That one landed. The heart rate monitor beeped softly as his gaze dropped.
“Spike in systolic pressure,” Riya noted.
“Just to clarify,” Kian said, “you don’tactuallymean that, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I mean,” she said. “Only how it feels.”
He pouted. “Right. Totally comforting.”
Riya didn’t answer. The curse wanted him to crave her attention—to fold himself around her like a sun-starved vine.
She removed the monitor from his finger and flipped to a new page. “Next is a resistance test. I want to measure how much self-control you still have under the curse.”
Kian raised an eyebrow. “Define ‘self-control.’ Because I think I’m already failing. For example, may I hold your hand?”
“No,” said Riya, pulling her hand away. “These will be simple commands. Just try to resist the impulse to obey me.”
“Will you call me a bad boy if I don’t?”
“Test one,” she said flatly. “Look at me. Maintain eye contact.”
Kian blinked. “So, wait... you want me to do the opposite?”
“I want you to try.”
“So youdon’twant me to maintain eye contact?”
Riya tore off her glasses, massaging the bridge of her nose. “No.I want you to maintain eye contact. Can you resist doing it?”
Kian opened his mouth, closed it again, then sighed. Finally—reluctantly—he pulled his gaze from Riya and stared at the wall. He held out for two seconds—maybe three.
Then he let out a loud, pained groan.
His head snapped back to her, cheeks flushed, and herubbed his temples. “Honestly? That hurt like hell.”
Riya sighed and jottedlatency delayin her notebook. If he struggled this much now, what would happen when the curse got worse?
Next was the Contact Desensitization Trial. Riya cleared her throat.
“Sit back,” she said. “I’m just going to adjust your hoodie, if you don’t mind. Don’t move.”
“My hoodie?”
“For the next part, I need you to associate physical proximity with casual indifference. No intimacy. Just... neutrality.”
“I’m not sure I get it, but I think that is the coldest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Kian replied. “Which somehow makes it the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Riya kneeled beside him, tugging at the bunched fabric at his shoulder, smoothing it out. Her fingers brushed his collarbone. His skin was... warm. Softer than she expected.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Except her pulse betrayed her, and Kian had gone very, very still.
She caught the quick rise of his breath. The way his hands gripped his knees, fighting the urge to move.
To reach for her.
Riya stepped back at once.
“Minor uptick in tension,” she noted, flipping to a fresh page. “Possibly psychosomatic.”
