“Just press my lips to it and suck, huh?”
I stiffen. “Your lack of inhibitions is getting me a little concerned.”
“Calm down,” she mutters. “I’m just embarrassed and compensating by being a smartass.”
I return with the med kit.
“Stay still,” I order.
She goes entirely still right away, and I pull out a bioscanner to check her vitals. Everything is within range—heartrate, neural activity, blood oxygen. No elevated temperature…no signs of neural degradation.
Her pulse is a little high, but I assume that’s from the nerves, the comedown…
…the coming.
“You’re not looking at me like I’m dying,” she says after a moment.
“Because you’re not.”
“So this is just your default face?”
I frown. “This is my face when I’m trying to care for a disobedient scholar who’s been nothing but ungrateful.”
“Wow,” she says. “But—fair, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Lyn blinks. “I mean…yeah.”
I snap the scanner shut, returning it to its proper place in my kit before shutting the lid. I go back to the cabinet, trying to hold it together long enough that I can calm down.
It doesn’t work.
“Lyn,” I say, turning around, “you did something that shouldn’t be forgivable tonight. You broke…everysafety rule. You disobeyed a direct order intended to stop you from hurting yourself or somebody else. You failed to pass a review for live trials, so you chose to perform a live trial on yourself,alone. Do you understand how reckless that was?”
She’s quiet.
That in and of itself scares me.
“Lyn,” I repeat. “Are you?—”
“I understand,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Advisory boards exist for a reason,” I go on. “There is areasonwe follow safety protocols.”
“You mean like…so we don’t end up orgasming non-stop on the floor?” she says.
I shake my head. “This isn’t a joke?—”
“I’m aware,” she says. “Kae—Dr. Rhyss—if you hadn’t been there tonight, I don’t know if I would have been able to stop it.I could…I know I’m making jokes, but I couldstill be there.I have no idea what happens to the body or the brain when it’s put through that level of arousal for that long.”
I cross my arms, staring hard at her, trying to tell if she’s serious. Her shoulders sag, and she stares down at the water bulb.
“You could have induced status epilepticus,” I say. “Or cardiac arrhythmia. Or a dopamine cascade severe enough to cause long-term anhedonia afterward.”
She winces.
“Sodon’t do it again.”
