Chapter Six #2
She talks for five minutes, then ten, then twenty, while I eat and try to make sense of her explanation.
I did alright in high school biology, but I tried one college-level course, dropped the class before the deadline, and never took another.
I’m getting maybe 10% of this, but that 10% is fascinating.
“The capillary channels have to self-regulate. Think of it like… an interstate system for molecules. But most people screw up the flow-to-volume ratios because they don’t account for thermodynamic variance.”
I squint at her and, at last, finally interject a question of my own. “So… you hacked your own molecule highway?”
Minerva swings her legs off the side of her chair so that her whole body is facing me. “Yes! That’s exactly it! No one’s ever—how did you get that?!”
“I was listening.’
Minerva squeaks. Next thing I know, she’s in my chair with me, her arms wrapped around my neck, her body pressed up against mine. Her cheek is pressed to mine. “Nobody listens! That’s… you’re…”
Her position is precarious. She’s right on the edge of the chair, so I reach for her waist to hold her in place. She’s so delicate, and her whole body is vibrating with excitement.
She’s small—maybe five-three—but her body is this perfect mix of soft and strong.
A trim waist that fits in my hands, hips with just enough curve to make my pulse kick, and long legs that distract me every damn time she crosses a room.
Her skin has this warm, sunlit tone to it, the kind that makes me want to trace every inch with my mouth. And her face… Christ.
Large eyes framed by lashes so dark they look smudged.
A straight, delicate nose. Full lips that she keeps worrying between her teeth like she has no idea how tempting she is.
Her hair falls in loose waves around her shoulders.
It’s dark, glossy, a little wild, like she hasn’t realized she’s beautiful enough to stop hiding behind it.
And now, with her cheeks turning pink and her breath catching, she looks nothing like the plain, forgettable girl she thinks she is. She looks like she’s blooming right in front of me.
Her face hovers inches from mine. Her lips part. She meets my eyes—really meets them—and the force of that quiet courage rocks me. From this close, being seen by her feels intimate in a way that grabs me by the throat.
This is nice. Better than nice. For a moment, I think she’s going to lift that pretty mouth to mine. I want to kiss her, to pull her into my lap, but if I do, I’ll scare her off. She’s my guest and my employee. If I push her into something she doesn’t want, she has nowhere else to go.
But if she kissed me? I’d happily claim her mouth with mine.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
I hope.
“I’m serious, Tristan. I’ve never had someone listen the way you do.”
“I’ve never wanted to listen so bad.” My voice is barely audible over the rushing of my blood.
She tilts her face. Just a hair. Her nose brushes mine. Her breath fans my mouth.
I tilt my head to meet her. Our lips almost brush.
I can feel the heat of her skin, the tremble in her limbs.
I can even feel the beat of her heart echoing in my own chest. This is so intense, and I’ve never felt anything like it.
Lust isn’t the right word. I want her, not to satisfy a carnal need, but because I want to touch her for its own sake.
I want to curl up with her and keep her safe from every bad thing people have told her about herself.
I want—
Minerva gasps and jerks away. As abruptly as she touched me, she’s gone, leaving my arms empty and my skin a bit cooler to the touch.
“Sorry. I—sorry. That was a lot. I’m… a lot.”
“Don’t apologize for being excited about something, Min.”
She curls up in the other chair. “I crossed a line. That will never happen again.”
What if I want it to happen again? The instinct to fix it claws up my throat. But you can’t fix people. Not the way I fix plays or broken sticks. You can only show them you’re not going anywhere.
“You didn’t. Or at least, not one that I’m invested in maintaining. For the record? If you’d kissed me just now, I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
I shouldn’t have said that. I know it the second it leaves my mouth, but fuck—I want her to know. I need her to know.
Her blush goes nuclear. She looks down, fiddling with the hem of her hoodie. “It’s probably better that I didn’t. I’m… not great at things like this.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I tell her. And then, because I know in my bones that if we leave the conversation on this note, she’ll avoid me for days, I ask, “So, you’ve hacked this molecule highway. Now what?”
From his ferret-sized hammock, Kepler chirps in his sleep like a furry third wheel. Minerva takes a shaky breath before launching into another explanation. She’s more subdued this time, but at least she isn’t running away or having a panic attack.
That’s progress, right?
* * *
I should be dead on my feet.
At practice this morning, Coach made us run suicides until my lungs burned, then we had film, then weights, then media.
I should be comatose the second my head hits the pillow.
Instead I’m staring up at the dark ceiling of my bedroom, sheets kicked to the foot of the bed, skin still vibrating like I just stepped off the ice.
I roll onto my back with a groan that sounds too loud in the quiet condo. My hand moves before my brain catches up—slides down my abs, under the waistband of my boxer briefs, cups the heavy ache that’s been there the entire damn day.
Because of her.
Because of the way Minerva’s eyes lit up on the balcony when she started explaining her new hydrogel prototype.
The way her hands danced in the air like she was conducting an invisible orchestra made of polymers and peptide chains.
The way her voice went breathy and quick, words tumbling over each other because she couldn’t get them out fast enough.
She forgot I was a hockey player. Forgot I was her boss, technically.
Forgot to be the careful, buttoned-up version of herself she thinks the world wants.
She was just… Min. Brilliant, electric, alive.
And so fucking beautiful it hurt.
I palm my cock and hiss at how sensitive I already am. One stroke, two, and I’m leaking, slicking the fabric. My hips jerk with a mind of their own.
I shouldn’t.
She’s right down the hall. She trusts me. I’m supposed to be the safe guy, the golden retriever who brings her coffee just how she told me she likes it, who pretends not to notice when she forgets to eat, who teases her about her color-coded planners but secretly loves how her brain works.
But right now I’m the guy picturing her climbing into my lap on that balcony, skirt rucked up around her thighs, glasses fogging as she sinks down onto me slow and tight.
I imagine her nails scoring the back of my neck, her startled gasp when I fill her, the way she’d bite that plump lower lip to keep from moaning my name where the neighbors might hear.
She’s so fucking petite, barely comes up to my pec, and every time she reaches for something on a high shelf, I have to clench my fists at my sides so I don’t lift her by the waist and set her on the counter just to feel how light she is in my hands.
I want to do it naked. Want to spread her out on my kitchen island and strip away every layer she uses to disappear.
She’s always binding herself, hiding those perfect tits under baggy shirts like they’re something to apologize for.
I’d peel it all off slow, kiss every inch of skin she’s learned to distrust, tell her how insane it makes me that I can palm one breast completely, my thumb brushing a nipple that tightens the second I touch her.
Like her body has been waiting for permission she never gives herself.
My hand curls around my cock, slow and hard, and I can’t stop thinking about how she hates what I crave most. How she flinches from softness, from attention, from the way I look at her like she matters. Because she does.
“Calisse… she’s gonna kill me.”
I want my hands on her ass, so small and firm I could hold her steady with one grip, pull her into me, and feel her tremble because she wants it even though she thinks she shouldn’t.
She’d be so tight around me it would steal my breath, thighs shaking as I hold her up, my name breaking from her mouth like she doesn’t quite believe she’s allowed to want this.
I want to fuck her until every lie she’s ever swallowed loosens its hold, until she knows—deep in her bones—that nothing about her needs fixing.
I want to ruin her for anyone who would ever make her feel small for the wrong reasons, and then spend the rest of my life proving that the things she tries to erase are exactly what make me fall apart.
“Fuck,” I speak into the dark, voice ragged. “I have no right to want her. I’m such a piece of shit.”
It doesn’t stop me.
I shove my briefs down just enough to free myself, wrap my fist around hot, aching flesh, and start stroking in earnest. Slow at first, pretending I still have control. Then faster, rougher, hips punching up into my hand because I can’t help it.
I think about her voice cracking on the word “viscoelasticity” like it was dirty.
I think about how supple her throat looked when she tipped her head back to laugh at something I said.
I think about spreading her out on my sheets, kissing every freckle across her collarbone while she explains quantum tunneling between filthy little moans. I want to watch her fall apart while she’s still trying to give me a lecture. I want to earn the moment she forgets words altogether.
My balls draw up tight. Too fast.
I slap my free hand over my mouth just as I come, teeth sinking into the meat of my palm to muffle the broken sound that rips out of me. Pleasure hits like a body check—sharp, blinding, leaving me shaking and gasping, cum striping my torso in thick pulses.
The ceiling swims back into focus.
I lie there panting, feeling like the worst kind of creep.
Because it’s not just her body I want. I mean—Christ, I want that, bad—but it’s more than that.
I want the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching.
I want her to trust me enough to be loud, to be messy, to be furious or silly or turned on or all of it at once.
I want to be the person she never has to shrink for.
I want to be better than every asshole who ever made her feel like her passion was “too much.”
With a shaky breath, I reach for the box of tissues on the nightstand, clean myself up, then flop back, arm over my eyes.
Tomorrow I’ll make her favorite stupid-complicated coffee order with oat milk and exactly 142 degrees because she’s a psychopath who measures it. I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’ll keep being the safe guy.
But tonight, in the dark, I let myself admit the truth.
I’m completely, hopelessly crushing on my nerdy little assistant. And the worst part is… I don’t just want her. I want her to want me back.
I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do about it.