It had started out the way it always did — with your legs draped over his lap and his fingers tangled in the hem of your shirt, kisses trailing up your neck in that slow, measured way he did when he wasn’t in a rush to have you but wanted you to know he could. The couch had become your makeshift basecamp: cluttered with pillows, takeout containers, and a hoodie he’d shrugged off earlier when things got warm. The city pulsed softly beyond the windows, but in here, it was all dim lights and close breath and the familiar press of his mouth on yours.

Only... it wasn’t staying that way.

Tim had broken the kiss three times now.

Not to say something sweet. Not to catch his breath. But to glance at the glowing screen still open on the coffee table.

You’d barely gotten him to lean into you again, your fingers hooked in the collar of his shirt, when his head turned—eyes flicking toward the line of scrolling code like it was whispering secrets only he could hear.

“Seriously?” you muttered against his jaw, lips brushing skin that should’ve been warming under your kiss, not tilted away toward encrypted files and tactical maps.

He blinked like he hadn’t noticed. Like you weren’t half on top of him, hair falling forward, mouth still parted in something between a laugh and a protest.

“Just—hang on,” he said, hands momentarily squeezing your hips before his right one reached, again, for the keyboard. “I think I’m tracking a meta cell signal in Midtown. It’s subtle. I just want to—”

“Tim.”

“I know.” He looked at you then, blue eyes sharp and tired and a little guilty. “I know. Just thirty seconds.”

You dropped back against the cushions with an exaggerated sigh, eyes on the ceiling, legs still around his waist.

“This is the worst foreplay I’ve ever had.”

He snorted. “That’s a lie.”