Higher Ground by Becky Black (notion reading list txt) 📗

“I don’t think you could do much with my data. It’s too specialized. No more than I could do anything with yours,” he added hastily, hoping he hadn’t offended Adam. Adam just nodded, not appearing bothered. He took a portable terminal from his bag.

“In that case, I’ll hang around and catch up on some work myself. That okay with you?”

“Of course! But you don’t have to stay for my sake.”

“No problem. I’ve got a ton of messages to reply to. If I go home, I won’t get any of it done.” He started clearing up the debris left by their supper.

“Are we breaking the rule about no work talk on a date?” Zach asked, helping with the clearing up.

“We could reverse it. We’re working, so no personal talk.”

“Is arguing about whether lobsters are bugs personal talk?”

“Certainly not. Legitimate scientific discussion about taxonomy.” Adam dumped the debris in the garbage and settled himself across the desk from Zach. “Now if we’d been discussing the way you looked so delicious eating that sandwich that I wanted to bite you, that would be personal.”

Zach blushed and tried to keep a ridiculous grin off his face. He wanted to break the rules so badly, tell Adam how much he wanted him. Wanted him naked and reclining on this desk, welcoming, inviting. Seeing Adam in the T-shirt and shorts he’d been wearing the first time they met had shown him Adam had a superb body. He’d been far too modestly clothed every time since then, and Zach longed to get back to the shorts and T-shirt and then peel those from him too.

A ping from his terminal told him another analysis had finished processing. Adam was already working on his terminal, a small frown of concentration making a crease between his eyebrows, a crease Zach wanted to smooth away with his lips. Instead, he turned back to his work.

* * * *

“Adam, wake up.”

Adam jerked as his elbow slipped off the arm of the chair. He righted himself, looking around at a dark, unfamiliar room, not sure where he was for a second. Zach stood at his side. Ah, Zach’s lab. He rubbed his eyes.

“What’s the time?”

“Almost midnight. I’m sorry, I didn’t even see that you’d fallen asleep or I’d have sent you home.”

Adam straightened up and winced as pain lanced through his neck. Sleeping in an office chair—not a good idea.

“Are you all right?” Zach asked, voice tinged with concern.

“A bit stiff.”

Zach moved behind him and began to massage his neck, his hands tentative, untutored, but warm and soothing anyway. Adam sighed and leaned back against him. Thrills tingled down his spine and into his groin.

“Oh man, that feels good. Thank you.”

So good. But almost midnight. Damn. There went his plans for the evening. They could have had a much nicer night than this. Now it was so late, and they both had to work in the morning. They had time for a quickie, but he didn’t want the first time with Zach to be like that. And he didn’t want to be so tired even before they started that he’d be asleep five seconds after his climax.

“I guess we should get home,” Zach said, though he made no move to stop his massage, moving on to knead Adam’s shoulders. “It’s so late. I lost track of time.”

And it was much too late for the transport link between the campus and the town, Adam knew. He’d “borrow” the department truck to get home. If he brought it back early enough in the morning, they’d never know. Zach had his electric bike, of course. He could give Adam a ride with it, but Adam didn’t much feel like riding pillion, even if it meant holding tight to Zach. Too cold at this time of night.

He stood, reluctantly ending the massage with a smile of thanks, and they gathered up their belongings and headed out of the lab. As they walked through the dark corridors with only dim emergency lighting to show them the way, Adam slipped his hand into Zach’s.

The stand where people kept the electric bikes stood by the exit. Only Zach’s bike remained. Adam strolled over to it with him, in no hurry to take his leave yet, looking forward to a kiss good night.

“Damn,” Zach said as he looked at the bike.

“What?”

“I forgot to plug it into the charging point. And it already had the low-battery warning when I arrived this morning. I’m such an idiot.”

“Think you’ve got enough juice to get you home?”

Zach shrugged and shook his head. “I guess if not, then I pedal.”

“Not at this time of night. You need to get to bed. I’ll give you a ride.”

“You have a bike?”

“No, we’ll use the botany department’s truck. Come on. Bring the bike; it can go in the bed.”

“Are you allowed to use the truck to give people lifts?” Zach asked as he followed Adam, wheeling the bike.

“Not strictly speaking, no. But we’ve been working unpaid overtime. They can’t complain.” They still would, though. His professor had chewed him out before about using the truck for personal errands.

Zach yawned hugely when they reached the truck and heaved the bike into the bed. Adam smiled at him.

“You really need some rest.”

“Yes, sorry.”

“No apologies needed. Hop in.”

It took only fifteen minutes to arrive at the A dome. Few lights showed from the apartments there or any of the houses in the town. All the sensible people were in bed. Zach had been quiet on the short trip, and Adam looked at him a couple of times to see if he’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t, though his eyes were half closed.

“Here we are,” he said, parking the truck. Zach’s eyes opened wider, and he sat up straighter in his seat, then turned to Adam.

“Thank you for coming to help me tonight. The food and just having you there… It helped. Though you’re a little distracting too.”

“I live to distract you.” Adam hoped his smile would entice Zach