Free Web NovelChapter 198: 198. Ren Called Three Times? Bitch, Please... Like I Care!
The moment Haruka’s eyes flickered open, the world rushed back in, not as a gentle awakening, but as a violent collision of memory and reality. For a heartbeat, there was only the blank white void of her unconsciousness, and then, the ceiling of Unit 5 slammed into view.
Her pupils dilated, darting frantically as her brain scrambled to reassemble the shattered fragments of the previous night. The sensation of being filled, the terrifying, ecstatic weight of him, the feeling of her dignity dissolving into the mattress—it all hit her in a single, dizzying wave.
She turned her head, her neck stiff and aching, and her gaze landed on Mike.
The sound that escaped her throat wasn’t a word; it was a strangled, breathless hitch, a primal noise of pure, unadulterated shock.
She bolted upright, a frantic, reflexive movement meant to escape the heavy atmosphere of the room, but she immediately realized her error. Her yellow sweatshirt, the armor of her former, "proper" self, was nowhere to be found.
She was naked, her skin still sensitive and humming from his touch, and the only thing shielding her was the tangled, sweat-dampened sheet. With a panicked gasp, she clawed at the fabric, bunching it tightly against her chest as if she could hide the very memory of his hands on her.
Then, her eyes traveled downward.
Mike was sitting on the edge of the bed, completely unbothered, his massive, muscular back a landscape of bronze skin and raw power. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, sitting there with the casual, predatory grace of a man who owned everything the light touched, including her.
The realizations hit her in a rapid, punishing succession: I’m here. He’s here. He saw me like that. He’s still here. And he’s not even embarrassed.
"Good morning," Mike said, his voice a low, smooth rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the sheet she was clutching.
He didn’t look at her with apology or even modesty; he looked at her with the amused, hungry gaze of a man who had already seen her at her most vulnerable and found it delicious.
Haruka swallowed hard, her throat feeling dry and tight. She glanced at the harsh, golden light pouring through the window, the sheer intensity of it confirming her dread.
"It’s noon," she managed to say, her voice trembling slightly, lacking the poise she usually wore like a second skin.
"Good noon, then," Mike replied, a lazy, lopsided smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
He didn’t miss the way her knuckles were white from gripping the sheet, or the way her eyes darted toward her discarded sweatshirt on the floor like a lifeline.
She pressed the fabric harder against her skin, her gaze jumping erratically from the ceiling to the floor, then to the wall, and finally back to him. Behind her eyes, a frantic mental war was raging, a desperate attempt to reconcile the "Scholar Haruka" with the "Slut Haruka" he had forced her to become in the mirror.
Mike, sensing the mounting tension and the sheer awkwardness radiating from her, finally stood. He moved with an effortless, unhurried confidence, walking toward her clothes as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
He began the slow, methodical process of dressing, his movements calculated to make her watch and remind her of exactly what had transpired between them. He knew the power he held; he knew that every second he spent standing there, half clothed and indifferent, was another second of her losing the battle for her composure.
"I was going to say something about this last night," she blurted out, the words escaping before she could filter them, a desperate attempt to reclaim some semblance of intellectual control.
Mike paused, a t-shirt halfway over his head, and looked back at her over his shoulder. His eyes were dark, playful, and entirely too knowing.
"Oh? And what was that?"
"I was going to say..." She trailed off, the sentence dying in her throat as the memory of his final, earth-shattering thrusts flooded back, making her toes curl against the sheets. "I had a thought, and then..."
"And then you didn’t say the thought," Mike finished for her, his tone teasing, almost mocking the way her intellect had surrendered to her biology. He stepped into his jeans, the fabric straining against his thighs. "You got distracted, didn’t you? Lost in the moment."
"Accurate," she whispered, her gaze dropping to the opposite wall, her face burning with a heat that had nothing to do with the sunlight.
She couldn’t look at him. If she looked at him, she would see the man who had broken her, and she would realize that the "thought" she had wanted to express was nothing compared to the overwhelming, lewd truth of what she actually felt.
Mike didn’t linger in the awkwardness; he was far too seasoned a player to let a woman’s shame dictate the tempo of the room. With a casual, almost dismissive grace, he turned his back to her, heading toward the door to retrieve his jacket from the floor, a casualty of the frantic, sweaty scramble of the night before.
He gave her the privacy she so desperately craved, but it wasn’t an act of politeness; it was the calculated move of a man who knew that giving her a moment to breathe would only make her more aware of his presence.
Haruka moved with a frantic, silent efficiency. The moment his back was turned, the sheet was abandoned, and she lunged for her yellow sweatshirt like a drowning woman reaching for a raft.
She pulled it over her head, the fabric a familiar, comforting shield against the raw, exposed feeling of her skin. By the time Mike turned back around, the chaotic nest of sheets had been smoothed, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her posture stiff, her eyes glued to the glowing screen of her phone.
The air in the room felt heavy, charged with the unspoken. Mike watched her from a distance, leaning against the dresser, his arms crossed over his chest, looking every bit the unbothered conqueror.
He could see the frantic density of her notifications from where he stood. The screen was a waterfall of missed calls and unread messages, and the name Ren was a recurring ghost, flashing repeatedly in the preview bar.
It was a digital trail of a man left behind in the wake of Mike’s storm.
She stared at the screen, her thumb hovering just millimeters above the glass, paralyzed. She looked at the phone the way a soldier looks at a landmine, calculating the blast radius and deciding if she was brave enough to step on it.
"He... called three times," she said, her voice small, barely cutting through the heavy silence of the room.
"I can see that," Mike replied, his tone smooth, almost bored.
He didn’t offer sympathy; he offered observation. He liked seeing the cracks in her composure.
"He doesn’t usually call three times," she continued, her eyes widening slightly as she spoke to the phone rather than him. "Ren... he’s the kind of person who calls once and then sends a polite message saying he called, because he’s terrified of being the person who calls three times."
"He’s careful. He’s... he’s stable."
"But he called three times," Mike countered, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips.
He was enjoying the way she was forced to compare the two of them: the stable, predictable man versus the chaotic, overwhelming force that had just spent the night breaking her.
"He was worried," she whispered, finally setting the phone face down on the mattress with a soft thud, as if burying a secret. "He just... he calls three times when he’s worried and doesn’t want to admit it."
"He’s trying to be respectful, but the worry is leaking through." She looked up at Mike, her expression a mix of dread and a strange, new kind of awareness. "He’s going to know..."
"He’s going to know something is different."
Mike let out a short, dry laugh, stepping closer to her, his shadow falling over her small frame. "He’s not a psychic, Haruka."
"He’s not going to ’know’ the soul of your experience."
"He’s just going to know you didn’t pick up. That’s the only reality he has to work with."
She looked up at him, her gaze searching his face for a hint of warmth, a hint of the man who had been so primal and intense only hours ago.
"You’re being very precise about this," she noted, her voice regaining a sliver of its usual analytical edge. "Almost... clinical."
"Would you prefer I weren’t?" Mike challenged, his eyes locking onto hers, intense and unblinking. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
He didn’t want to be her comfort; he wanted to be her reality. He wanted her to stop hiding behind the "what ifs" and face the wreckage he had made of her life.
Haruka closed her eyes for a moment, leaning into the tension. The "Scholar Haruka" wanted a soft word, a gentle reassurance.
But the woman who had screamed Mike’s name into the dark wanted the truth. freёwebnovel.com
"No," she said, opening her eyes to meet his dark, predatory stare. "Precise is better right now..."
"My brain is doing enough of the other kind of thing."
