Page 48 of The Equation of Us
It’s an unexpected response. In our previous encounters, there’s been a clear reciprocity, an exchange. This feels different—more intimate somehow, less transactional.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, I prop myself up on one elbow to look at him. “Can I ask you something?”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Anything.”
“Why me?” The question has been lurking in the back of my mind since this began. “Why… this?”
Dean studies me for a long moment, his expression thoughtful. “You want the truth?”
I nod.
“Because you scare me a little,” he admits.
Of all the answers I expected, that wasn’t one of them. “I scare you? How?”
He shifts slightly, seeming to choose his words carefully. “You see too much. Most people look at me and see what they want to see—the hockey player, the engineering student, whatever fits their narrative. But you…” He shakes his head slightly. “From that first tutoring session, you looked at me like you were cataloging every detail, figuring out how all the pieces fit together.”
I’m not sure how to respond to this unexpected vulnerability. “Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s terrifying,” he says with a small laugh. “And exhilarating. Because sometimes I feel like I’ve spent my wholelife being careful, making sure no one sees too much. And then there you were, seeing everything anyway.”
The admission creates a strange ache in my chest. “I don’t see everything.”
“You see more than most.” His hand comes up to cup my face. “That day in the tutoring center, when you called me out on my vector mechanics error and said I was capable of more—no one talks to me like that. No one expects more of me than I already give.”
I remember the moment—his surprise, the flicker of something that looked almost like respect in his eyes.
“That’s why I wanted this with you,” he continues. “Because if anyone could handle all of me—the control, the intensity, everything I usually have to hold back—it would be you.”
The weight of his confession settles over us, creating a different kind of intimacy than the physical one we’ve shared. I’m not sure what to say, how to acknowledge what feels like a significant shift in our dynamic.
“I don’t know if I can handle all of you,” I admit finally. “But I want to try.”
Something flickers in his eyes—vulnerability quickly masked by desire. “Is that so?”
Before I can respond, he’s moving, rolling me onto my back and settling over me again. His mouth finds mine in a kiss that’s different from before—hungrier, almost desperate.
“Show me,” he whispers against my lips. “Show me you want to try.”
And just like that, the vulnerability is channeled back into passion, the moment of unexpected honesty folded into our physical connection. As his hands move over my body with renewed purpose, I realize that Dean’s control—the very thing that draws me to him—might be as much a defense mechanism as my own analytical distance.
But that’s a thought for another time. Right now, all I want is to lose myself in him. To surrender to the connection between us, whatever it might be becoming.
The list of rules lies forgotten somewhere on his kitchen counter, as irrelevant now as the boundaries we’ve already begun to cross.
Chapter Seventeen
Unexpected Depth
Dean
I didn’t plan to tell her any of that.
The admission about her seeing too much—about how that terrifies and thrills me—wasn’t part of the script I had for tonight. But watching her come undone beneath my mouth, seeing the complete surrender in her eyes when she finally let go… something cracked open inside me.
Now she’s looking at me with those analytical eyes again, but softer somehow. Like she’s recalibrating, processing what I’ve just revealed.
“I want to touch you,” she says, her voice still slightly breathless. “Will you let me?”
