Chapter 453 - 65 - Awake

The warmth was suffocating.

Skyy drifted upward through layers of sleep, consciousness returning in slow, heavy waves.

The first thing he registered was heat—an almost oppressive warmth that seemed to wrap around him from all sides.

The second was the solid weight of an arm banded across his waist, holding him flush against something firm and unyielding.

He blinked, eyes adjusting to the dimness of the storage room. His head was pillowed against Chen's chest, he realized, rising and falling with steady breaths.

Chen's other arm was tucked beneath him, cradling him close, and Skyy's own leg had somehow found its way across Chen's hips, his thigh draped over—

He froze.

There was something hard there. Something that radiated heat even through the layers of fabric separating them, something that pulsed with a life of its own.

Skyy's breath hitched as understanding crashed over him.

He knew enough, had seen enough, to recognize the rigid shape pressing against his thigh.

Chen was hard.

Skyy's face ignited. He jerked his leg away—or tried to. In his panic, he accidentally dragged his knee upward, grazing the full length of that heated stiffness with clumsy, devastating contact.

A soft, guttural groan rumbled through Chen's chest, vibrating against Skyy's cheek.

Skyy went rigid, his heart hammering so loudly he was certain Chen could hear it.

He tilted his head back, eyes wide, and found Chen looking down at him.

The moonlight caught the sharp line of Chen's jaw, the heavy-lidded darkness of his eyes. but there was no mistaking it there was that raw, unfiltered hunger in his gaze.

His pupils were blown wide, his lips parted, his chest heaving with shallow, controlled breaths.

He wanted to move. He knew he should. Every instinct screamed at him to scramble back, to put distance between them, to pretend this moment wasn't happening.

But his body refused to obey.

He stayed exactly where he was, pinned by that dark stare, his own breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that had nothing to do with fear.

He didn't know why he did it.

Maybe it was the lingering haze of sleep, or the way Chen's arm tightened possessively around his waist, or the simple, devastating fact that he had never felt so wanted in his entire life.

But Skyy shifted his leg again—just a fraction, just the slightest, experimental roll of his hip—and pressed his thigh back against that rigid heat.

Chen moved so fast Skyy didn't see it coming.

His hand shot out, fingers wrapping around Skyy's thigh in an iron grip, stilling his movement completely.

Skyy gasped.

"If you move again," Chen breathed, the words rough and scraped raw, forced out through gritted teeth, "I might not be able to control myself."

The warning should have terrified him.

Instead, something hot and liquid pooled in Skyy's gut. He stared up at Chen—at the sweat beading on his forehead, at the muscle jumping in his clenched jaw, at the desperation burning in those dark eyes—and felt his own body respond with a shocking, visceral awareness.

He wasn't afraid.

Skyy's hand moved of its own accord, reaching up with trembling fingers.

He watched Chen's eyes track the movement, watched his throat bob as he swallowed hard.

Skyy's fingertips found the column of Chen's neck, tracing the strained tendons there, before settling against the protruding knot of his Adam's apple.

It bobbed again beneath his touch, a frantic, involuntary movement that spoke of Chen's struggle for restraint.

Skyy grazed his fingers over it, marveling at the texture, at the way Chen's breath stuttered at the contact.

Then the world tilted.

Chen's grip on his thigh tightened, and suddenly Skyy was being rolled, flipped onto his back against the hard floor with Chen following him over.

Chen's larger body caged him in completely, knees bracketing his hips, hands planted on either side of his head.

Skyy looked up, dazed, his heart thundering against his ribs as Chen hovered above him, his shadow swallowing the moonlight.

And then he smelled it.

The scent hit him like a physical blow—thick and heady, musky and sharp, wrapping around his senses until he felt dizzy with it.

It was the smell of want. The smell of lust and need and barely contained hunger.

It rolled off Chen in waves, pheromones thick enough to taste, and Skyy's mouth went dry as his own body responded, a strange, aching emptiness opening up inside him.

This man above him... this man who had protected him, saved him, held him through the night...

Skyy wanted him to claim him.

The thought came unbidden, fierce and undeniable. He wanted Chen to stop holding back, wanted those careful hands to become rough and demanding, wanted to be marked and owned and *his*. His hand drifted down from Chen's throat, coming to rest against his own stomach, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt there.

But reality crashed through the haze of desire with brutal clarity.

If... if he did this... if they did this...

Skyy's thoughts raced, panic fluttering at the edges of his consciousness. He was an Prototype woman. He knew what his body was biologically designed for.

If Chen claimed him, if Chen fucked him...

He clutched his stomach tighter, the possibility blooming terrifying and thrilling in equal measure. 'I might get pregnant.'

'did I want that... did i want a child?'

The fear alone should have been enough to make him push Chen away. Should have been enough to make him run.

Chen slowly, carefully lowered himself until their chests brushed, until Skyy could feel the wild hammering of his heart against his own.

He dipped his head, his nose trailing along Skyy's cheek, his jaw, before rubbing gently, intimately, against Skyy's own nose.

"Don't tempt me," Chen whispered, the words broken and ragged, warm breath ghosting across Skyy's lips. "I'm at my limit."

For a moment, they stayed like that—foreheads touching, breath mingling, the tension between them stretched so tight Skyy thought it might snap and destroy them both.