11. Caleb #2
I leaned back against the table, studying him the same way he studied everything else in the world, and the question came out before I could stop it. “You think you’re going to hurt me?”
Novak’s expression gave way to something darker and more deliberate.
“No,” he said after a moment. “You’re the exception.
” He held my eyes when he said it, as if making sure I understood the distinction.
“The distance isn’t for me,” he continued.
“It’s so I can pivot if someone comes for you.
” His mouth tightened slightly before he added, almost as an afterthought, “And because if I stand any closer than that, I’ll end up touching you, and I can’t do that yet. ”
Okay then. Focus on the chocolate.
It didn’t feel like enough because I was getting hard again, as I seemed to do whenever Novak’s intense gaze focused on me.
“Is it good?” Novak asked as if he hadn’t just opened the biggest can ever and let the worms tumble all over the fucking place.
“The chocolate?” He nodded once. “Yeah.” I broke off another square without thinking and held it out toward him. “You want some?”
For a second, he didn’t move, then his boot pressed against the floor, and the chair rolled forward.
Not stopping at five feet.
Four.
Three.
My breath caught as he kept coming until the front of his chair nudged my knee, and our legs touched.
The contact sent a jolt straight up my spine, and I held out the chocolate, but he didn’t take it.
Instead, he leaned forward, and I could see the tiny scar that cut through his eyebrow, the steady focus in his eyes.
His gaze flicked to the piece of chocolate between my fingers, then back to my face.
“I don’t want the chocolate,” he said.
My hand hovered in the air. “No?”
His voice dropped a fraction lower, still calm, still matter-of-fact. “I want you.”
“Huh?”
“Your pupils dilated when I got closer.” His tone stayed flat, almost clinical. “Your breathing changed. Your pulse is visible here.” He lifted a finger and gestured toward my throat, but didn’t touch me. “You didn’t move away.”
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. “That doesn’t mean?—”
“Your leg is still pressed against mine,” he continued. “You offered me food. That’s bonding behavior.”
“This isn’t a freaking nature documentary,” I snapped. “It was chocolate!”
“Yes.” His head tilted, studying me as if I were a puzzle. “But you didn’t withdraw the offer even after I closed the distance.”
I still held the square of chocolate between us, and Novak’s gaze flicked to it, then back to my mouth.
“You’re also hard,” he added matter-of-factly.
My entire body locked up. “Jesus Christ,” I hissed.
“I’m sorry, I’m just observing,” he said.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Novak leaned a fraction closer, voice dropping. “From the way your pulse reacts and how hard you are, you want me too,” he said.
Something in me snapped. He sounded certain. He already knew the outcome. And he was right.
“You need to stop running diagnostics on me, Arnie,” I said. But before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the front of his shirt.
He leaned in. “I like you have nicknames for me,” he sounded as if this was a foreign thought for him. “Arnie, Robot, Freak.”
“They’re not nicknames, they’re labels,” I said, tired, then I hauled him forward, the wheels of his chair bumping mine as the distance between us disappeared.
Up close, he smelled like coffee, and his gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second before meeting my eyes again. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t close the distance for us either. Instead, he let me hold him there.
“Freak,” I repeated, although somehow it was less a statement than a term of affection for God’s sake.
He reacted. Barely—but I saw it. Then, his hand settled against my jaw; the contact was light, but it locked me in place, his thumb resting under my ear while his fingers slid along the side of my throat exactly where he’d pointed out my pulse a minute earlier, and I felt the moment it jumped under his touch.
Novak’s gaze dropped briefly, then lifted back to my eyes.
“Elevated,” he murmured.
“Shut up,” I said.
The space between us narrowed to almost nothing, and his breath brushed my lips. For once, he didn’t look clinical. He looked certain.
But he didn’t close the last inch, and that did something to my brain.
I felt the challenge in it, the quiet control—Novak deciding how far things went, when they happened, what the outcome would be. Nope. I need that control. My hand tightened in his shirt before I could think better of it, and I dragged him the final fraction forward and kissed him.
His lips were warm and solid against mine, and for the briefest second, he didn’t move at all. He reared back, inhaled, and then he leaned in. He didn’t try to take control back; he matched me, steady and deliberate, as the kiss deepened enough to make my pulse hammer harder against his fingers.
This was a mistake. I knew that.
I didn’t stop.
When we broke apart, we were still breathing the same air, our knees were touching, and his hand remained warm on my skin.
Novak studied my face again, that same unnerving focus in his eyes.
“That was odd,” he murmured. For a moment, he watched me with that same attention he gave everything, as if the kiss had added another piece of data to whatever equation he was running in his head.
“I want more,” he said, the words calm and direct in that unsettling Novak way.
My pulse kicked again, but he didn’t rush the moment, didn’t push closer.
“I want you to fuck me,” he added, as if discussing the weather rather than the fact that things between us were heated and dangerous.
Before I could even process that, the comms system chirped from the desk behind me. The sound startled me, and I swore under my breath and tore my gaze away from Novak, twisting in the chair to grab the headset.
“Caleb,” I said, forcing my voice back into something professional.
Lyric’s voice came through the line. “Got a data dump for you. Satellite pass and thermal sweep. Sending it now.”
“Copy.” I pulled the keyboard closer and started the download, screens filling with new windows and scrolling data as the files came through. The familiar rhythm of work took over—decrypt, route, catalog—fingers fast across the keys while my brain locked onto the task.
Across the room, Novak didn’t interrupt, and he’d stepped back the requisite six feet. I could still feel the weight of his presence, though. After a while, when the transfer finished and the system started parsing the files, I glanced back.
Novak was already standing. He picked up his mug from the desk, taking the last of his coffee with him as if the moment between us had been nothing more than another quiet observation.
“I’ll make lunch,” he said.
Then he left the room.
The door clicked shut behind him, and only then did my shoulders loosen. I leaned back in the chair, dragged both hands over my face, and stared at the ceiling for a long second.
“Fuck my life,” I muttered.