Page 64 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
Vir pursed his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.EvenIdon’t know that.”
“Allow me the chance to tell you, then.” Nori crossed her arms against her chest and let out a frustrated sigh before dropping them onto her lap again. “I don’t understand why you… how you still want me. But as long as you do, please don’t walk on eggshells around me.”
Vir stared at her for a long moment before he calmly stated, “I’ll always want you, Nori,” as if reciting an obvious elementary school science fact that she should already know.
Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, Nori.She rolled her eyes.
He’d always want her?Always?
“Always is a long time,” she said.
“I hope it is.”
“We’ll see.”
“We will.” Vir smiled, a slight quivering of his lips at first, before it widened into a full, lopsided grin that reached all the way up to his eyes behind the round gold-rimmed glasses he wore.
Nori suppressed a chuckle, then quickly looked away as her thoughts started wandering again. Ever since Vir had found out how she felt, keeping her emotions in check around him had become a ridiculous new challenge.
Even without the glasses, she had a hard time keeping herself from staring at him for too long. Staring led to thoughts, and thoughts led to a forbidden flurry of emotions. Emotions meant Vir sensing feelings as they formed and shifted and surged inside her in real-time.
Masking her sudden bursts of affection while she watched him go about the place, doing some of the most mundane activities as “I was just thinking about my cat” no longer worked. He knew exactly who she was thinking about every time he caught her ogling at him like an idiot with her single remaining brain-cell taking a dip in the gutter.
It melted her from the inside, watching Vir drag a stool to sit beside her while he listened to her talk about one of her many theories. Or when he’d absentmindedly scrunch his nose at something he came across while engrossed in a book. Or when he’d hum a song she didn’t recognize under his breath while cooking. Or when he’d pause mid-typing to tuck a stray curl behind her ear, before immediately returning to the click-clacks of his keyboard, as if he hadn’t just made her blush the exact shade of a ripe tomato. Or when he…
Dammit.
None of her old distractions worked anymore. He was her biggest distraction now.Andher sanctuary of calm at the same time.
The intensity of her own feelings terrified her. Because the harder she let herself fall for him, the more painful it was going to be when he eventually left.
She was doomed.
But it wasn’t just her emotions that were giving her a hard time. Her body, too, had developed a mind of its own. It wanted him.Allof him.
Seventeen
The Ogling Perv.
March 2019:
Kochi, Kerala
Nori
Nori lounged in bed with asecond-hand paperback she’d picked up from the market earlier. It was supposed to be an action-packed thriller about a bunch of angels and vampires fighting for survival in a post-apocalyptic world. But only a few chapters in, the story had turned into an explicit romance, instead of the death, doom and destruction the summary at the back promised.
She let out a frustrated sigh and kicked the covers off before reaching for the thermostat panel beside her. Cool air blasted through the room. She flipped the page. And groaned.
The ill-fated pairing of the fallen angel and the bloodthirsty three-eyed vampire couldn’t keep it in their pants for two chapters straight. The book was supposed to help keep her thoughtsawayfrom dangerous territories, not remind her of them.
Her fingers grazed her bottom lip as her mind drifted, once again, to the events from two days ago.
Nori was working on her pending progress reports when she paused to take a sip of her already lukewarm tea. As she placed the mug back on the table, Vir’s hand brushed against hers and stayed there.
