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She blinks. “You’re not mad?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’re asking if I’m mad that you kissed me?”

She looks away, cheeks darkening, and for a split second she is almost vulnerable.

“If anything,” I say, “I’m just annoyed I didn’t do it first.”

“God, you’re such a cliché,” she says, and there’s a soft affection in her voice I haven’t heard before.

I laugh, pulling her in tight, and I can feel her smile against my neck.

“I want to run something by you,” she says. “Do you think it’s possible that, after the first major threshold is crossed, subsequent iterations become progressively less mortifying?”

I consider. “You’re asking if it gets easier after the first time?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“I think the next time will be exponentially worse, and also exponentially better.”

She sits back just far enough to look me in the eyes. “That doesn’t make any logical sense.”

“Neither do you,” I say, and kiss her again.

When I finally break the contact, she’s breathing hard and flushed.

“I have another hypothesis,” she says.

“Does this one require additional testing?”

Her eyes drop to my mouth. “Obviously.”

18

APPLIED RESEARCH

SERENA

I’m supposed to be the expert in aftermaths. I can look at a skeleton and reconstruct what happened to it, but none of that extends to what happens after you tell Baryn Mayfair, with complete confidence, that taking him to bed is necessary for scientific inquiry.

His mouth twitches.

“Obviously?” he repeats.

My bravado feels short-lived. I should clarify that I was being flippant. Or that additional testing would require a controlled environment, clearly defined variables, and considerably more distance between my mouth and his.

He is waiting for me. I have to decide what happens next.

“So,” I say, and instantly hate myself for it, but I keep going. “How does this work? For you, I mean. Is there…is there a protocol?” I’m joking, mostly, but the subtext is clinical: how do we navigate this without combusting?

He blinks at me, momentarily thrown by finding himself on the receiving end of someone else’s initiative. “I haven’t done this in a while,” he admits.

I nod, feeling something like relief, then immediately spiral into a litany of potential missteps, faux pas, accidental confessions.

There is a hierarchy of wants: at the top, to close the damn case; beneath it, to not humiliate myself in front of this man; and then, just beneath that, this new, animal need. I can’t compartmentalize them, and the realization is infuriating.

“Is this going to mess up the case? Because you’re technically investigating and I’m technically consulting, and I don’t know if there’s an ethical issue there, although I suspect the larger ethical issue is that neither of us has demonstrated particularly good judgment in the last ten minutes. And what happens tomorrow? Do we acknowledge this? Are we supposed to discuss it? Because I’m not opposed to discussing it, but I would prefer to know in advance if there’s going to be a discussion. And what if this is terrible? Not objectively terrible. I assume we’re both reasonably competent adults. I mean terrible afterward. What if we regret it? What if you regret it and I don’t? Or I regret it and you don’t? That seems more complicated. And⁠—”

His hand closes around my throat, thumb pressing firmly beneath my jaw, and he kisses me hard, silencing me mid-sentence and wiping every racing thought from my head.