Page 116 of Toxic

Just another day in my private hell.

"Of course, I’ll find the initial materials we received when the project started and forward them to you. The programming work is already quite advanced, and the other team members have their tasks assigned, but there are a few areas where you could help once you’ve gone through the materials. I’ll give you parts of the work that you could handle efficiently without needing to dive into the entire codebase." The words flowed smoothly from my mouth. Everything went surprisingly well.

A little while later, the other team members started to arrive, taking their seats at the empty desks. There were two betas and two omegas. I could see them throwing curious glances at Skye, which irritated me slightly, though I didn’t really know why. It was probably natural; alphas were rarely hired in programming companies, and they were more often found in managerial positions, in advertising and sales.

The fact that Skye was here as a regular programmer was probably surprising to some. As far as I knew, apart from him, there were no other alphas in the company at all—just hundreds of betas and omegas.

I realized some kind of introduction would be necessary, so once everyone had gathered, I stood up and leaned slightly against my desk.

"Good morning, everyone. This situation is probably just as surprising for you as it is for me, but Director Nolan explained that it was necessary to separate the ByteBites project fromother company initiatives, which led to his decision to form our team. Strategically, this project has been upgraded to high-priority status within DevApp, and it needs to be overseen by a single unit managing the entire workflow. You all already know each other, but we have a new member—Skye."

I made a stiff gesture in his direction.

Skye’s brightly colored eyes stayed fixed on my face. He seemed calm, giving the rest of the team a polite, friendly smile—in a typical welcoming manner.

"Skye graduated in the same field as I did and has experience in programming with Python, C++, and JavaScript. He’ll be assisting us, but he’s still in the onboarding phase for this project, so he’ll start with simpler tasks to get up to speed before I assign him more advanced work."

There was a brief silence before I cleared my throat and added, "Skye, let me introduce you to the rest of the team. This is Devon, Fay, Jess, and Randy."

Skye stood up and went around, shaking hands with each team member.

I shared a few words about what each person did, how long they had been with the company, and their role in the project. All of these employees had been here for a shorter time than me—usually less than a year—which was somewhat reassuring. After all, I had some seniority at DevApp, even if I had been working remotely.

Once the introductions were over, I went around to each employee, leaving Skye for last. I chatted briefly about progress and the plans for the upcoming week. I could almost palpably feel Skye’s focus on me. He watched me the whole time, never breaking his gaze for even a second. It was an odd feeling, like I could physically feel his eyes moving over my body. I was wearing tight jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt, and I knew, onsome level, he was undressing me with his stares that felt almost blatantly erotic—his face remained calm, his eyes glued to me.

Before I approached him, I emailed him the materials explaining his tasks, then slowly walked over to his desk. He was still staring at me, this time directly into my eyes.

"I sent you something. Can you open it? I’ll explain what you’ll be working on today."

He did as I asked, and I began to lay out his assignment. Meanwhile, he opened his compiler and pasted a snippet of code. I kept talking, and at one point, I noticed that below the last line of code, he hit enter twice and then typed one sentence:

I tried hard not to react, but I stopped mid-sentence, my eyes fixating on the screen. My heart started pounding, and I was sure he could hear it; after all, he was an alpha. Devon, one of the omegas sitting next to Skye, looked up at me, slightly surprised. He was probably puzzled by the wild beating of my heart.

I cleared my throat. "Spider, I have arachnophobia," I explained quietly, so only Devon and Skye could hear.

But he didn't stop there. The next line appeared on the screen below:

I forced myself to continue walking him through his part of the assignment. The entire time, these sentences hung on the screen, making my whole body feel hot.

These lines—they were, in a way, a window into what he was thinking. I realized that even if he hadn’t told Liam why he had come here, I knew exactly why—he wanted to get me back.

The question was, would I let him?

SKYE

The first day on Soren’s team was a strange experience. I tried really hard to do my job well because I also wanted to prove to Winter that I wasn’t here just because of Soren (although, let’s be honest, I was). I did what I had to do as best as I could, and before lunch, Soren made his rounds to each desk, reviewing the code the other employees had written. Finally, he came to me. This time, I didn’t hide anything in the code. I just showed him the results of my work.

He analyzed it for a moment, while I watched his beautiful face—his soft lips, the delicate line of his jaw, and his straight, elegant nose. I stared at his black hair slicked back and his barbed wire tattoo. His hand rested on my mouse, which gave me a strange pleasure. His palm was small, pale, with a few silver rings that I studied closely. I also watched the line of his neck and shoulders, and the way his back bent as he leaned over my screen.

It goes without saying that the whole time I was watching him, I was hard.

"Everything looks good," Soren said, avoiding my gaze.

"Yes, everything looks good," I whispered, my eyes locked on him, and he had to know that it included him.

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