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My phone sits on the side table where Kain must have placed it after cleaning me up and carrying me out here. I reach for it, arm moving through molasses, and check the time.

Nine forty-seven.

Late enough that the competition brackets should be concluded. Julian Vey must be done working, heading home or to dinner or wherever game developers go after a long day of promotion.

Kain’s hands are on my calves now, thumbs pressing into the muscle with the same unhurried focus he’s applied to every other part of me. His fingers find the tension behind my knees, and I twitch.

“Ticklish?” he asks.

I jolt upright, twisting to face him. “Don’t move.”

Kain’s hands pause on my legs, his eyebrows lifting. “What?”

“Stay right there.” I scramble to my feet, the cushions shifting under my weight.

“Bunny, what⁠—”

“I’ll be right back.” I leap off the couch and race for the hallway.

The door to Kain’s ground floor office stands open. I grab his laptop from the desk, the aluminum humming with heat from being powered on, and clutch it to my chest.

In Kain’s bedroom, I drop to my knees beside the bed and sweep my hand across the hardwood until my fingers hit the stiff rectangle of cardstock.

Julian Vey’s business card.

Creases mar the edges where I crumpled it during sex, but his contact information remains legible. I smooth it between my palms and tuck it into the pocket of my pajama pants.

My bare feet slap on the hardwood floor as I race back to the living room.

Kain is right where I left him, sitting on the cushion with his legs stretched out. His eyebrows lift in a silent question when I reappear.

I drop onto his lap without ceremony, my weight settling across his thighs, and shove the laptop toward him.

I pull the business card from my pocket and place it on the keyboard, centered over the space bar.

“Apply,” I say.

Kain looks at the card. Looks at me. Looks back at the card.

“Reef.”

“Apply to the Dusk Protocol project. Tonight. Use his direct contact.” I tap the card with my index finger. “Not the portal. Him.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” The question comes out heavy with resignation.

I hold his gaze. My chin lifts. I say nothing.

He gets that look, the one that says I’ve backed him into a corner he spotted a mile away but walked into anyway.

He takes the laptop and opens it.

The screen wakes on a page washed in Lantern Key’s familiar colors. I catch the logo at the top before Kain closes the tab and pulls up his email.

He’s already been looking.

Good.

His fingers move across the keyboard, pulling up his resume from wherever he keeps it buried in his filing system.