CHAPTER 10
ARIA
His whole body jerks beneath me—tense, quivering—as if something primal has seized control of him.
I feel his breath hitch against my neck just before his mouth finds my skin again, hot and open, his tongue dragging slowly across the sensitive curve where my shoulder meets my throat.
It’s instinctive, almost innocent in its urgency, like he doesn’t fully understand what he’s doing—only that he needs to do it.
And then it happens.
A low, broken sound rips from his chest, half-growl, half-moan, and suddenly, I feel it—his climax hitting him with shuddering force.
His release pulses into the container I’m barely managing to hold upright, my hands trembling from a storm of emotions I can’t name fast enough to make sense of.
I freeze.
Not because I’m afraid—because I’m overwhelmed.
Because he didn’t need stimulation, he didn’t need my touch beyond what I was already giving.
All it took… was me.
Just my touch.
Just my presence.
Just my mouth—the brief, accidental brush of lips through the thin barrier of the mask.
And somehow… that was enough.
A rush of professional clarity flashes through me—we've succeeded.
Without stimulation, without provocation, he's reached climax.
A phenomenon I should be documenting, reporting, and analysing.
The intimacy of that realization hits me harder than anything else tonight.
And the worst part?
It wasn’t just him.
My body’s already betraying me—responding, aching, wanting—to something it shouldn’t.
This was supposed to be scientific.
Clinical.
Controlled.
Instead, I’m standing here, trembling with a collection container in one hand and a wildfire in my chest I don’t know how to put out.
Any thought of clinical detachment evaporates the moment I feel it—him.
His hands were trembling against my waist.
His breath was hot against my skin.
His mouth still ghosting over the curve of my neck like he’s starved for contact.
And then it hits me.
That scent.
Thick and smoky and alive.
Like heat and danger and something ancient curling around my senses, short-circuiting every rational part of me.
To my horror—my absolute disbelief—my body reacts before my mind can catch up.
A wave of heat surges between my legs so suddenly that I almost gasp. My thighs clench instinctively, helpless against the ache blooming there.
My nipples tighten sharply, the friction against my bra bordering on painful, and I can’t stop the way my breath catches in my throat. Shallow. Fast. Hungry.
What the hell is happening to me?
I try to reason with myself—truly, I do. I tell myself it's just a scent.
A trigger.
A chemical response, maybe.
Something explainable.
Containable.
But the logic doesn’t stick.
Not when my heart is hammering like it’s trying to break out of my chest.
Not when every part of me is screaming to close the distance between us-to feel his skin under my hands, to press myself against him until nothing exists but heat and sensation.
It’s wrong.
God, it’s so wrong.
I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing my body to obey when my mind can't.
I gather the equipment with fumbling hands, trying not to notice how badly they’re shaking. I need to leave—now.
Before I lose what little control I have left. Before this slips past the edge of science and into something unrecognisable. Unforgivable.
I don’t even know if I’m breathing anymore.
My thoughts are a blur of panic and need, crashing into each other as I stagger backwards toward the door.
I have to get out.
Before I do something I can’t undo.
I fumble with the last piece of equipment, my hands slick with sweat, my lungs still tight with the effort of pretending I’m fine.
I’m not fine.
I can’t even think straight, and the door is just a few steps away—just far enough to feel impossible.
But then I feel him.
His fingers wrap around my wrist—firm, large, trembling.
I freeze.
Not out of fear. Not even shame.
But because of the way he looks at me.
His golden eyes, wide and wild, lock onto mine with an emotion so raw it nearly knocks the air from my chest.
Panic. Longing. Desperation.
It’s all there, carved into every line of his face. He isn’t trying to frighten me. He’s pleading.
Like I’m the only thing keeping him tethered to this world.
And just like that, the haze of arousal that clouded my judgment dissipates—not completely, but enough for something deeper to break through.
Compassion.
God, how long has he been alone in here? Observed, prodded, measured.
Treated like a specimen.
A subject.
A thing.
He’s not a thing.
He’s human. Or close enough.
And right now, he’s looking at me like I’m the first person who’s ever seen him.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,”
I hear myself say, voice barely a whisper.
My hand moves before I can stop it, reaching up, brushing my fingers along the sharp edge of his cheekbone.
His skin is warm, rough with stubble, too real.
“We’ll be friends from now on.”
The words feel strange and soft in my mouth, too gentle for a place like this. And yet… right.
Because maybe we’re not so different.
Maybe we’re both lost things—two displaced souls, pulled out of place and dropped into a world that only wants to use us.
Maybe that’s why I can’t bring myself to walk away.
Not yet.
For a moment, everything goes still.
His grip loosens—not in dismissal, but in something closer to awe.
Like he’s afraid to move, afraid to scare away whatever fragile connection just formed between us.
His golden eyes are locked onto mine, the wildness in them softening into something far more dangerous.
Hope.
He searches my face like he’s memorising it. Like he’s trying to understand why I said it—why I’d promise to come back, to be his friend. And maybe I don’t fully understand it myself.
All I know is that I meant it.
Then—he opens his mouth.
His lips are chapped, his throat working like it hasn’t done this in a long, long time.
The sound that emerges is coarse and low, almost broken by the strain of it, but I hear it.
"Friend."
Just one word.
But it lands in my chest like a punch.
I stagger under the weight of it, blinking rapidly as emotion claws up my throat. It’s not just the fact that he spoke—but that he chose that word.
That it mattered enough to him to try.
That he believed me.
Tears sting at the corners of my eyes, and I have to turn my face slightly, hiding the storm in me even as my hand stays on his cheek.
His skin is still warm beneath my touch, and I can feel the tremble in his jaw, the vulnerability barely contained beneath the surface.
He’s not a monster. Not to me.
He’s something else entirely.
And in this moment—so am I.