Page 32 of Static/Cling

“Process as long as you like. We aren’t going anywhere.”

“Are you interested at all? Or just because Leif is?”

For the longest, perhaps most excruciating minute of his life, Bjorn studied Kassian, like he could see inside him, into his head, what he thought—maybe even in his heart to what he felt, which was terrifying, because how the hell did he even know what he felt himself? What if Bjorn figured it out before he did? Because this guy had a knack for seeing things that shouldn’t be visible.

When Bjorn reached over and touched his cheek, then scraped fingers through his curls, pushing them away from the side of his face, he was too startled to move. “People tend to think I’m a dumb jock.”

“Tell me about it,” Kassian blurted.

Bjorn snorted out a chuckle. “I am not a jock,” Bjorn pointed out.

“Not dumb either, I bet.” Kassian couldn’t look away from his clear blue gaze. Simple, the man might be, but it had been a mistake to think he was an idiot, and he was sorry he’d ever said it.

“Jury’s still out.” He shrugged, like it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Smart enough to trust Leif, though.”

“Meaning?”

Bjorn shrugged, and his wide grin made a flash appearance, dimple and all. “He says you’re good people. He asked you to help me. He wouldn’t ask just anyone.”

“And that’s good enough for you.”

“It is.” He tightened the curl of his fingers around Kassian’s skull for just an instant. A spark of electric fire raced over his scalp.

The kiss was so unexpected, Kassian didn’t return it right away. By the time he did, Bjorn was already pulling back from it. “See you at the office, I guess.” Then he dropped his hand and walked away.

Like an idiot, Kassian whispered “see you” to empty air. Then he touched his lips, like that would provide him with some kind of hard evidence that the kiss had happened. Something besides the continued static buzz and the hard-on in his pants, that is. “I see the appeal,” he muttered as he watched Bjorn saunter down the sidewalk. And he wasn’t just talking about the view. That electric zing could get addictive.

“I knew you would,” his asshole meat-head gloated.

“You can just fuck right the hell off.”

CHAPTER 5

THE PROBLEM

Heads lifted when Kassian arrived at work the next day.

Roger cocked his head curiously, and that one eyebrow of Sal’s disappeared under their row of bangs. He got that. It wasn’t like him to be the last one in. Other than Sal, he was normally first in, last out.

Leif watched him enter, take off his coat and drop a roll of material, completely wired up and ready, on the centre table. Inwardly, Kassian squirmed under his attention.

Only Bjorn didn’t so much as stir from his reading. He sat there, feet up on his desk, the long curve of his back and legs a mouth-watering sight. The blond hair on his head, bent over the file in his lap, glinted in the office glare, defying the fluorescent lighting by shimmering as a bit of it fell over his eyes. Absently, he flipped a page with one hand and pushed his hair back with the other.

There was something far too appealing about his bulk, and that relaxed pose, and the reading, the absorption in his self-imposed task, that made Kassian’s skin shiver over his bones and stirred his libido in weirdly uncomfortable ways.

The pages flipping as Bjorn skimmed was the only sound in the room for a moment.

“What?” Kassian muttered at last.

Instantly, everyone went back to what they’d been doing, except Bjorn, who glanced up.

“Hey,” he said, smiling.

Kassian gulped and almost choked himself. “Hey,” he croaked, and pivoted to get to his desk.

Bjorn frowned but went back to his file. “Whatever, dude.”

After another minute, the bounce of Roger’s ball started its rhythmic thudding.

---