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Vigo cleared his throat, stepping into the light cast by the overhead fluorescents. "The design incorporates responsive feedback technology," he explained, his voice steady despite the quickening pulse he felt whenever Tanya glanced his way. "It adapts to user preferences for an unparalleled experience."
"Looks like you've got a hit on your hands," Nick concluded, shaking both their hands with a firm grip. "This will be the crown jewel of Kringle Knotty or Nice this season."
"Thank you, Nick," Tanya said, her smile genuine, her eyes still locked with Vigo's for a moment too long to be purely celebratory.
Vigo's heart took an involuntary leap—damn, these emotional complications. Typically, he preferred circuit boards and algorithms. Yet here he was, circuitry fried by a woman who wielded sales projections like weapons of seduction.
"Excuse me, I need to take this call." Nick stepped away, phone to his ear, disappearing out the door to the lab and around the corner.
Vigo turned back to Tanya, his mind a swirl of graphs and lips and the subtle scent of her perfume that seemed to short-circuit his usually impeccable focus. "We did it," he said simply because sometimes even the most complex equations amounted to a simple truth.
"Because you're a genius." The corner of Tanya's mouth twitched upward.
It was the first genuine smile she'd given him. It meant more to him than the compliment. The compliment was a fact; he was a genius. The smile was a gift, and he wanted to savor it.
His gaze stayed latched to her mouth, watching as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips—a move that seemed far too sensual for the sterile environment of his lab. Her breath hitched subtly, nostrils flaring, and Vigo's pulse quickened. He recognized the signs; they were primal, carnal. It wasn't just success that was heating the air between them.
"Hey, Ricci. Eyes up here."
"Can't help it," he admitted, his own voice sounding foreign—huskier—to his ears. "You've got this...pull." His hand moved almost of its own accord, reaching out to brush a rogue lock of her rich brown hair back behind her ear, fingers grazing the softness of her skin.
"Pull, huh?" Tanya's words were playful, but her eyes flickered with something deeper, echoing the charge that was building in the space between them.
"Like gravity," he confirmed, keeping his touch light, respectful, yet undeniably intimate. "Inevitable."
"Gravity can be defied," she countered, stepping closer, her voice dropping.
"Only by greater forces." Vigo's breath caught as her chest brushed against his. The room felt ten degrees hotter, charged with the potential energy of their proximity.
"Name one," she dared, her challenge wrapped in the velvet of her tone.
"Attraction."
The color rose in Tanya's cheeks, a delicate flush that spread to the tips of her ears. Her reaction was immediate, a soft gasp parting her lips as his fingers traced the shell of her ear. He felt the warmth emanating from her skin, the subtle tremor of her pulse beneath his touch. It was electric, this connection, like a circuit completed by their proximity.
"Is this your idea of a sales bonus, Ricci?" she quipped, her voice a mix of amusement and an undercurrent of something more raw, more yearning.
"Consider it an... advance payment," he volleyed back, his thumb caressing the line of her jaw, relishing the silkiness of her flesh.
Her eyelids fluttered at the contact. She leaned ever so slightly into his touch. Vigo felt a pull deep in his chest, a magnetic force drawing him toward her with an intensity that bordered on overwhelming.
Tanya breathed out, her chest rising and falling more noticeably. She placed a hand on his chest. The fabric of his shirt was no barrier to the heat of her palm. He felt the imprint of each individual fingertip.
Every point of contact between them crackled with energy. Vigo was acutely aware of her every move, every shift in weight, every flutter of her lashes. They hovered on the precipice of surrendering to the tension that had been building since their first meeting. It struck him with the force of a lightning bolt—she was his mirror image in passion and precision, a partner in intellect just as much as in this sudden blaze of lust.
"Let's not kid ourselves with dinner dates and flirtatious texts," he said, his voice steady even as his fingers traced the contour of her jawline. "We both know what we want."
"Efficient as ever," Tanya quipped, but her voice trembled slightly, betraying her cool exterior.
He chuckled, low and throaty, as he recognized the pull of two minds perfectly in tune. "Imagine the time we'll save," he teased, but the thought flickered through him—this was no mere convenience. This was inevitability.
"Who needs wine when we've got chemistry?"
"Exactly," he breathed out, his hand settling at the small of her back, pulling her in with a possessive certainty. "Why wait?"
"Waiting is for people who don't create their own algorithms," she whispered against his lips, a whisper that was almost a kiss, sending shivers down his spine.
"God, you're incredible."
