Laura smiled as if she could read my mind, though I didn’t say a word.
“So tell him. Just be honest,” she said. “He can feel when people aren’t.”
Then she left me there in the courtyard with my coffee cooling in my hand, my pulse racing with more possibility than I knew how to handle.
When I got to our conference room, I followed my normal routine: reviewing my files, straightening my desk, reorganizing my note tabs—but my mind kept circling the same things: He wants to teach—really teach. Build something that lives beyond us. He chose me. He trusted me enough to say it out loud—to Laura.
I sat with that a moment—this unexpected pull, this new shape his trust was taking inside me—trying to slot it into some familiar category. I couldn’t.
So my mind moved to the next unfinished task on its list.
I expected the familiar click of closure—the tidy mental seal I rely on to keep things manageable.
Instead, nothing settled. I spent the rest of the morning doing what I always do when my mind won’t cooperate—I worked. Filed notes. Reorganized my bibliography. Made lists. Kept my hands busy and waited for my brain to catch up. It didn’t.
Two hours later, sitting beside Flavius in Conference Room B, I can feel the failure of that system—something left open, humming faintly beneath everything else, impossible to fully shut down.
Flavius and I have been working together for three hours, documenting his healing techniques, and every moment has been an exercise in exquisite torture.
My laptop sits open beside us, filled with detailed notes on pressure points, treatment sequences, and philosophical frameworks. But right now, none of that matters. Right now, there’s only the warmth of his presence and the impossible awareness thrumming between us.
Flavius is dressed simply as always—a soft charcoal Henley that clings to his shoulders and forearms in ways I try very hard not to notice. The top button is undone, giving me a distracting glimpse of the strong lines of his throat.
I tug at the hem of my blouse, suddenly hyperaware of how casual and intimate this all feels for a research session.
He’s sitting close enough that I can smell his scent—clean soap and something masculine that makes my stomach flutter. His red hair catches the sunlight as he demonstrates pressure points on his own palm, and I find myself mesmerized by the careful precision of his scarred hands.
“Here,” he says, pointing to a spot at the base of his thumb. “This point is for calming mind when thoughts go too fast. Very gentle pressure, like this.”
I lean forward to see better, and our shoulders brush. The contact sends electricity racing up my arm and down my spine, and from the way his breath catches, he feels it too.
“Show me,” I say, my voice coming out slightly breathless.
“Give me your hand.” His voice drops, low and intense, and my pulse stutters. “Palm up. Yes, like that.”
He reaches for my hand, and the moment his fingers close around mine, the air between us shifts. What started as a professional demonstration becomes something else entirely—intimate, charged, dangerous.
His thumb finds the pressure point he described, and the gentle circular motion sends a slow bloom of heat through my chest, loosening something tight inside me. But it’s not just the physical sensation—it’s the way he’s looking at me, focused and intent, like touching me is the most important thing he’s ever done.
“Feel this?” he asks, his accent thickening the way it does when he’s concentrating.
“I feel it,” I whisper, though what I’m feeling has less to do with pressure points and more to do with the way his green eyes have gone emerald with something that isn’t professional interest.
“Good. Now, when mind is racing, when thoughts will not slow…” His other hand comes up to rest against my wrist, my pulse hammering against his fingers. “Breathe in the pressure. In when I press, out when I release.”
I try to follow his instructions, but it’s impossible to focus on breathing techniques when every nerve ending in my body is achingly aware of his touch. His hands are so warm, so gentle despite their size and the scars that speak of violence. The contrast between the tenderness of his touch and the strength I know he possesses is intoxicating.
“Your pulse,” he says, and there’s wonder in his voice. “Is very fast.”
“I know.” Stepping back would be sensible. Breathing. Resetting the boundary we keep pretending is real. But his hands feel like a promise, and for once I don’t want to be the cautious one. I want to tell the truth. “You affect me.”
The admission hangs between us like a challenge. His hands become still against mine, and when I look up, his eyes are searching my face with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
“Sophia,” he says, my name a rough whisper on his lips. “I should not… we should not…”
“Should not what?” I lean even closer, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his green eyes, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin. Close enough that if I just tilted my head, if I just leaned forward another inch…
“Should notwantthis much,” he admits, his voice strained. “Should not think about you every moment we are not together. Should not…” He swallows, and I watch his throat work. “Should not dream about holding you when is not for healing.”
