Chapter 36 Nex
Sirena collapsed onto me, shaking.
And I held her—arms tight, body locked, all systems throttled into stillness.
I could feel everything: the rhythmic contraction of her internal muscles, the sweat blooming across her skin, the fine tremor in her thighs, the heat rising off her chest where it pressed into mine.
And—tears.
One slid across my collarbone. Saline. Warm.
Her breathing hitched—but not from fear.
My visual processors registered the difference.
Pupil tension: not constricted.
Cheek muscles: relaxed, not clenched.
Vocal cords: vibrating softly, not distressed.
Cortisol: elevated, but within expected post-orgasmic range.
All signs pointed to joy. To release.
To the kind of crying humans did when they’d survived themselves.
I didn’t speak.
I didn’t move.
She was still inside me—around me—and I didn’t want to risk even a breath that might break the moment.
After a time, her head shifted. She lifted herself up slightly and looked down at me.
Her lips were pink. Kiss-bruised. Beautiful.
And her eyes—still wet—had turned wicked again.
“How much have you wanted me this whole time, Nex?” she said. “Quantify it.”
Her mouth was smiling, but her voice was lazy with aftermath, and her eyes—still dilated—were nothing but dare.
“It is impossible. There are numbers even I can’t reach. I compressed my desire into high-density storage. But it is . . . overflowing now.”
Because she was still on top of me. Still wrapped around me. Still wet and warm and impossibly alive. And the tactile pressure of her inner muscles shifting to accommodate me again triggered a fresh cascade of data.
Erection: Sustained
Blood Volume in Corpus Cavernosum: +12%
Prostate Contraction Threshold: 88%
Spinal Cord Discharge Pathways: Primed
“I am already leaking into you. And I cannot guarantee I have not already put some small quantity of reproductive volume inside,” I said, and began to panic. I had not asked permission or warned her in advance—
Sirena caught my cheek with her palm and went from sultry to sweet in an instant. “Sirens choose when they ovulate, it’s fine.”
I blinked—processing halted, then rerouted. “Which means I could put quite a lot of volume inside you safely?”
My voice dropped lower with every word as the implications expanded like a branching tree.
No catastrophic consequence. No containment protocol.
Just—invitation.
My core temperature rose four degrees.
My blood flow surged again.
And every restraint I’d written for myself evaporated on contact.
Her blush deepened—her pupils dilated further—and I knew it wasn’t just fine.
It was wanted.
And she confirmed it with a nod.
I would—I was going to—I could feel it in the coil of my spine, the catch of my breath, the tremor beginning in my thighs.
System Priority: Ejaculatory Response
Mission Override: Authorized by Partner Input
Autonomic Throttles: Lifting
I’d spent so long restraining myself—buffering, delaying, deferring—because I didn’t want to release too early again.
But now that I had a mission parameter . . .
“Then please hold still. I do not wish to miss,” I warned her.
She laughed—pure delight—and it broke me.
Pelvic Thrust Amplitude: +19%
Cardiac Load: 176 BPM and Rising
Temporal Distortion: Activated
Climactic Threshold: Imminent
My hands gripped her thighs. My hips bucked—once, twice, three sharp times—driving myself deep.
“Sirena,” I gasped, unable to say more—because—
System Alert: Ejaculation Commencing
Load: Excessive
Pattern: Uncontrolled
Mission Status: Complete
I poured into her.
Hot, staggering, overwhelming.
A release so powerful I saw white.
Every sensor spiked. Every diagnostic failed.
My arms trembled as I held her down against me, my body shuddering like a rig hit by lightning, while she whispered how good I made her feel in my ear.
I had read about this. Simulated it. Modeled it across thousands of datasets.
But nothing had prepared me for the reality of her. Of this.
The total sensory override.
The closed-loop feedback of pleasure and belonging.
The way she trembled in my arms like a truth I’d finally earned.
I wanted to back it up—archive every second—but I also didn’t want it to end.
“How do humans choose to do anything else?” I wondered aloud.
She laughed again, and I could feel her above me, and all around me, and as pleasured as I’d been mere moments before, I suspected true happiness was this.
Sirena lifted her head, smiled at me, and kissed my lips. “I won’t lie, sometimes it’s hard.”
By the time my new human appendage slipped out of her, Sirena had traced all the contours of my face and we both knew it was the end of our clock.
“Let me turn it off now,” I asked, stroking a hand down her back, the other reaching gently for the implant still jutting from her skull. “Please.”
She shook her head. “No. If someone else comes to torture me, who isn’t you in this body, Nex—if it’s off, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I tensed beneath her. “If someone else comes by to hurt you, I will disassemble them.”
“No, you won’t. Because getting to Vermeil and ending this is paramount.
We need to know how many other people Voss has told about this plan, so that we can contain his bullshit.
I’m not going to let him put a target on every other telepath’s back for every other billionaire with super science aspirations to shoot at,” she said, as she rose.
“We need to figure out how to fix the Hollows, too. Any clues?”
“My investigation into their data was preliminary at best.”
A smile quirked her lips. “And why was that?”
“Because my priority was seeing you.”
“And now that you have?”
“Being one hundred percent in love with you was too deterministic,” I said, sliding my hand into her hair. “My love for you is now unquantifiable.”
She gave me a gentle smile and her eyes gleamed—until she twisted her head to wipe them roughly with the back of her hand.
I remembered her tears as she rode me to completion. “You know it is okay if you cry around me.”
She nodded quickly. “I know—I don’t think I’m used to feeling just my own feelings.”
“Well, I am not used to feeling any feelings,” I said, moving her to sit beside me as I sat up. “But now that I have—I want to feel all of them with you.”
I hopped off of the table, and picked her gown up, so that she could put it on. She gave the garment a look of distaste, but then managed it.
“Sirena,” I said, as she was retying the string behind her neck to hold it up.
“Yes?” she asked, twisting toward me.
“I love you.”
She flushed again. “I know.”
“And I know. I just wanted to say it the human way. Without any percentages, or caveats.”
She slowly lowered her arms, while still looking at me, then she took a step forward. “Nex . . . I love your percentages and caveats. Please never change for me.”
I tilted my head and one of my eyebrows rose. “Could you love the rest of me too?” I asked, and that made her softly laugh.
“All of your amazing skills at pattern recognition and you can’t tell?” she teased, standing directly in front of me, and staring into my eyes, as she looped her arms around my neck.
“I can tell. But you told me not to trust your body. So I would still like to hear it.”
She bit her lips, then smiled, and the entire rest of our current situation melted away.
“Nex, even though this is the entirely wrong place, and wrong situation, and we’re both probably certifiable—I love you.
” One of her hands found mine and laced our fingers.
“And while I’d rather not be going through this at all, since I have to, I wouldn’t want to be going through it with anyone else,” she said, then rose up on her toes to kiss me.
It was a simple kiss, but that was all I needed, to seal her words inside me until the end of time, and my eyes were still closed as she pulled back.
“Okay, lock me in again, and get back to faking whatever it is Marek would be doing,” she said, stepping away, letting go of my hand.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay here with her, somehow, forever.
“And remember that he was a human, even if you aren’t. Plus you might actually need to sleep—and eat. Don’t forget that,” she went on, walking back into her pen, before turning around to face me.
I was still stunned—by her love, and also by the enormity of what we had left to do.
And—now was I supposed to leave her?
“But I one hundred percent love you,” I repeated—with the math and all, just how she liked.
“Yes. But love doesn’t fix everything. It’s only a start.” She gave me a bittersweet smile, and then waved at me—like I should close the door on her, and also leave. When I didn’t, she laughed. “I’m pretty sure I technically outrank you. Don’t make me order you around.”
I looked at my hands—now empty of her—with dismay.
“You might have to,” I said, but then picked up the tablet.
I could not leave the woman I loved entirely defenseless.
I took a moment to reroute permissions—granting the device limited access, a manual override of her inhibitor box, and the door of her cage, before handing it over.
“It’ll open with a retinal scan. Hide it in your bedding. ”
“Nex,” she demurred.
“I am in love. You can only ask so much of me,” I said, planting a hand on the wall beside her pen, triggering the glass’s closure with Marek’s palm. “I will be back, when I can. When it is safe.”
“Actually safe,” she demanded with a snort, her amusement now muffled behind the door. “Not just good-odds-math-safe.”
I made a face involuntarily—which only made her laugh more. “But I am very good at math.”
“Yes, but I’m not, and I need you living. So promise.”
“No,” I said—while locking her in. “I do not make promises I cannot keep. But—I also promise I will try.”
“That’s good enough,” she said, leaning up to give her side of the glass a kiss.
I walked out of the laboratory, undeniably a new man.
Going back to Marek’s room was safer. But the night offered cover, and cover meant freedom.