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.
