The heat radiating off him hit her before the wind did… something about his proximity made her skin prickle in a way that had nothing to do with the static in the air.

Why does he have to stand so close?

Why am I not moving away?

As they stepped onto the balcony, the wind whipped around them, tugging at their clothes and hair with playful insistence. Juniper gasped, the air crackling with an energy that seemed to seep into her very bones.

“What’s that sound?” she asked, her voice nearly lost in the howling gale. It was a strange, resonant glowing purr that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere particular, a vibration that she could feel in her teeth.

She glanced up at him as he started to answer, and the look on his face stopped something inside of her. He was staring at the sky with an intensity that made her stomach flip… not looking at her at all, but somehow pulling her in anyway. His eyes tracked the shimmering lines cutting through the storm clouds, and when he spoke, his voice carried a quiet passion that made her want to know what else he may have cared about this much.

“It’s the rescoils,” he explained, pointing. “There are two sets of three phases, positioned on opposite sides of the metropolis.”

She should have been watching where he pointed. She was watching the particular angles of his mandible instead, the way the lightning painted shadows across his throat…

“When the storm reaches a certain intensity, the phases start to resonate, their frequencies combining to create that sound.” His hand moved as he talked, tracing invisible patterns. “It’s like a wireless catenary, a curve of energy that seeds the sky and stabilizes the atmosphere to minimize the damage.”

A curve of energy.

Right.

That’s definitely what I’m thinking about.

She forced herself to look down, to close her eyes for just a second, but somehow that made it worse. The chaos of wind and thunder should have unsettled her, but standing here beside him… his solid warmth, his steady voice cutting through the storm… she felt a comfort that was completely unfamiliar. Safe in a way that didn’t make sense, that she didn’t know what to do with.

In that darkness behind her eyelids, with nothing to anchor her but the sound of his voice and the heat of him so close, her mind wandered back to his hands… and what it would be like to have him pull his spade and let it divide her, splitting her open in ways that had nothing to do with atmospheric stabilization.

My goodness.?.

Get it together.

She opened her eyes, forcing them toward the sky, taking in the sight before her as if she’d been paying attention the whole time. The clouds churned with an almost tangible fury, the lightning painting the heavens in shades of purple and red pastels. Beautiful. Dangerous.

Just like everything else about this moment.