The Desire Variable - Vol. I

【22】Showing Off

He wasn't wearing one of his usual T-shirts, but a formal button up made of fine grayish light blue fabric. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing his powerful forearms and the scarce patch of dark hair on them. To add to his state of looseness, a few buttons were undone at his throat.

I tried to prevent it, but my eyes moved of their own will, and I glimpsed at the triangle of skin exposed. This was like a Bermuda Triangle, and something mystical kept pulling me to it. His chest was tanned, like the rest of him, and I could see sparse and dark hair peeking under the opened garment. Except when it was on Henry Cavill, hair on a man's chest had never been particularly attractive to me. But this, this little sneak-peek, was piquing my curiosity. What would the rest of him look like? Obviously, he had a superb form, and his muscular physique must have been quite the sight. A wave of heat made its way inside of me, and I bit the inside of my cheek to distract my horny thoughts with the slight pain.

Yes, the man was a demigod, I had already established that. Why was I surprised every time I found out something else about him was perfect?

I forced my eyes to look away from his tempting flesh and met his face again. Even there he was more formal than normally. His stubble was trimmed shorter than usual, and his hair was carefully combed, giving him a very professional and serious look. Especially since he was wearing his godforsaken glasses. Would it be terribly rude of me to rip them off and throw them on the other side of the room?

His smoldering eyes were studying me with intensity, and it made blood rush to my cheeks. I really had to stop staring at him. The compelling sight he offered wasn't worth the embarrassment I always felt afterward.

"You had something you wanted to show me?" he asked, breaking the unbearable silence I hadn't been able to overcome.

"Yes, sorry. Um... As I said in the message I sent you this morning, I have been working on an app for the past two years and some. Originally, it was to help my brother, who was having a hard time in the dating area, because of how unnatural it is to have to write everything you want to tell your date. Oh, yes, by the way, my brother is deaf," I added, not sure if he already had that piece of information. "So, back then, I thought maybe I could create an app that would help him with that. With dating. Because it was complicated for him. It turned out to be a little more arduous than I'd thought, and what was supposed to take me a few months, has taken me two years so far, with still a lot of things to improve."

I was rambling. I knew I was. But it sometimes happened when I was nervous. At this moment, frankly, I had every reason to be. This project was my baby, my creation. I'd written every single line of code in it, I knew it by heart. I was Victor Frankenstein, and it was my monster. I was the Doc, and it was my Delorean. I was Rosemary, and it was my b— Oh yeah, no... Not a good analogy.

I could see that Alexander was confused, and maybe a little annoyed by my overuse of words, so I tried to focus on what mattered.

"The idea is that when you go on a date, a meeting, a reunion, anything... your phone becomes your very own Rosetta stone," I explained, taking out my phone. I turned on the app, and placed it on his desk, between us, the screen facing him. It took a moment for me to settle it straight, using the heavy glass paperweight, but once done, I moved back a little, making sure I was in the camera's range.

I glimpsed at my hands, where the blue nail polish had begun to peel off. Dammit, I was supposed to take care of this too, before my date with Oli. Shaking my thoughts away, I raised my hands and started. "Hi, I'm Andrea. It's Friday evening. I wish I were home right now," I signed.

Perplexed, Lex's eyes went from me to the screen of my phone, frowning a little more with each word that appeared on it. Then, an instant after I was done, the app rearranged the words into proper sentences, and I witnessed with delight the surprise on his face.