Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(55)

He sits on the lab stool where I’ve set up a compound microscope, a couple of wet-mount slides, and methylene blue.

“Okay, watch me make this wet mount, then I’ll give you the swab and you make yours.”

I drip distilled water on the slide and roll the swab from the inside of Evan’s cheek firmly against the wet slide, then drop the slide cover over. When I look up to hand him back the swab, I find him hovering right over my shoulder. When he takes the swab, his thumb brushes over mine.

So, it’s kind of sexy. I don’t know.

His eyebrows scrunch up as he copies what I did to make the wet mount, but you can tell he’s having a great time because he keeps breaking out in these grins where you can see all the places his teeth overlap a little.

“Got it.” He leans back and gestures at his slide.

“A plus. You can throw the swab away in that box under the bench with the red biohazard liner.”

“Okay, now what?” He spins on his stool to face me.

“This next part is pretty cool. You’ll put a couple of drops of the methylene blue stain on one side of the slide cover, and the square of superabsorbent paper on the other. The paper will pull out the distilled water from the wet mount, and draw the stain under the slide cover, pulling it across your sample. Once you see all blue being pulled into the paper, the slide’s done.” I talk while I make the slide.

Methylene blue is pretty close to the color of Evan’s eyes.

“Like that.”

“Neat.”

“Yep. Now you do it.” I hand him the bottle of stain. He prepares the slide perfectly, and when the blue has pulled into his paper and he lifts it up, he looks at me with total delight.

I kind of laugh at him just because it makes me happy to see someone happy like that with something so simple and something I think is so cool. He laughs back and nudges my shoulder with his. I hadn’t realized that we’d drifted so close together.

“So, here’s the hard part, but the best part.” I pull the compound scope so it’s right between us and turn it on. “You’ll look through here, and this whole part houses the lenses. You set the slide up on the stage, try to center the slide over the light source, then secure it with those clips. You’ll look through the scope and adjust the stage up and down until you see the color of the stain and maybe some blobs. Then use the coarse adjustment until you feel like you can almost see individual images on the slide. The fine adjustments are last, and they will make everything sharp.”

We’re on heavy lab stools, so I don’t scoot away but just lean back to let him work the scope. Plus, I may have to lean back in to help him focus. His upper arm rests against my shoulder, and it’s nice, like his hand on my back had been.

He seems so comfortable with being close, with incidental touching, I wonder if it’s because of his job, or him, or what.

“I see blobs.” He turns his head from the eyepiece, his hand on the coarse adjustment.

“Okay, let me see.” I lean in, and he moves his head just enough to the side to fit mine.

I can feel the warmth of his cheek though we’re not touching.

I reach down automatically to the coarse-focus knob and my hand covers his.

He moves his hand away, but slow, like he’s being respectful of the equipment and of me. He doesn’t jerk from the closeness and touch at all.

He doesn’t move away from me in any way, like he’s just fine right inside my space, half of his chest along my back and shoulder, his head bent with mine.

It feels amazing, and confusing, and maybe a little more amazing because it’s confusing.

My stomach drops heavy and sweet into my pelvis and it’s that, the familiar, early throb of wanting and horniness that stills my hand in the middle of my adjustment on the scope.

Feeling horny feelings is a little different than feeling safe and accommodating feelings.

I breathe out, slow, and get the focus into a place that just a few tiny nudges with the fine adjustment will bring the cells up. I leave it there because I want him to have that moment where he can see everything, and it looks like the slide will be a pretty good one.

“Okay, it’s almost there, just use the fine focus.” I move my head from the eyepiece, and he’s right there, reaching for the adjustment knob before I’m completely moved away. Our temples press together for a moment, and his hand moves under mine again.

When I take a breath to steady myself, it doesn’t work because I just suck in mint and the warm, clean smell of his skin.

Which somehow makes me think of how easy it would be to just turn my face into his neck.

“Oh,” he says, then, under his breath, and I can feel his big body go still.

“Yeah? You got it?” I keep my voice low, too, because I totally understand.

“I do.” He takes his hand off the knob and rests it on the bench. I sort of want to put my hand over it and weave all my fingers through his.

I just look at his hand, instead.

There’s a white scar through the middle knuckle that has the faint impressions of where suture knots rested as the laceration healed. I wonder how he hurt himself. I want to run a finger along it.

“What do you think?” I really, really want to know.

“There’s a bunch of different things, and some things that I think are on top of other things. The color is more translucent than I expected.”