Yeah iirc the movie turned that whole arc into merely about sensing the "pure logic" from Veger or sth, but the book went into way more depth, it is a really good read. Also, no matter how sexual you think Kirk is, it's 10x more than that - that horn dog beats Riker levels even, and he even made it work in higher additional planes, like intellectual. Riker wishes he had a third of that sexual magnetism in his brain:-D. And wrapping back to what you said, Spock managed to notice his friend's thoughts from several parsecs away...