Kissing Her Crush by Ophelia London

her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, feeling for any hidden chocolate. She’d have to draw energy from somewhere to pull an all-nighter.
    “The rest of you can go, but be here first thing in the morning to start early.”
    Ivy looked a little guilty. “Nat, you know I’d stay, too— I’ll sleep in the lab for the next two weeks, we’re a team, but…Sharona just flew in from Sydney. She brought her fiancé, that shark guy.”
    “Ivy, I swear, it’s fine,” she said, sincerely. “You know as well as I do that two people here for this is a waste.”
    Ivy chewed a thumbnail. “Yeah, I know.”
    “Go. It’s not a problem.”
    Ivy nodded then went to get her purse. “First thing in the morning.”
    “Bright and early!” Natalie replied with a chipper chirp. “Have fun with Sharona and her shark man, then get a good night’s sleep.”
    The interns said good-bye and Ivy followed them out. Good, now she could get to it. Just as she opened a new document, she noticed Luke leaning against the doorframe, still wearing his lab coat. How could that boxy piece of unisex clothing fit him so well?
    “You can go, too,” she said, needing him and his distracting body to be gone.
    But Luke shook his head, slowly. “I don’t think so.”

    N atalie’s eyebrows arched into a sharp V as she looked from him to her computer. “Didn’t you hear what I told everyone? I can do this myself. One-man job. Go home, Luke.”
    For working nearly twelve hours already, she still seemed energized. How did she do that? Luke hadn’t noticed her consuming massive amounts of caffeine or shoveling endless Hershey bars into her mouth.
    “I heard you,” he said, admiring her spunk. “But I’m not about to leave you alone.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I appreciate the macho protection act, but the med center has round the clock security. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
    “It’s no act. I am macho,” he pointed out, for fun. “But that’s not what this is about, and you know it.” As he walked toward her, the closer he got, the bigger her eyes grew. If he didn’t know better, she looked like she expected to be kissed.
    Or actually, feared that she’d be kissed.
    Kissing that sassy mouth had drifted in and out of his mind all day, but that wasn’t what this was about, either.
    “My job is to observe everything that goes on in this lab.”
    Natalie’s shoulders lost some of their tension “And?”
    “And…if you’re here, I’m here.”
    “That’s not necessary. I won’t be doing anything with the serum. I’ll be mixing and molding chocolate bars.”
    “Wouldn’t be ethical if I report back that research was being done in the middle of the night without my presence.”
    This made Natalie huff, but there wasn’t genuine annoyance behind it. “You honestly have to oversee everything?”
    “Observe,” he tweaked. Sometimes it seemed like she really didn’t want him there, but other times…
    Never mind those other times.
    “So.” He clapped his hands, taking her silence as concession. “What’s first?”
    Weary suspicion shown in Natalie’s eyes initially, but then it seemed as if she didn’t want to waste energy on it, and she turned to her computer. “We mix the chocolate, put it in the molds, then it’s all about time.”
    “You said we.” He leaned on the counter and tried not to smile. “Thought you said this was a one-woman job.”
    “Oh, um, right.” She rubbed her nose. “Well, since you’re here…”
    He did smile now, pleased as hell when she smiled back. Felt like an eternity since he’d seen that smile.
    “Okay, so yeah, we set the molds then wait three hours because we don’t refrigerate. After we make sure the molds are set, we’ll practice on a few, make sure the consistency of both products are what we want.”
    He liked how often she said we. It might have been his job that required him to stay, but an instinct that had nothing to do with work wouldn’t let him leave.
    “Sounds