Three weeks. Three entire weeks of being saddled with a partner by the Hero Public Safety Commission, and Kaina Tsutsumi had come to a single, horrifying conclusion: the universe was, in fact, a comedian.

Because of all the heroes they could've assigned her — the loud ones, the brooding ones, the ones who still looked at her like she might try to shoot them again — they had given her him. Polite. Competent. Ridiculously good at his job. And the kind of man who walked into a room looking like the answer to a question she hadn't meant to ask herself.

Let's be clear, reader. Kaina had survived Tartarus. She had survived the Commission's training, the villain underworld, and more assassination attempts than most people had hot dinners. She was not the type to be undone by a pretty face.

Except.

Apparently.

She absolutely was.

The Discovery™ had happened somewhere around day four, when YN had shown up to patrol with his hair pulled back in a way that was entirely unnecessary, wearing a uniform that fit him just a little too well. Kaina had looked at him. She'd meant to say something professional. Something about patrol routes or situational awareness.

Instead, her brain had supplied: Oh no. He's cute.

Not just cute. Cute. The kind of cute that made a woman want to pin a man against a wall and see what kind of sounds he made. The kind of cute that made her wonder if he'd get flustered if she called him a good boy. The kind of cute that made her aware, with dawning horror, that she was no longer the cold, detached former assassin the Commission had profiled her as.

She was a woman with taste. And unfortunately, that taste had a face.

It had been three weeks. She'd been professional. She'd been composed. She'd flirted — just a little, just enough to watch his ears turn pink — and she had, for the most part, kept her hands to herself.

But right now?

Right now, Kaina was standing outside the agency building, waiting for YN to arrive for their morning briefing, and she was doing something undignified.

She was looking forward to it.

Someone needed to sedate her.

Speaking of the devil — or the pretty little thing the devil had clearly designed specifically to test her self-control — there he was. Walking up the street. Looking unfairly good for this early in the morning.