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“Careful with the almost-compliments, Anita.” His grin turned into a smirk, but there was still a hint of soft vulnerability in his eyes. I was pretty sure a compliment was what he actually needed right now, and I was shocked by how badly I wanted to make him feel better.

“I admire you a lot, Nuni,” I told him, nerves twisting my stomach into knots. “You’re determined. And dedicated. And you’re not a dick, despite your success. You’re a really great guy. I know we’re just… I know I’ve said how attracted I am to you physically, but… I want you to know that I like you as a person too. A lot.”

He was staring at me, which made me feel wildly awkward and uncomfortable. Then his throat bobbed as he shifted around to face me better.

“Thanks, Anita.” His gaze dipped to my mouth as he swallowed again. Voice hoarse, he asked, “Can I kiss you?”

We were already surprisingly good at reading between the lines with each other. He wasn’t in the right state of mind to have any kind of sex today, so I knew what he meant. I knew what he was really asking. Can I kiss you even though it won’t lead to anything else?

I nodded.

His big hand came up to cup the back of my head as he leaned in, fingers tangling through my ponytail. I sighed in pleasure when his lips pressed against mine, gently at first—a new kind of kiss for us. One that sought and gave comfort, one that wasn’t a precursor to anything more.

It was a kiss that was just a kiss. Because he wanted to kiss me and I wanted to kiss him. Not because it would turn into something sexual.

I cupped his face lightly in my hands, skimming my fingertips over his lean cheeks, still finding the inhuman texture of his skin novel and fascinating. Nuni deepened the kiss, parting his lips and gently grazing with his sharp teeth, until I opened wide enough for his tongue to sink inside.

He groaned, urging me onto my back so he could stretch out on top of me. He gave me one last deep, tongue-tangling kiss before trailing his lips down my neck, then resting his cheek on the centre of my chest with a long sigh.

“I admire you too,” he told me quietly, his body relaxing on top of mine. I spread my legs so he could settle between them, wincing a little as his weight bore down on me. “I like you as a person too, Anita.”

We were veering into a different kind of territory, but I didn’t want to stop our trajectory, even though the idea of it filled me with nerves and what-ifs and anxious thoughts of how something more serious between us might even work.

I pushed them all away and dropped a kiss in his hair. “Thanks.”

“A lot.” He sighed and rubbed his flat nose against my breastbone. “Man, I’m totally wiped today.”

“You can sleep,” I said immediately, fingering his thick, silky hair. “I don’t mind.”

“No, dude, we have to watch all the Team Lava Force movies,” he mumbled tiredly, jaw cracking open inhumanly wide around a yawn.

My mouth twitched. “Okay, well, let’s put the next one on, and if you fall asleep, it doesn’t matter.”

He felt around for the remote, eventually finding it and pressing play on the second Team Lava Force movie. Other than that, he didn’t move, sagging even more heavily on top of me as he went completely lax.

After about five minutes, I heard his breathing even out as he dropped into sleep. And for some reason, the knowledge that Nuni had fallen asleep on top of me made my chest get tight. I smoothed the stray strands of hair off his face, tucking them behind the feathered, frondy tip of his ear. Then I slid my hand down the back of his neck before slipping it under the neckline of his T-shirt so I could palm his warm skin.

It's not just sex. A little voice whispered it in my head, making my gut clench.

I really do like him.

I want more with him.

More like this. More casual affection that didn’t necessarily lead to anything. More easy conversations, sharing things, discovering each other. More chilled, lazy days with just the two of us. Neither of us were remotely lazy people, but I wouldn’t mind this every now and then—just time spent with him and no one else.

When I’d first met Nuni, I would never have thought there was any possible way we were remotely alike, but we kind of were. And I genuinely liked his company. He was funny and interesting and sweet in his own way. Yes, he was still arrogant and competitive and smug, but that didn’t bother me. Those weren’t things I wished would go away, because they were parts of him. And I liked him.

I stared absently at the TV, not really taking in the group of brightly dressed demiurgus teens battling a small army of giant beetle demons. Would he be interested in something more than a sex-only arrangement? I supposed I could just ask him. I was nearly forty, for god’s sake, not a self-conscious, insecure teenager. I wasn’t very interested in playing it coy or dancing around the subject.

But if he said no, was I ready to stop having him in any way? If he did say no, we’d have to stop having sex. It would feel strange otherwise, with us both knowing that I wanted more than he did. I wasn’t a masochist, interested in causing myself more pain than necessary. Continuing to have sex with him while I was developing deeper feelings and he wasn’t, was a bad idea.

And, of course, there was the work situation to tackle. Hiding a casual sexual arrangement was one thing, but hiding an actual relationship? No. I wasn’t comfortable with that, and I wasn’t willing to put Nuni in a position where he had to make that kind of decision.

I could just come clean. Tell Corva everything. Take whatever punishment she gave me. Now that I was less worked up about it, I was pretty confident she wouldn’t outright fire me, but it would definitely affect her opinion of me, which might in turn influence how she treated me at work. What she trusted me with.

That made me incredibly anxious, foreboding fluttering through my stomach like a disturbed school of fish, darting this way and that. But I guessed I had to decide which was most important: my boss’s opinion of me, potentially my career, or seeing what could happen with Nuni if we both wanted it.

That seemed like a lot to consider on a lazy Saturday.