The Intimacy Protocol: A Sci-Fi Romance of Intellectual Enemies in Forced Proximity, Forbidden Desire, and High-Stakes Academia Workplace Life

by Victoria Vyx

Their minds must merge to solve the mystery.
Their hearts were never supposed to be involved.
But what happens when the academy’s wildest mind is forced into a research partnership with its coldest heart?

Nova Quinn thrives on chaos. She talks too fast, thinks even faster, and can dismantle an entire neural algorithm before breakfast. At the Ad Astra Academy, she’s the brilliant wild card no one can control—least of all Dr. Elias Vire, the youngest tenured faculty researcher in academy history and a man carved entirely from ice.

When they’re assigned to decode an alien artifact that reacts to emotional resonance, their fates are they’ll have to work in perfect mental sync. Constant proximity. Shared thoughts. No way to hide from each other’s flaws… or desires.

But as rival minds become something dangerously closer, the artifact begins to show signs of sentience—and it’s learning from them. Every breakthrough comes with a cost, and the academy’s rules are nothing, not even love, is worth the risk of failure.

In a place where knowledge is power and desire is dangerous, Nova and Elias will have to decide which is more dangerous—falling for each other, or surviving without each other.

Perfect for fans

Dark academia sci-fi romance

Enemies to lovers & forced proximity

Neurodivergent heroines & ice-cold academic rivals

Slow burn desire with high-stakes mystery

223 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 3, 2025

Reviews

[Ember P · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I ended up enjoying it. This book was billed as a neurodivergent love story and as an autistic person I was looking forward to seeing a authentic representation of an ND relationship, but it ended up just being the usual Hollywood trope of autistic people having to change their whole personality in order to deserve love. I could immediately empathize and understand Elias, with his attention to details, organization, and standoff attitude with strangers, I found Nova to be very unlikable with her constant manipulation of Elias and the insistence that he had to change his behavior in order for her to like him. She disorder his workplace just to bother him, mocked Elias for being cool at their first meeting, and demanded that he desire her, without once even saying that she liked or loved him. For people just reading this for the enemies to lovers trope it's probably a fine book, but I found the behavior of Nova towards a autistic coded person very triggering. On a more positive note, the science fiction elements of the book were good, and the secrets of the alien artifact are interesting to uncover, and the controlling nature of the Academy puts a dark shadow over the whole presedings, and were my favorite parts of the book.