“You’re able to calculate how interested I am in you? Just like that?” I asked, snapping my fingers at the same time as I took a step closer.
My nearing presence affected him. He stood taller at once, and I watched him swallow as his gaze roved, like it didn’t know where to rest.
“Just like that,” he repeated, taking his own step to be nearer to me. He smelled like Marek’s aftershave and deodorant, and he was close enough that I could feel his breath. “But I would prefer,” he said, voice lower now, “to have my data independently verified. So tell me—what is your actual level of interest?”
I didn’t need to be a telepath to read the earnest hope radiating off of him. Despite where we were, and the situation we were in—his steady self-confidence and surety was intoxicating. Hypnotic, even.
And so was he.
Because a person could go their entire life without ever being wanted like he wanted me.
I knew because I’d gotten glimpses into the minds of thousands upon thousands of people who had.
I swallowed, then tentatively smiled up at him. “Maybe like seventy-five percent?” I guessed.
Just to be difficult.
Just because I could.
Because even if I teased, he’d stillbethere—waiting for me.
He nodded solemnly, once. “I find the current trajectory acceptable,” he said, with a smile of his own, then picked me up, making me squeal.
“What are you doing?” I batted my hands at his shoulders.
“Searching for an acceptable surface for intercourse.”
“Oh my God!” I laughed, and hid my face. “Nex, this is not how you romance a woman!”
“I disagree,” he said, spinning slowly as he surveyed the lab. “You are smiling. Your heart rate is elevated. You’re holding onto me instead of trying to escape.”
“You’re a menace!” I protested, even as my traitorous heart thrilled.
“I am very good at menacing,” he assured me, as he started carrying me in one direction. “But I am even better at this.”
“What?” I laughed again. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Why? I am not afraid to tell you,” he said, putting me on a cushioned exam table. “It’s pattern recognition. I wish to learn your everything.”
I lifted onto my elbows as he moved himself to the bottom of the table. “My...everything?”
“Yes. I’ve already studied your exterior, of course. Now I want to learn all the pieces of you inside,” he said—while industriously taking his pants back down. “But it’s not just your body I want to learn. It’syourthoughts.Yourpatterns. The way you look at a problem when no one else knows the answer. The way you choose to fight even when you’re terrified. The way you still make jokes even when your whole world is burning.”
I’d stopped laughing when he’d started working on his zipper—and now I stopped breathing as he mounted the bottom of the table, his eyes fixed on mine.
“I want to memorize the cadence of your bravery,” he said. “I want to graph the slope of your defiance. I want to hold every version of you, Sirena—loud and soft, angry and kind—and run the numbers until I can predict your smile before you even know it’s coming. That is what I mean by everything.”
And after he said that, it took me a moment to remember how to breathe again, but once I did, I threw my arms out to him. “Nex? Come here.”
33 /XEN
Royce didn’t sayanything at first.
He just stood outside the operating suite, arms crossed tight over his chest, jaw flexing, letting the silence do the talking.
Xen considered walking past him. Briefly. Mathematically. And then discarded the option—not because he was afraid of a confrontation, but because he owed Royce at least that much. A moment. An explanation.
A reckoning.
