Chapter 135: Touch me, and I’ll tell you

Taking a direct hit across the cheek, Cyrus refused to back down, pressing his assault with another aggressive kiss.

Since he had already earned the slap, he might as well collect on the kisses.

He ravaged her lips wildly, as if venting a backlog of pent-up frustration. His movements carried the raw, predatory roughness of a wild beast.

"Cyrus, have you lost your mind?!"

Ignoring the woman’s sharp protest, he ruthlessly plundered her lips, sweeping his tongue deep inside to execute a fierce, uncompromising conquest of her mouth before finally releasing her with grudging satisfaction, hauling her straight up into his arms.

"Where are you taking me? Put me down!"

Cyrus carried her straight back to his quarters, locking the heavy hatch firmly behind them.

He dumped Bunny unceremoniously onto his mattress before collapsing down beside her.

The plush, yielding mattress sagged heavily beneath the man’s substantial frame. With a swift sweep of his arm, he dragged her securely against his chest.

"You shameless, depraved, scoundrel of a rogue—let me go!"

Cyrus acted as if he were entirely deaf, brushing off her curses and warnings as he nudged his soft yet bristly dark hair against the crook of her neck, wheedling with uncharacteristic desperation.

"Keep me company tonight. Please?"

She had noticed Bunny dropping by his recovery ward every single day to check on his vital metrics, occasionally lingering to toss a toy for Chi before leaving.

It was her first time witnessing Cyrus drop his formidable armor to plead with someone, generating a bizarre, intoxicating sense of validation deep within her chest.

Yet, having fallen for his traps on numerous occasions, Bunny remained convinced the man was putting on an act.

Still, the raw vulnerability in his eyes didn’t look like a fabrication—it bore the unmistakable imprint of an instinctive clawing for security in the wake of a brush with death.

What on earth had Cyrus actually confronted down in City A?

"I’m begging you..."

He buried his face against the hollow of her throat, clinging to her like a massive, weighted plush bear—a surreal, jarring contradiction to his usual icy persona.

She checked the digital readout floating in the dark: midnight.

Well... a utility heating pad is a heating pad, and a high-tier Sentinel’s output delivers noticeably faster results anyway.

She reached over and snapped off the cabin lights. Cyrus brightened instantly, wrapping his arms around her with the clinging intensity of a needy child, demanding to be held tighter.

Bunny rolled over, turning her back to him to avoid his suffocating gaze.

In the profound stillness of the night, shielded from Bunny’s line of sight, the corners of Cyrus’s mouth curled upward in a slow, triumphant arc.

Such a simpleminded woman—so effortlessly fooled.

A little manufactured pity, and she walks right into the trap.

Halfway through the night, Bunny woke up feeling as though she had been thrust against a furnace. Cyrus was still locked around her in an iron grip, though the intense heat wasn’t radiating from his upper body—it was blazing straight from his lower half.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, she attempted to inch away, but the sheer muscular power of his arms rendered her completely immobilized.

So Bunny began wriggling like an agitated inchworm, desperately trying to wriggle out of his suffocating embrace.

A heavy, crushing weight suddenly pinned her shoulders down, accompanied by a scalding, ragged breath ghosting over her earlobe.

Cyrus’s voice dropped into a low, gravelly rasp, layered with a thinly veiled, dangerous warning:

"Are you going to sleep or do you want us to do something else instead?"

The moment the man made a subtle move, Bunny nearly shrieked in outright panic.

It was simply far too terrifying.

It had been established long ago—ancient human anatomy and Sentinel physiology were completely, absurdly mismatched! Completely!

A single session with Liam had nearly left her unable to drag herself out of bed; if Cyrus got his hands on her now, she was legitimately going to be done to death—literally done to death!

Bunny’s instincts moved far faster than her brain. Wriggling like a slippery eel, she scrambled toward the edge of the mattress, attempting a desperate escape. Yet the moment one of her legs slipped out from under the blanket, Cyrus swept his arm around her waist, yanking her back in one swift motion.

She slammed back hard against the man’s lower abdomen.

"Ugh..."

A stifled grunt of pain escaped his throat from behind, mixed with a faint, intoxicating wave of pure satisfaction and pleasure.

It felt like a volcano on the verge of erupting, finally receiving a fleeting, superficial taste of relief.

Yet he craved far more—a far deeper, more unrestrained release.

"Baby, what are you running away for?"

"Cyrus, I’m warning you—don’t you dare play coy with me!"

He let out a low, gravelly laugh. His sharp night vision allowed him to clearly register Bunny’s panicked, disoriented expression, alongside her utterly bristling, defensive stance.

He simply loved playing the provoke-and-tease game—he loved seeing her in this exact flustered state.

"I haven’t even said what I’m going to do, and you’re already scared out of your wits."

Bunny turned her head sharply. "Then what are you planning to do?"

His fingers slowly slid between hers, interlocking their hands before pressing her palm firmly down against his abs.

"Touch."

Concise and uncompromising.

Bunny’s face darkened completely. What kind of midnight mood was this man throwing out of nowhere?!

"I’m not touching you."

She was intimately aware of this dog of a man’s incorrigible nature. The price for a few casual touches might very well mean being carried out of bed on a stretcher tomorrow morning.

Cyrus remained silent, merely fixing his pitch-black eyes on her. In the dead stillness of the cabin, only the dark spiritual threads spilling outward testified that his mood was far from pleasant.

He couldn’t fathom it: Bunny touched the others every single day, so why did she refuse to touch him?

Where on earth did he fall short compared to them?

"Why?"

Bunny had zero interest in debating such meaningless topics with him. Having been completely overwhelmed over the past two days, she had already entered a state of total physical and mental abstinence.

No matter how pristine Cyrus’s physique was, she remained as unbothered as a disciplined monk—purely peaceful and free of worldly desires.

She didn’t know Cyrus’s exact genetic rank, but she deduced it was exceptionally high. Even simply lying beside him and inhaling his Sentinel pheromones brought her immense physical relief.

So, how on earth did he manage to end up so severely wounded?

"You were stranded in City A for over ten full hours... what exactly happened down there?"

Cyrus buried half his face into the pillow, still nursing his silent grudge. "Touch me, and I’ll tell you."

He was still nursing his jealousy. On the night Bunny and Liam were entangled, with senses as heightened as his, how could he possibly have missed a single sound?

That bastard Liam had gasped so loudly it was a miracle the whole world didn’t hear him.

Cyrus had spent an entire night alone in the confinement room.

When Liam had proudly strutted over to gloat in front of him the next morning, Cyrus had obliged his wish by thoroughly tenderizing his skin for him.

Back on the warship, the image of Alion provoking him remained fresh in his memory.

Cyrus was an intensely proud man. His parents had never raised him to harbor insecurity; his mother had once told him that only the weak dwelled in constant fear of loss.

Children raised in elite families like his shared a common trait: they were conditioned to suppress and conceal their true emotions at all costs.

With all his pent-up resentment carrying nowhere to go, he had ventured down into City A alone, seeking to slaughter Aberrations to vent his fury.

The woman’s palm was as smooth and soft as fine jade, gliding slowly across his skin like a cat kneading its paws against a blanket.

Bunny was curiously tracing the dark tattoos lining his torso.

Those black, thorn-like patterns looked as though they had grown organically from his skin, possessing a life of their own as they rose and fell with his breathing.

"I encountered a monster."