Lucas was staring hard at the measurement, right at the top of Brooke's head, which was just above his eye line. He had furrowed his eyebrows and was looking closer, to make sure that he wasn't reading the number wrong -- there could be no real doubt, though. The stadiometer arm extended out over her head, and it was straight...pointing right to the 5'8.5 mark. For a moment, Lucas was lost in his confusion and preoccupation with making sure the numbers were right, but a second later, he became aware of Brooke's green eyes, just under his chin, directed upward at him, seeming bigger and more sultry out of the corner of his eye because they were averted up. He felt the blood begin draining down toward his cock area once again, and he took an instinctive back, primarily out of self-preservation, masking his defensive gesture with a slight tilt of his head as he brought his hand to his chin, pondering, but mostly intent on escaping proximity to Brooke, and deflecting anything she was about to say.
"So...I'm a quarter inch taller?" came her sultry intonation. "Than I was in the lab?"
"Welllll," said Lucas, feeling slightly panicked but determined to maintain his composure, "Let's not...uh, ehhaha, let's not get too ahead of ourselves."
"Too tall for our britches?" cracked Brooke, flashing a toothy grin.
"I...uh, what?" asked Lucas, blinking and shaking his head a bit.
"It's just a phrase I think I learned, uh, somewhere," giggled Brooke. "It means -- "
"I know," interrupted Lucas, holding up his hand, "What it means. I just...ok, never mind. The point is, we can't be sure that Rick, um...got the measurement right in the lab."
"But he used the same...what do you call this thing?" asked Brooke, knocking her knuckles against the stadiometer.
"A stadiometer," said Lucas officially. "And, well yes -- maybe it looked the same. But suppose it was defective or...or something."
"Or maybe yours is defective!" laughed Brooke.
"Excuse me?" Lucas was really starting to get put out by Brooke's buoyant attitude...or maybe it was just that he was put out with himself for getting hard again, totally against his own desires. So what if she was a little taller!? What did that mean?? Why did it have to make him so helplessly aroused like this!?
"I mean, haha, maybe it isn't Rick's stadium-whatever that's broken," giggled Brooke, turning around to inspect the instrument herself. "Maybe THIS is the one that's busted."
"Or," remarked Lucas a little acerbically, determined not to agree with her on anything, "It COULD be that neither of them is broken or inaccurate, and that...well, you actually have grown a little more."
"Do you really think that could be it??" asked Brooke, her eyes going wide with excitement. Lucas couldn't help but get momentarily lost in that green...her eyes seemed somehow deeper than they were earlier in the morning.
"Well I hope not," he countered, blinking and attempting to recover himself as he retreated to his desk and sat down in his black leather chair. "That would mean that our...uh, that Rick's design is somehow flawed, and needs to be readjusted. He...um, well, he had made sure that there was only a quarter-inch increase every growth cycle, and only one growth cycle a day. If the measurements are right, then...well, either the cycle or the timing is off, which could...which could be...a bit of a problem."
"A problem?" asked Brooke, her smile fading a little as she came up to Lucas's desk. "What does that mean, Luca--Mr. Mineur?"
"I'm...not really sure, exactly," replied Lucas truthfully. He was grateful that, for the moment at least, Brooke had come back down to earth a little. If the nanobots were somehow malfunctioning, she did have some reason to worry. But Lucas wasn't really thinking about any of that right now. He was staring at Brooke's figure as she stood there by the side of his desk, still barefoot, with her feet crossed over each other. Earlier, when she did this, it was flirtatious; now it looked fidgety and a little scared. And combined with the pleasing curve of her hips, the respectable swerve of her thighs, and the volume and weight of her breasts as they jutted out from her chest...well, Lucas found himself blinking again a couple times, just to clear his vision. He realized that he had been brazenly just staring at her for several long moments.
"You're staring at my chest again, huh?" Brooke's voice cut the air, and Lucas immediately shook his head and stood up. Her smile had returned, albeit in a bit of a softer, more muted form.
"Uhh, n-no, no I was just...remembering," said Lucas, struggling to gather himself, "We need to get your other measurements, ok? It's not...not just height, remember. It's everything else, you know? Weight, bust, hips, waist...all the basics."
"Oh, of course, Mr. Mineur," said Brooke in an affected drawl, her eyes again following him as he walked around his desk and directed her back to the stadiometer, which had a scale on it as well.
"And...Brooke," remarked Lucas, taking care to ensure that there was a healthy dose of irritation peppering his syllables, "I could do with a lot less of the...the obvious flirtation, alright? Look, we both know what happened last night and -- "
"And this morning," she interrupted, winking at him.
"And...and so that doesn't mean," continued Lucas, ignoring her comment, "That any of it is acceptable behavior in a workplace environment, alright? Especially not in an environment like Braden where we're all...where there is a certain level of professionalism. Is that clear, Brooke?"
"I understand where you're coming from, Mr. Mineur," replied Brooke, closing her eyes and nodding her head appreciatively. Lucas thought for a moment that he had successfully gotten her to back off, but when she opened her eyes again, their deeper green retained that same mischievous sparkle.
Inhaling a deep breath through his nose, Lucas got Brooke to step on the scale.
"Let's see...ummm...oh-kay," he said as he manually operated the scale, hoping that his casual tone and business-like approach would dissuade her from more advances. But the measurements mandated proximity to her body, and whenever he got this close to her, Lucas could feel her eyes following his face. He even thought he could feel her body heat, even though there was still a couple of feet between them. Was he hallucinating!?
"So...looks like...one hundred and thirtyyyy two pounds," said Lucas, resetting the manual weight bar and immediately turning to go back to his desk to write down the statistic on his clipboard. The number was generic, normal, to be expected...but somehow, it made him even more aroused and excited.