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Now I want to find out.

Slowly, trying to see if I can make her heart wilder, I type my new email address on her holo-puter. Each key press makes the skin of my forearms rub against hers, and I can’t hear her breath anymore. I still hear her heart, though, but it doesn’t get faster. Maybe that’s the quickest it can go.

It can’t be good for her—neither her heartbeat nor her lack of breathing.

Luckily for her, I only have five keys to press, and then I take a small step back, returning to a position that is just far enough for our bodies not to touch anymore. She finally takes a breath, and her shoulders relax a bit. To anyone looking at her, it would be barely visible, but I’m just a breath away, and I can’t miss it.

“Should be good now,” I tell her.

She might be rattled by my presence, but other than her body’s answer, she’s not showing it. Immediately after my words, she takes over the keyboard, copies my email address, and then adds it to an email draft that she has open already ready before clicking on send.

There’s a ping coming from my holo at my wrist, and I know I just received all the documents a second time, but I still don’t move.

Even when she turns to look at me and has to tip her back backward to be able to look me in the eye, I still don’t move. My arms stay on each side of her on the desk, as I cage her body behind her desk.

I don’t know what I want to do now, or what she’s going to do to get me to leave her alone, but it doesn’t matter, because there’s a bell going off, and I realize that my time is up.

I hear steps in the corridor that gather at the door in the next few seconds, and I know it means she has a class right after this one.

I guess I need to go now.

6

Constance

Ican’t breathe. I can’t move.

I make the mistake of turning in my seat after sending the email to his address, and now I’m sorely regretting it.

I thought he had taken a step back, and maybe he did, but he’s still so fucking close to me. I have to bend a little so my nose doesn’t end up against the shirt that’s plastered to his well-defined chest.

I want to tell him he’s too close, that he’s in my personal space, that he needs to move away, but the words get stuck in my throat.

I swallow roughly.

Why does he have this effect on me?

Why can’t I move or act normal when he’s around?

I keep my eyes on his face, trying not to ogle the strong muscles that I know he sports. He’s not really hiding them, and he had the nerve to roll his sleeves up and to wrap his arms around me to type on my keyboard, giving me forearm porn that I need to forget already.

I can’t look down now that I’m facing him. I refuse to do so.

But I’m also stuck, like a deer in the headlights.

I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

I feel like I’m drowning on solid ground, and yet I want that ground to swallow me whole.

I’m only saved by the bell signaling the end of the class.

Not immediately, because Louis turns his face to the side, as if he’s listening to whatever is happening at my class door.

Only then does he take a step back.

“I’ll see you on Wednesday, Miss Constance,” he says as he walks to the door, and I’m so relieved to be able to breathe normally again that I don’t even correct him on the name he’s supposed to call me.

He doesn’t wait for my answer. He opens my door, and before I know it, he disappears through it.