The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Twenty

Sarah

I spentthe beginning of my week sort of paying attention at work and sort of lost in an elated dream state—Braden’s hot mouth and hands all over me, all the time. I barely saw him but the memory of the night we spent together eclipsed other thoughts.

Metals and their atomic structure could wait.

Eventually, my attention turned back to physics, and strangely, I felt more focused and invigorated than I had since I’d arrived. That ticked one more box in the column of reasons to deviate occasionally from science and well-thought-out plans.

My team and I were already making progress calibrating the lasers to work on several types of metals that we’d never had success welding before—iron ore, aluminum, and steel. I couldn’t have asked for better results after such a short time.

Everything was on track to progress toward all the milestones we’d devised at the outset, and for only a couple weeks’ worth of work, we’d done better than expected.

By Friday, I was thrilled about the work but barely standing from exhaustion. I’d put in three twelve-hour days over the week. The one thing that still had me going was a text Braden had sent me a couple hours earlier.

Braden: Meet me in front of the lab at 7, Damsel.

Me: Done.

When I emerged from the double doors to see Braden leaning against his truck, his muscled arms crossed in front of him, I couldn’t stop the giant smile of anticipation from spreading across my face.

I’d missed seeing him all week, and this time I felt no guilt whatsoever about him going out of his way to pick me up. Seeing him standing there—the highlights in his hair kissed by the sun, his gorgeous smile aimed at me—reminded me of the end of the movie Sixteen Candles which my sisters and I watched on repeat when we were young.

“Are you by any chance a John Hughes fan?” I asked, wondering if tough guy firefighters watched those kinds of movies at the station.

He cocked his head. “You mean the movies?”

“Yeah. Have you seen Sixteen Candles?”

He looked down at himself and up at me. “You’re suggesting I’m channeling Jake Ryan?”

I flew at him. “You do know! Have you been doing that on purpose, the whole car leaning thing?”

He smiled. “I admit nothing. And his car was red.” He stared at the secretive campus just beyond the gate I’d exited and looked a little wistful.

It gave me an idea. “Have you ever gone on a tour of the lab?” I asked.

“Never. Lived here a long time, but I’ve never been inside. I guess I wasn’t that curious before.”

“And now?”

“Everything you’ve told me about what you’re doing sounds fascinating. So now I’m curious.”

I nodded at him. I could do something about that.

* * *

Twenty minutes later,Braden had received clearance to come inside. I could only show him the parts of the lab that were open to visitors, but there were tours of the National Ignition Facility several times a week and I knew the drill. I’d taken a tour the first time I’d been here after my interview.

“Are you sure this is allowed? Aren’t there nuclear secrets at this place that I need some kind of top government clearance for?” Braden hesitated in the lobby of the lab, where I got him a visitor badge. “Or genius physicists who are very protective of their patented inventions?”

“Not where we’re going. Don’t worry.”

Still, his eyes darted around and he crossed his arms as we walked. Here was this six-foot-two-inch tall man with enough brains to reimagine fire shed areas and enough muscle tone to defy gravity, and he looked nervous walking into a building filled with what were essentially really well-funded science experiments. Yes, some were used for national defense, but still, science projects.

“Did your school have a science fair?” I asked him.

“Um, yeah. I made a solar oven out of tin foil. It took twelve hours to dry out a slice of white bread.”

“But you learned something, right?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Sure, I learned not to enter the science fair again.”

I smacked him. “No. You learned something about tin foil and the sun and heat and what it takes to make a slice of toast.”

“Sure. I learned I was glad we had a toaster.”

“Fine. Well, that’s all anyone’s doing here—trying stuff out and refining it until it works. And I’ll tell you, a lot of the time, it doesn’t.”

We stood outside a 3D printing lab where several monitors displayed images of rocket parts being made in the printers. He looked from the models to the screen, skeptical. “So what’s your point?”

“My point is that yes, there are parts of the lab that require high-level security clearance, but we’re not going there. I can still show you some pretty cool stuff.” I took his hand and started walking him down the hallway toward the National Ignition Facility. “This is where the first sustained, controlled nuclear fusion reaction was created.”

We walked into the room, which contained giant laser bays and a massive target capsule. I watched the expression on Braden’s face change from interest to obsession. His eyes got wide and his mouth fell open.

Expectations exceeded—goal achieved.

“I’m not certified to conduct an official tour. But we can go inside the target bay.”

The room looked like the inner workings of a futuristic computer, all gears and clean metals housings for wires, ladders, and circuit boards. The floor shone spotlessly and reflected everything in the room. “This is where it all happens. Pressures so extreme that the laser can compress something to one hundred times the density of lead. In some cases, it reaches a temperature of a hundred million degrees.”

“Holy fuck,” Braden gasped, shaking his head. “I have no concept of what that means, and I work with fire for a living.”

“Pretty much. The laser in here releases fusion energy, kind of the holy grail of nuclear science.”

“In regular person terms, por favor . . .”

“The idea is to generate a greater amount of energy from fusion than the amount of energy that was there at the outset.”

He bit his lip and blinked, thinking. “You know, there are some parallels to fire science and how energy is created. There’s no fusion involved, but some of the energy concepts sound similar.” His smile broadened.

I nodded. “I had a feeling you might find something here you could chew on.” And I wanted him to understand a little bit of why I found the field so interesting.

We toured around for another half hour, and I made sure to show him the IBM supercomputer and the lab where our welding was taking place. Keith was still at work, geared up in a mask and goggles and working with an experimental laser.

Braden and I watched through the one-way glass. “So this is what you do all day?” He observed Keith, and I pointed at how he was aiming the laser’s beam at two squares of aluminum alloy and trying to get them to fuse. It still wasn’t holding the way we needed it to.

“Pretty much. We’re at the point where we know the lasers can accomplish part of what we need—getting the atoms moving fast enough that they begin to join. And what they’re doing is better than the friction tool that’s conventionally used. What we haven’t done yet is make that happen at the right temperature and at a cost that makes it viable.”

“But you’re making progress?”

“Yup. I feel confident, and we still have two months to get a prototype that a space exploration company could use. Obviously, it needs to be incredibly strong to withstand the G-forces of a rocket.”

He nodded, his mouth hitching up on one side. Then he leaned close to my ear. “Do you have any idea how much your brilliant brain turns me on?” His voice was a barely audible growl, but it ignited a delicious heat between my legs, and my heart started hammering.

I turned to him, not entirely sure if he was propositioning me or just trying to throw me off.

“Is that so?” I teased. I’d spent a good part of my week thinking that I’d like another night between the sheets with my roommate and his impeccably beautiful, hard body.

“It is so.” His whisper turned into a soft breath of a kiss beneath my ear, and I turned into a puddle of jelly.

Braden’s lips skimmed my neck lightly, sending tendrils of heat along the surface of my skin. A wisp of his breath made me gasp, turning my head to the side to give him better access. He didn’t dive in. His movements were luxurious and slow, taking me by the hand and turning me, so my back was against the wall in the empty hallway.

I knew there was a chance someone might walk by at any moment, but my body had gone limp, unable to harness the muscle strength to pull away from him. His lips met mine, still gentle and caressing.

I immediately calculated the shortest distance to my office, which had a door that locked. In my mind, I was already splayed out on top of the research reports on my desk.

I’d never felt nearly enough passion with men I’d dated to consider having sex in my office—or any office. I’d never fantasized about being taken on my metal university-issued desk on campus, let alone act on it. But there was a first for everything.

“This is my office. Normal, regular, plain. No window. Don’t care. It has files and a computer and a desk and a chair, as you can see. The best thing is it has a door we can close,” I yammered in a desperate spree of words while I pulled him toward me and fused our mouths together.

His mouth was hot, desperate. And I wanted to feel his lips work their magic on every part of me.

“You give a good tour, beautiful.” His voice was rough but sweet.

Braden lifted me like I weighed nothing, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, right at the level where his hard length found the perfect spot. He spun us around and perched me against my desk.

He dragged his lips against mine until I wanted to beg for more. “Braden . . .”

His hands teased the skin at my waist, pushing my sensible blue sweater up and out of the way. Unwinding my arms from his neck, I leaned back on the desk, pulling him with me.

Braden pushed my sweater higher as he hovered over me, his mouth closing on one of my breasts, kissing it and working the nipple through the silk fabric of my bra. I heard myself moan and worked my hands down his sculpted abs until I reached the waistband of his jeans.

I undid the belt and the top button before he unzipped himself the rest of the way until his erection sprang free, ready for my greedy hand. I ran my fingers lightly over the head and wrapped my hand around the length, starting to stroke as he groaned through his kisses.

“You’re going to kill me with those hands.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes.

Good.

I wanted him to feel the same loss of control I did when he grazed my skin.

Then his mouth was on mine again, and our kisses felt bottomless. He was right there with me, his tongue sliding along my jaw and nipping at the skin before trailing a row of kisses down my bare stomach.

My body shivered as he moved lower, sliding my pants over my hips. I’d worn a pair of black skinny jeans, and there was enough give in the fabric that he didn’t need to unbutton them.

I swear, it never crossed my mind how grateful I’d be to stretchy fibers.

Braden reached for the wallet in his back pocket and pulled out a condom. He tore at the wrapper and rolled it over his thick length before teasing my entrance.

“Fuck, I want to spend an hour making you ache for me . . .”

“You’re doing that already . . .” I was panting, so ready.

He smirked. “I can do better . . .” He teased me with light brushes that made me ache for him. “Patience . . .”

He enjoyed torturing me a little too much.

I decided to turn the tables. I leaned toward his ear and whispered. “You know, a place like this has security cameras everywhere. Even in here.”

His eyes widened and he froze. “Shit.”

“What, not an exhibitionist?” I teased, batting my lashes at him. He cast me a side-eye, and I winked so he’d know I was messing with him.

“You will pay for that,” he warned, his smirk returning.

I nodded. “Quit torturing me and give it to me, fireman.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. On one glorious thrust, he filled me. On the next one, he went deeper, and my toes curled.

This was what I’d been craving all week long. Everything about our bodies together just worked. His hips circled, and mine responded.

Wrapping my legs around his back, I pulled him closer, feeling every thrust and wanting more.

His kisses melted my lips with their heat. He shivered as my hands slid luxuriously over his abs and I scraped lightly with my nails.

Then my back began to arch as I felt the build between my legs. I wanted to hold onto the feeling, savor it, but there was no controlling anything anymore. As pulses of light built and burst, blinding my body with their explosion, I felt Braden riding his own wave over the crest and heard him whisper my name on a curse.

My hand clamped over his mouth before someone at the lab thought our nuclear secrets were under attack and shot Braden on sight.

But, wow.

That was . . . wow.

When he pulled back, he nodded his head, looking smug. “Nuclear fusion’s got nothing on us.” He crossed his arms. Yep, he looked damned smug.

I huffed a laugh. “I’m going to have to agree.” Then I sighed because I caught a faraway look in his eyes and had a feeling about what was coming next.

He pressed a thumb against the creases in my forehead. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I was sensing dissent in your brain. Is this where you say it can’t happen again?” I braced myself. “Come on, lemme have it. Let’s bring on the reality check.”

He shook his head slowly and leaned down to press his forehead against mine. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” I sighed.

“No,” he confirmed, taking my face in both hands. “Damsel, it won’t be the last time.”

My heart lurched in my chest, and I had to insist that it chill.

Down, girl. We’re agreeing to more sex. Not a relationship.

Even if it felt like the beginning of something.

Knowing I’d only be in town for a limited time and Braden wasn’t a relationship guy, my logical mind launched into protective mode. We needed to be on the same page from the get-go.

“Rules! We never came up with our rules.”

“What kind of rules? Sex rules?”

“Yes. No. Sort of. Just rules about how we’re going to do this.” I waved my hands between us as Braden buckled his pants. Meanwhile, I was still bare-assed on the desk with my pants around one ankle and my sweater pushed up. “Just rules so we have the same expectations.”

“Got it. You’re a rules girl.”

“Rules, laws, inconvertible truths…”

“Let’s just start with rules.”

“Fine. Rule one . . . Finn. This is none of his damn business.” I said. “I know he’s your friend, but my family has boundary issues. I don’t need their commentary.”

He put a hand on his chest and feigned a heart attack. “Keeping things from my childhood friend? You’re leading me to the dark side, woman.”

I patted his hand. “Relax, it’s comfy here. And speaking of comfy, since we’re roommates and all, living in close quarters, it’s hard not to be in each other’s business, but . . . if you’re with other women, I don’t need to see it.”

Better yet, no other women, but I could hardly ask for that.

He frowned, and his head jerked back as though he was surprised at the suggestion, but please . . . one look at him and it was clear he could have dates every night of the week. I needed boundaries.

“Fair enough, and right back atcha. But if we want to hang out with each other—and do this—we need to be forthright. Ask for what we want.” His face was serious, and he sought my eyes in agreement.

“I like that. For example, I want you. Again. Tonight. Good?”

“Yes. Way to make use of an example. I don’t want to wait until tonight.” He leaned in and gave me a deep, thorough kiss I felt in my wobbly knees.

“And we don’t lie to each other,” he said solemnly. “If this gets uncomfortable, we need to be honest.”

“Agreed.” I shook my head. “Oh, and obviously . . . no falling in love.” I mainly said it for myself so I could hear it. I needed to remember to keep emotions out of our white-hot sex situation. I’d only be in town for a short time, and guys like Braden weren’t for keeps. There would be plenty of time in my future for a relationship with a nice quiet professor.

Braden let out a bark of a laugh. “Correct. No. Never.” The fact that he agreed so readily affirmed that I was right to caution my heart at the outset. Whatever happened between us was purely for fun.

Temporary. Meaningless.

“Okay, sounds like we’re in agreement. Let’s seal it properly.” I extended my hand to shake on it.

Braden laughed, shaking his head. “No way. We can do better than that. We can do much better,” he said on a low growl near my ear.

He pushed me backward on the desk and leaned over me, pressing his whole body into mine again. The heat in his eyes told me he was as insatiable as I felt.

It was like looking at a decadent dessert menu and not having to choose chocolate over key lime pie. I could have both and more.

I loved our rules.