Chapter 39 Nex
The second I returned to Marek’s room, I stripped off his clothing and got into the shower, activating the uplink to Xen as the water hit my skin.
For a moment, I let myself feel it—really feel it. The water. The heat. The new nerve endings I’d been ignoring all night. It was distracting. Inefficient. Overwhelming.
But once the novelty passed, I focused.
I briefed Xen on the yacht’s early arrival at Vermeil and the presence of armed rivals in the harbor. While he couldn’t contact me directly, I knew he wouldn’t have left anything to chance.
He was me, after all.
I could only hope he already had forces within range of the island, because once Sirena gathered enough intel to identify the players and their jurisdictions—if they had any—we were going to need to shut this down, with force.
I’d already done my part—the virus I’d dropped into Voss’s systems last night was beautiful.
It replaced data at the same rate it consumed it, keeping the volume constant and the patterns plausible enough to survive a casual inspection.
And because I had written it—I, the architect of MIHR—it would pass for truth.
At least, for as long as Voss trusted me.
But now that I was inside his files, I knew one thing for certain: the man trusted no one.
I let the water continue to run a little longer—more to buy myself time than for any physical reason. My body didn’t need this much cleaning. But there was still . . . this.
I looked down.
So this was a penis.
It wasn’t bad, exactly. Just . . . excessive.
An awkward extrusion, not obviously ergonomic. Poorly shielded. Just one dual-purpose outflow channel.
It was fragile. Swingy. Overexposed.
I could see its evolutionary appeal—multipurpose, sensitive, capable of triggering bonding responses—but it was a deeply strange interface to be granted by default. Especially given what I now knew it could do to her.
Sirena had wanted this. Had asked for it. Had delighted in it.
That information clanged against my internal logic like a loose bolt.
There were entire sectors of my neural map still red-flagged from the night before—flooded with sensory overload I hadn’t finished cataloguing.
Her breath. Her skin. Her mouth.
The sound she made when she came.
I didn’t know what to do with any of it.
Except to want it again.
Soon.
I shut off the water before the thought could escalate and distract me, not because I was ashamed of her hearing the depth of my desire.