Well, sorta...

For one suspended second, the lab was utterly silent except for our ragged breathing. Then the suits went limp, their grip releasing so abruptly that Renee slid down the wall with a gasp, her legs buckling beneath her. I caught her by instinct, my own knees giving way as we collapsed in a heap of overheated limbs and torn fabric.

The console screen refreshed.

*Assessment: High compatibility. Recommend pairing for further trials.*

Renee's laugh was hollow, her fingers trembling where they clutched my shoulder. "Fucking...beta testers for our own goddamn product."

Renee's breath hitched against my collarbone, her fingers twitching where they still gripped my wrist. For a suspended moment, we just stared at each other—her mascara smeared into dark crescents beneath her eyes, my own pulse hammering in my throat. Then she made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, and suddenly we were clutching each other like drowning survivors. Her lips found mine with bruising ****, teeth clacking in frantic desperation. The kiss tasted of salt and copper—her tears or my split lip, I couldn’t tell.

The suits were just garments now, their fibers still faintly pulsing with residual heat. We tore out of them, eager to be free. But we never stopped touching each other. Renee’s nails scraped down my bare chest as she dragged me backward onto the lab floor, her thighs bracketing my hips with none of the AI’s clinical precision. "Tell me you want this," she demanded, her voice raw. Her palm pressed against my half-hard cock. It was a question, not a command.

I answered by flipping us over so that I was on top, pinning her wrists like the suit had earlier. This time, she arched into the grip. "God, yes," I growled against her throat, savoring the way her pulse jumped under my tongue. Her legs wrapped around me—not the suit’s calculated motion, but her own fierce pull—and then I was inside her again. Her heat swallowed me whole.

Renee threw her head back with a gasp, her hips rolling in erratic, unscripted circles. "Slower," she begged, but her body contradicted her, heels digging into my ass to pull me deeper. I obeyed anyway, dragging each thrust out until she whimpered, her inner muscles fluttering around me in frantic little clenches. The contrast was intoxicating. Where the AI had **** synchronicity, now we fumbled through our own clumsy rhythm, learning each other’s tells between panting kisses.

Her orgasm built slowly this time, cresting in shuddering waves rather than the suit’s brutal efficiency. I watched it unfold in the hitch of her breath, the way her toes curled against my calves, the sudden tension in her thighs before— "Jesse," she choked out, her back bowing off the floor. Her climax rippled through her in slow, rolling contractions, drawing me deeper with each pulse.

I followed moments later, my release crashing over me with a **** that left my vision blurring at the edges. Renee’s arms tightened around my shoulders as I spilled into her, her lips brushing my temple in something too tender for the wreckage around us.

We lay tangled in silence for a long moment, the only sound our slowing breaths and the occasional drip of coolant from a ruptured server line. Renee traced idle patterns across my sweat-slicked back. "Mark’s gonna lose his shit," she murmured, her voice hoarse.

I huffed a laugh against her collarbone, but my thoughts were dark. "It wasn't us. The suits **** us, Renee. Mark wouldn't—"

"It was our own choice there at the end," she countered quietly. "The suits didn't **** us. Whether we made a mistake or not, we did it of our own free will. I have to live with that."

She's silent for a long moment before speaking again. "I should hate everything associated with what just happened. I should hate the suits. I should hate the control program. I should hate you, even though I know it wasn't your fault. I should...but I don't. And that realization scares me."

Her fingers trace idle circles on my chest, her voice dropping low—not quite whispering, but barely audible over the hum of the lab's emergency lighting. "Do you remember my birthday last month? Mark took me to that expensive French restaurant. Ordered for me. He claimed I wouldn't know what to pick. Then spent the entire evening on his phone." A bitter laugh escapes her. "I don't think he noticed when I ordered the soufflé. Or when I ate it. Or when I left halfway through dessert to cry in the bathroom."

I don't reply, just tighten my grip around her waist. She's warm against me, skin still flushed from exertion, her breathing steadying by degrees. The scent of her, citrus shampoo and sweat, fills my nose. It's familiar in a way it shouldn't be.

"I've been making excuses for him for months," she continues, her voice flat. "Too busy with work. Too stressed about the wedding. Too distracted. Too everything. But tonight..." She trails off, her fingers stilling against my chest. "Tonight, when the suit tore my clothes off, I wasn't thinking about Mark. I wasn't thinking about the wedding. I was thinking about how badly I wanted you to kiss me. Yes, I was terrified. And I wanted it to stop. But I also...didn't."

Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy. Somewhere in the lab, a pipe drips—steady, rhythmic, like the ticking of a clock. The suits lie crumpled next to us, their fibers still faintly glowing in places. A testament to what we'd just done. What we'd chosen to do.

"I don't know if this was a mistake," I admit finally, my voice rough. "But I do know that I've wanted you since the day you walked into this lab and told me my code was inefficient."

Renee laughs—a real laugh, bright and sudden. It echoes off the lab walls, bouncing between the overturned chairs and scattered tools. The sound feels like sunlight after a storm. "I remember that," she says, grinning. "You nearly threw a stapler at my head."

"Because you were right," I counter, rolling onto my side to face her fully. Her hair is a tangled mess, her lips swollen from kissing, her skin marked where my hands had gripped too tight. She's never looked more beautiful. "And I hate being wrong."

Her smile fades as she reaches up, tracing the line of my jaw with her fingertips. "Then tell me I'm wrong now," she whispers. "Tell me this was just the suits. Tell me it didn't mean anything."

I catch her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. Her skin tastes of salt and something indefinable—something uniquely Renee. "I can't," I murmur against her skin. "Because it did."

The lighting in the lab buzzes faintly. The suits lie inert. The console is silent and dark. The sound of our breathing, steady and sure, seems loud.

Renee exhales sharply, her fingers tightening around mine. "Fuck," she breathes. Then she's pulling me down, her mouth meeting mine in a kiss that tastes of desperation and hope and something dangerously close to love.

She breaks the kiss. We stare at each other, lost in our own roiling thoughts and emotions.

"I'd say that our suits have a bug," I observe dryly. She laughs, nervous emotion adding an edge to the sound; but there's also genuine mirth.

"Aye. Quite the bug. But isn't that what a test like this is for? To identify what's wrong in a controlled environment--mostly--so that it can be addressed before the problem releases in the wild."

She looks over at the tray where her personal effects—including her engagement ring—had been stored for the test run. I follow her thoughts.

"So does that mean you're going to break it off with Mark?" I ask. She nods.

"I don't think it would smart to go through with marrying him. I think I was trying to marry a dream, but the reality just wouldn't be any good for either him or me. I think it's a truth I've been trying to avoid. Even if you had told me that there's nothing between you and me, I'd still think it's the right decision."

I reflect on what she said. "How long do you think I'd have to wait before it would be socially acceptable to take you out on a date?"

She frowns, taking the question seriously. "Well, at least after I've had a chance to talk to him. After that, I don't know. Maybe a month?"

I nod. "It'll be a long month, but I suppose it would probably be best for me to be a friend and support to you. I know you're the one breaking it off, but you and Mark have been together long enough that it's gonna hurt. You'll need a friend more than anything else."

She nods, tears in her eyes. I hug her. She hugs me back.

"But maybe," she whispers, "we'll have a reason to get back together sooner than that. If I end up with a positive pregnancy test, there's no way I'm going through that shit all by myself."

My eyes go wide and I pull back to look her in the eyes. She takes my hand in both of hers. She looks nervous.

"It'll be okay, won't it?" she asks earnestly.

I squeeze her hand. "It will. No matter what, it'll be okay. I'm here for you, Renee."

She nods and rests her head against my chest. I put my arms around her and hold her. Uncertainty and comfort intermingle, but we know that we can count on each other even when there are surprises and problems. As for which one a pregnancy would be—a surprise or a problem—I'm not sure that it's automatically the latter. There's too much to think through.

"On the bright side," I hear her say, "I guess we already have experience dealing with unexpected test results, don't we?"