Page 58 of Breathe Like Hell

I took a steadying breath.

When the door to the lab opened, my head whipped in the direction of the noise.

Dr. Killshaw.

I could feel him in my head right when he entered the room, which gave me peace. It was very subtle, but over the past few months, I’d learned to recognize the sensation. Being able to sense it soothed some of my anxieties around him.

He wasn’t doing anything to my emotions other than feeling for them, and I was perfectly aware of what he’d find in my skull. Raging, suffocating, all-consuming, lustful need for him.

He arched an eyebrow.

I could’ve melted into the floor at that expression.

“How’s the GSL lab treating you all?” he asked as he approached, inspecting the column, his eyes skimming over our notes and devices to work out what stage we were at, what we’d completed so far.

“It’s good!” Anna, the TA, answered. “Quinn and Dakota calculated our porosity and we’re just getting started with the column over here. Recycle valve is closed.”

I was staring at Micah blatantly now, and my nerves were making my pulse wild. He looked especially good today, and I was beginning to feel more desperate to soak up every single second with him as my professor. My cheeks were probably flushed, and I was probably being completely obvious. Every time his eyes caught on mine, it sparked a physical reaction in my body. By the way his brows pushed together, he could tell.

“Have you done any runs yet?”

“Just zero and fifty so far.”

By zero and fifty, she meant zero and fifty standard cubic feet of air per hour. We had to collect data with the recycle valve closed for values between zero SCFH and two-hundred fifty SCFH. The data we were collecting came from the manometer bank on the column, which we would eventually compare to sensor data in later trials. We’d use the liquid heights measured from the manometers to calculate pressure readings at different flow rates. This lab had a ton of graphs we would produce for our report at the end.

“That’s good. Can someone—other than Anna—confirm what type of bubble flow we’re witnessing now?” Micah asked. If I was normal, I would’ve tried to answer the question. But I never spoke, and it would be strange to start now.

Quinn answered instead. “Dispersed bubble flow.”

“Correct. We’re only using three types of bubble regimes to categorize column behavior. Dispersed, coalesced, and slugging. The others you see in the experiment procedure—discrete, churn, annular, and bridging—are just for your knowledge. It’s not easy to tell the difference between all of them in a column like this.”

Our whole group nodded.

After another minute of engineering discussion, Quinn and I went up to the manometer bank to take measurements while Nate and Jackson worked with Micah and the TA to change the volumetric air flow rate. My eyes kept lingering on Micah’s muscular back flexing under his shirt, and I was already staring at him every time he turned around, lower lip trapped between my teeth.

It’s the last lab.

Literally who cares.

Not like he’s going to fuck me anyway.

Micah made his way over to where Quinn and I were working once we got the data for our next run. “You two did the porosity measurements?”

“Yes,” Quinn affirmed.

“The faucet is still dripping. Could one of you turn it off?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry. I will go do it!” Quinn darted away to turn the faucet off—which I knew I’d turned off earlier. Micah must’ve turned it back on himself. It was an excuse to get me alone.

Micah dropped his voice low, low enough that only I could hear it as he reached past me to pretend he was adjusting something on the manometer bank. “Fix your fucking face.”

The heat of his body brushed mine for just an instant before he was gone, walking back over towards the TA.

My cheeks were hot when Quinn returned.

I ducked my head, willing myself to focus on the lab instead of replaying Micah’s reprimand in his low voice over and over. It was humiliating how easily he unraveled me. One quiet command, one fleeting moment with him standing close enough to steal the air from my lungs, and I was a total mess.

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