Neville drifted in and out of consciousness.

The silk sheets beneath him were impossibly soft, nothing like the standard-issue bedding in his house. For a blissful moment, he felt content to simply exist and enjoy this bed in comfort.

Then his eyes went wide open.

The first thing he saw was the unfamiliar ceiling.

It wasn’t like the ceiling of his house.

Then the muscular arm draped possessively around his waist.

Neville’s breath was stuck in his throat as he slowly turned his head to look at the person beside him.

It’s Grayson.

He was still asleep with an unusually peaceful expression. His lashes cast faint shadows on his cheekbones, and his lips parted just slightly. His hair was tousled against the pillow, dark strands brushing his brow.

But what caught Neville’s attention were the scales on Grayson’s exposed skin.

It was faint, shimming, and catching what little light passed through the curtains. They traced along Grayson’s jawline, scattered across his shoulders, and trailed down his arms beautifully.

It was just that he didn’t have his tail, nor those massive wings that he had a glimpse of ’last night’.

Neville closed his eyes and counted to ten.

One.

Two.

Three—

It didn’t help.

What have I done?

The blanket covering them was heavy silk, but it did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that they were both naked beneath it. Neville could feel the heat of Grayson’s body pressed against his arm, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his arm fit around Neville’s waist as if it belonged there.

Too close.

Carefully, Neville moved, trying to create just a little space between their bodies. However, Grayson’s arm immediately tightened around his waist, pulling him closer.

"—Mm."

The sound was low, obviously half-asleep, and dangerous.

Neville froze.

Grayson pulled him closer, chest flush to his back, breath warm against the nape of his neck. And then Neville became painfully, mortifyingly aware of something hard pressing against his lower back.

It was hard and huge.

Neville’s face burst into flames.

Calm down. Calm down. This is a perfectly normal physiological response. Morning... situations... are completely natural for all males. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about this. Nothing at all.

Except for the fact that he could very vaguely remember what this part of Grayson had done to him for the past—

How long had it been, anyway?

Neville’s brain, still a little foggy from sleep and thoroughly traumatized by the flood of explicit memories, couldn’t quite piece together the timeline.

He remembered the beginning—the kitchen, the sofa. Grayson’s voice—low, coaxing. His own moans. The way the world had narrowed to heat and sensation.

Different positions, too.

Neville groaned and buried his face in the pillow within his reach. He silently cursed every deity in the Imperial Galaxy.

Without the haze of heat to blame for clouding his judgment, Neville was left to face the reality of what happened. The calming pill and inhibitor did their magic so well that his mind was painfully sharp and clear about what had happened, making him more sober than ever.

It was really embarrassing.

Neville carefully lifted his head and glanced down at himself.

The sight that greeted him made his soul leave his body.

Hickeys.

There were dozens of hickeys on him.

They bloomed across his skin like a violent garden of purples and reds, scattered around his neck. He could see a huge cluster of it trailing from his collarbones towards his neck. Some trails even led to his chest, his—

He twisted slightly, only to realize they had gone further. He couldn’t even see where they ended.

His body looked like a particularly amorous beast had mauled it.

Neville felt his face burn even hotter and slapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from making a sound.

As his body began to fully wake up, the pain and soreness in his entire body suddenly became impossible to ignore. His hips were aching, his thighs were trembling as he moved, and there was that persistent throb on the skin between his butt that made his ears burn.

He had known that alphas in rut were... enthusiastic... but this? This was beyond anything his extensive BL novel knowledge had prepared him for.

This is too much.

He needed to escape.

He needed to escape now before Grayson woke up and decided to add another set of marks on his poor skin.

Neville took a deep breath and began the delicate process of extricating himself from Grayson’s grip. It was like trying to escape from a particularly clingy octopus.

Every time he managed to move one arm, another part of Grayson’s body would adjust to keep him in place. Then Grayson would unconsciously pull him back into that suffocating embrace.

After what felt like an eternity, he managed to remember the technique that had worked ’yesterday’. He tried to intentionally use his mermaid transformation. He tried to remember how it felt and clumsily re-do it.

Soon, faint scales of his mermaid form rippled across his skin. Grayson’s grip loosened just a little, and Neville slid free like a fish escaping a net. But he landed on the floor like a newborn deer.

His legs couldn’t support his weight and buckled beneath him. He managed to grab the bedside table that prevented him from completely falling onto the ground. The pitcher of water sitting atop it sloshed dangerously but did not spill.

Neville clung to the table carefully as he stood up. His thighs were shaking, his calves were cramping, and he didn’t know which part of his lower body wasn’t trembling in weakness.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Neville took a deep breath to calm himself down before he took a tentative step. His legs wobbled as expected, but he held on to the wall as support. The door of the bedroom was not too far away; he could make it.

He believed it and made it so close to freedom, only to freeze halfway. He could sense the familiar prickling on the back of his neck.

Neville nervously prayed that he was wrong and slowly turned his head around.

Grayson was there, wide eyes open.

He lay exactly where Neville had left him. However, he propped only his elbow as the silk blanket pooled around his waist immaculately. His eyes tracked every moment, every expression on Neville’s face.

By the looks of it, he didn’t look like he had just woken up.

He looked like he had been watching for a while.

Waiting and watching in silence to see what Neville would do.

"Running already?"

Neville flinched a little.

The awkward silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"You—! You’re awake?!" he managed to say.

Neville tried to cover his chest but saw that his member was out in the open and moved his hand over there. He was standing in the middle of Grayson’s bedroom, buck naked, covered in hickeys, with wobbly legs that leaned on the walls for support.

The excuse would need to be good. It would need to be believable, else Grayson would think of a good idea to punish him.

Why did he think that Grayson would punish him?

Grayson hummed, clearly amused. "Have been for a while."

"...Why didn’t you say anything?!"

Grayson’s lips curved faintly. "You looked entertaining."

"You’re too loud," Grayson replied calmly. "For someone who’s trying to sneak away."

"I wasn’t sneaking!" Neville snapped, then winced as his body protested.

Grayson lifted an eyebrow.

"Then, where are you going?" he asked with his deep, sleep-roughened voice.

"Water," he heard himself say. "I was just... going to get some water."

Grayson’s gaze glanced over to the bedside table—to the pitcher sitting there, that was full to the brim, albeit spilled a little—and raised an eyebrow.

Neville felt his courage crumble to dust.

"Bathroom," he amended quickly. "I needed to go to the bathroom."

Without a word, Grayson pointed to a door on the far side of the room. The private bathroom was attached to the master suite. Neville’s escape route was going in the opposite direction from the bathroom.

"F-food," he tried another excuse desperately. "I was hungry. Very hungry. Starving, actually."

Then Grayson chuckled and moved over to the bedside. He pointed at the mini-fridge beside it. Its glass door revealed a neatly arranged collection of nutrient solutions in various flavors.

It seemed that he had indeed consumed a lot of nutrient solution ’yesterday’ to pad his stomach. There was no way that he was starving right now.

Neville was running out of excuses.

"Work," he said, grasping at the last straw. "I have work. There’s an important work notification that arrived earlier. It’s a very urgent and very important work that requires my immediate attention—"

Grayson slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, letting the blanket slip lower. Neville’s traitorous eyes followed its movement as it landed to cover Grayson’s lower body.

Neville couldn’t help but bob his dry throat at the sight of Grayson’s perfect upper body. That pecs. That abs. Those biceps. It was making his mouth dry and turning up the heat on his body.

Grayson tilted his head, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. It wasn’t a kind smile to say the least. But it was similar to the smile of a cat that had cornered a particularly entertaining mouse.

"Work?" he repeated with a mischievous tone. "You’re on leave—for seven days."