“Yes!” But despite her hands clenching with visible adrenaline, she still somehow managed to exhale a breath of skepticism a moment later. “You’d really let me take the credit, though?”
“It’s your research. Your data.”
“That’s true, so thank you. But…” she leaned forward over his desk on her knuckles, huffing and shaking her head, even while her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone, “…it’s irritating that I’m only getting my second major paper—”
“—and your first one in a mainstream journal—”
“—becauseyoufound something in my data that I’d missed. By using multi-messenger astronomy, too! You’re going to be insufferable about your genius in my field, aren’t you? You probably want to be a co-author.”
“No.” He moved to meet her across his monitor and sudoku calendar. “The sole authorship’s yours, Monaghan. I’d never pollute my reputation in the quantum world by voluntarily associating myself with relativistic mechanics.”
She raised her chin. “Relativistic mechanics is half of our quantum gravity equation.”
“I saidvoluntarily. Didn’t we agree that none of this is voluntary?”
“Yes, because I can think of much better uses for my time than working on status reports and research bureaucracy with you. Like combing throughyourdata to find something groundbreaking—”
“Groundbreaking?” He echoed the tilt of her head, which closed their distance by another inch. “More like, breaking space into discrete units.”
“I’mthe one who’s good with words.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Don’t get clever with me.”
Clever. It was Chase Meyer Jr. who was clever with women, not him. But Erin Monaghan was here, perched over his desk, and she was…Erin. Notwomen.
So, “If you’re so good with words, are you volunteering to type up our report?”
“Do I look like I’m sitting pretty behind your desk, ready to take dictation?”
“No. You’reonmy desk.”
One finger lifted to trace along with the pencil he’d tucked behind his ear. “Do youwantme on your desk, Ethan?”
Yes.
And:fuck.
Because he did—he did—and he might be clever with her, but Dr. Kramer expected a report onhisdesk by the end of the workday, which meant that his supervisor was waiting for research results, while he, Ethan, was…
“I… yes—but we agreed that we wouldn’t. We need to focus, and this—”
“We’re not violating our agreement. This isn’t sabotage.” Erin’s hand slipped down his neck to fist in the collar of his vest, slightly too tight. But steadying, somehow—at least until she continued, “Thanks to Dr. Kramer, we’re even in a project work block today. We need to write his status report. We will. But we also need to be strategic with our resources.Time,focus… and arousal is the opposite of focus. We’ll work on the report once we’ve restored equilibrium.”
“E-equilibrium?”
She nodded, tongue sweeping over her lips. Her eyes gleamed with danger and gold. With promises. “For science.”
…was she right?
He wanted her to be right. He wantedher.
“For science,” he whispered—
—and then finally—finally, Ethan let himself break. Not a moment of mindless impulse, like in the XCS control room. A choice. In a single efficient motion that manipulated angles and weight and gravity to his desire, he had her on his desk, her legs wrapped around his hips as he dragged the elastic from her ponytail to cradle her head, and he couldn’t breathe for the fierce churn of anticipation and appetite, for his own wanting—having.
Their hungry lips collided. They toppled together back onto a stack of paperwork and sticky notes, almost crushing his laptop. One of Erin’s hands wound into his hair while the other tugged open his vest to unbutton his shirt, and he gasped when her knees hitched tighter around his waist, a savage burst of kinetic energy flipping him over beneath her. Straddling him now, she raked her nails down his stomach and reached for his belt as he fumbled between them to loosen the maddening tightness of her jeans, then swiped his thumb under her waistband.
Lace.
“Fuck—”
