Mercury: That sounds exhausting.
Binary: It’s just how I’m built. I’ve stopped wishing for something different.
Mercury: Maybe you just haven’t found the right variable yet.
The evening still clung to them.
Lincoln stood in the foyer of his house, the door barely closed behind them, his mind stuck on the dance floor at the Eagle’s Nest. The specific weight of Morgan’s head against his sternum—seven pounds, maybe eight, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he hadn’t calculated itin the moment. Hadn’t thought about it at all. He’d just felt it.
Bear had wolf-whistled. Theo had made a comment about hell freezing over. Derek had worn that knowing grin he’d been deploying since they were twelve years old, the one that meantI see exactly what’s happening, and I’m going to give you grief about it later.
Lincoln had noticed all of it.
He just hadn’t cared.
That was the part he couldn’t stop examining. Being observed usually triggered a cascade of secondary processes—monitoring reactions, adjusting behavior, calculating the social cost of whatever he’d done wrong. Standing on that dance floor, surrounded by people who’d known him his entire life, those processes had simply failed to initialize.
There had only been her breathing. The fabric of her sweater under his palms. The way she’d pressed closer when the song ended, like she was trying to climb inside his rib cage and stay there.
Now they were home. The security system had logged their entry, updated the occupancy record, continued its silent protocols. The foyer was dark except for the amber glow of status lights.
Morgan’s hand was still in his. Her fingers cold against his warm ones.
She turned to face him.
He wasn’t sure who moved first. One moment, he was standing in the half dark, watching the status lights paint shadows across her face. The next moment, there was no distance at all.
Her mouth was soft. Softer than he remembered from the cliff, from their lovemaking, from every other time he’d kissed her. Or maybe he was just paying closer attention now. Cataloging the specific pressure of her lower lip, theway she tilted her head to find the right angle, the small intake of breath when his hands found her waist.
This was different from before.
The first time, in her bedroom, had been about need. Desperation. Two people trying to outrun their own thoughts. He’d understood the mechanics of that—the body seeking comfort, the brain seeking silence. Logical, in its way.
This wasn’t logical.
This was deliberate. Her hands sliding up his chest with clear intent. Her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt and pulling. A choice, made with full awareness of what it meant.
“Upstairs,” she said against his mouth.
The command in her voice—quiet, certain—did something to him. She wanted this. Wantedhim. Not because she was running from something, not because she needed distraction. Because she’d chosen it.
He lifted her without breaking the kiss. She wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck, and the feeling of her body pressed against his—clinging to him, pulling him closer—short-circuited whatever rational thought he had left. He carried her toward the stairs with her mouth hot against his, her fingers tangled in his hair, her hips rocking against him in a way that made it hard to walk straight.
He nearly missed a step halfway up. Caught himself against the wall, her back pressed to the plaster, and she laughed against his mouth—a breathless sound that he wanted to hear again. He kissed her harder and kept climbing.
At the top of the stairs, he set her down just long enough to find his bedroom door. She tugged him throughit, walking backward, her hands fisted in his shirt, before she pulled it over his head.
Moonlight streamed through the window, cool and blue-white. Enough to see her face as she reached for his belt. Her fingers worked the buckle with the same precision she brought to everything—no fumbling, no hesitation. The leather slid free. The button. The zipper.
Lincoln’s hands weren’t as steady. He found the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. Her hair fell back around her shoulders, staticky, catching the light. The bra underneath was simple. White cotton. Functional.
He’d never found anything more erotic in his life.
His usual processes during intimacy ran like background software. Monitoring. Analyzing. Performing. Calculating optimal angles, pressure gradients, the probability that a particular action would produce a desired response. He’d learned to be competent through sheer computational power, even when the intuitive understanding eluded him.
The background software wasn’t running.
He noticed because he reached for it—reflexively, the way he always did—and found nothing. No analysis. No calculation. No parallel track of observation and adjustment.
