fall in love with you.”
The sudden silence in the room could have been cut with a knife. Kalila blinked in shock as Oliver fixed her with a pointed, serious look. He appeared rather grim, she thought, so she must have heard him incorrectly.
“I beg your pardon?” she squeaked.
“Apologies,” he said, and for a moment she wondered if she had, in fact, misheard. He cleared his throat before repeating, “I think I might fall in love with you.”
Kalila’s mouth went dry. “W-what? You—”
“And I’d really like to know if there’s any hope for me,” he said, his expression morphing into something a touch desperate. “We agreed to be honest with one another, and so here I am. Being honest.”
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. “Hope?”
He inched closer, taking one of her hands in his. His other hand found its way to her chin, and he tilted her head so she was forced to meet his gaze. “That you might fall in love with me,” he said, his voice equal parts soft and graveled. “Because if there isn’t, then we likely have a problem.”
Kalila stared into his eyes, so gentle and eager and kind.
Even as her heart swelled with exquisite pain, her mind raced to try to place what she’d done to deserve this.
She wasn’t the sort to have men prostrate themselves before her and speak of love.
Any conversations she’d had in the past that likely should have had a romantic bent had instead been rather cut-and-dry.
But this was something different, something unrecognizable and new.
“I’d never stifle you,” he said, his thumb tracing her sharp jawline, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oliver—”
“You said we ought to tell each other if things change.”
“But that was for me,” she blurted out, pressing her fingers into his palm. “Not for you. I thought I was the one who would develop—Oliver, you are the marriage averse one of us.”
“So are you, technically.”
Kalila bit her lip, knowing full well that she’d made her stance on the issue quite clear. She swallowed a sigh, wishing that they could return to scientific theory. That, at the very least, was simple.
“No matter,” she said. She made to pull her hand away from his, but his grip tightened and she found herself trapped. “It would never work. If we were to be together, I’d have to watch you move forward as a scientist. And I’d resent you for it. Even if I do end up—”
Before she could finish making her argument, Oliver tugged her forward, silencing her with the most devastating kiss she’d ever received.
Her defenses melted away, as they seemed to do any time he was by her side.
Without thinking, she wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.
He sighed, his hands sliding down her back before settling at her waist. He continued to pull her forward until she straddled him, the growing evidence of his arousal brushing against her trousers.
“Oliver,” she panted, breaking apart from him, “we haven’t finished—”
“Later,” he rasped. He cupped her face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones. “Is later acceptable?”
She paused to consider his question, despite her body having already decided the answer for her.
A tightness coiled in her belly, and she felt the tell-tale tingle of excitement at her core.
When her eyes met his, the sensations heightened, joined only by a painful tug somewhere in the recesses of her heart.
They needed to talk, but she also needed this. She needed the day to end this way, if only to dampen the misery of losing her work. While it could end with a difficult conversation, she reasoned, it could also end with—
“Stop thinking,” he admonished, running a hand through her short hair.
“You asked me a question,” she whispered. “I’m simply thinking of the best way to respond.”
A corner of his mouth hiked up in his trademark smile. “And was it such a difficult question?”
“I’m only trying to think of the most sensible answer,” she replied, suppressing the urge to push against him to relieve the ache between her legs.
“Then I have another question for you.” He nuzzled her neck and pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin by her jaw. “Do you want to be sensible?”
“I think I’m tired of being sensible, actually.”
“Good,” he murmured against her skin. “What non-sensible thing would you like to do?”
“I want to make love now,” she said, heat blooming crimson across her cheeks, “and have a conversation later.”
“A clever decision,” he said, voice hoarse. “I expected nothing less.”
*
When Oliver had agreed to Kalila’s terms, he’d promised to keep any change of heart to himself. But as he’d watched her light up with fire and passion, there was nothing he could do to stop himself from declaring his true feelings.
Well, not quite his true feelings. He had softened them but only because he feared coming on too strong for her tastes.
If he could not tell her in this moment—and he highly doubted he could’ve kept it to himself for much longer—he could at least show her.
Oliver slowly, gently peeled her shirt off her body, his hands finally making direct contact with the heated skin beneath.
She sighed, still hovering above him as she loosened his cravat and pressed a kiss to the sensitive skin it had been protecting.
They both moved without any urgency, as if they had all the time in the world.
“Should we move to the bed?” he asked in a strangled whisper as her hips pushed against his erection. He was quite content to take her where they were but thought asking was the gentlemanly thing to do.
“No,” she responded, placing her hands on the buttons of his waistcoat. Before he could get a word in, she had relieved him of both waistcoat and shirt, pressing her bare breasts to his chest as she leaned in for a heated kiss.
“Are you sure?” he asked, slightly taken aback by the assertiveness of her actions.
Well, perhaps slightly taken aback wasn’t the correct phrase. Wildly aroused was far more accurate, given how his cock strained against his trousers, desperate for attention.