Chapter 177: Making Love… Last Night…

The first sensation is dryness. My lips are cracked, my throat parched, my tongue thick and heavy in my mouth, as if I’ve swallowed cotton. Then the rest of my body wakes up, and something is wrong—terribly, inexplicably wrong.

Everything feels strange, too warm, too loose, like my bones have been replaced with something softer—something that doesn’t quite belong to me.

My eyes open slowly, my eyelids aching, too heavy to lift more than a crack at first. I blink, forcing them wider, and morning light spills into the room—soft, golden, the kind of light that comes through expensive curtains in expensive hotels, filtered and gentle, meant to soothe.

The ceiling above me is unfamiliar. Wrong. The wrong shade of white, the wrong texture, the wrong distance from my face.

I turn my head, and the room comes into focus around me. Luxurious. Elegant. Sterile—the particular way hotel rooms always are, no matter how much money is poured into them. A painting on the wall I don’t recognize. Curtains I’ve never drawn.

Moon’s room.

I sit up too fast, my body protesting with a dull ache that seems to live in my bones. The sheets shift beneath me, the blanket sliding down to pool around my waist. The air is cool against my skin, raising goosebumps along my arms.

Wait. Bare.

My waist is bare.

My body goes still. The world narrows to a single point of focus—the skin of my torso, exposed to the morning light, the pale rise and fall of my chest with each shallow breath. I’m completely naked beneath these borrowed blankets, this unfamiliar fabric against unfamiliar skin.

The blood drains from my face. Then rushes back twice as hot.

No. No, no, no. What happened last night?

What did I—what did Moon and I—

My heart slams against my ribs, a wild, panicked rhythm that I can feel in my throat, my temples, my fingertips. I try to remember, grasping at the fragments of last night like smoke.

I fell. He caught me. Then darkness. Nothing after. Just silence and shadows and a void where memory should be.

The door opens.

I yank the blanket up to my chin, clutching it with both hands, knuckles white. Moon steps inside, and the morning light catches him, haloing his blue hair.

He’s holding two mugs of coffee, steam rising from both in lazy spirals, the scent of fresh brew cutting through the thick silence.

He’s barely dressed. Loose pajama pants hang low on his hips, and that’s all—no shirt, his chest bare, his skin golden in the sunlight streaming through the window. His shoulders are broad, his stomach flat, the lines of his body drawn with an artist’s hand.

My eyes trace him without permission, cataloging every detail, and I hate that I notice. I hate that I can’t stop noticing.

He walks toward me with unhurried grace, a soft smile playing on his lips, and offers me a mug.

I don’t move. Don’t reach for it.

“Finally awake,” he says, his voice warm, intimate, the voice of someone who has shared a room with another person through the night.

My voice comes out rough—scraped raw.

“What the hell is this?”

He blinks, all wide-eyed innocence, as if I’ve asked him a riddle he can’t quite solve.

“Honey, why are you so rude to me this morning?”

Honey.

I glare at him, my voice sharp enough to cut glass. “Do you have some kind of death wish?”

He sets the coffee mugs on the bedside table with deliberate slowness, the porcelain clicking softly against the wood.

Then he lies down on the bed beside me, settling onto his side like this is the most natural thing in the world. His head rests on one hand, his body stretched out beside me like a cat in sunlight. Completely relaxed. Completely infuriating.

“Zyren.”

His voice is lazy, unhurried. “You’re so selfish.”

My voice is ice. “Give me an answer. Why am I here, in your bed, without my clothes?”

His tone stays innocent, almost puzzled. “Because you collapsed last night. Don’t you remember?”

My patience snaps. “I know that. But—” The words catch in my throat, strangling me. My face floods with heat, burning from my cheeks down to my chest.

“Where are my clothes?”

A slow smirk spreads across his lips, transforming his face. His voice turns smooth as silk, each word deliberate, weighted.

“Zyren.”

He lets my name hang in the air. “Don’t play the victim.” A pause that stretches, thick with implication.

“That’s my question.”

My hands go cold, then hot, then cold again. “What do you mean?”

He rubs the back of his head, feigning discomfort, a gesture so theatrical it would be comical—if I weren’t frozen in place. “Last night…” He pauses, savoring the moment. “You were the one clinging to me. Saying, ’Moon, it’s so hot. I can’t stand it.’”

I snap, my voice rising despite myself. “Moon, stop this nonsense. I know you’re lying.”

His smirk widens, his teeth white against his lips. “Are you sure? How can you be so certain I’m lying?”

I look away, unable to hold his gaze.

“Because you always—”

“Lie?” he cuts in, amused.

He laughs, low and warm, a sound that wraps around me like smoke. “My baby.” The endearment drips from his lips like honey.

“I know you’re just pretending to be strong. Why not just accept the truth?”

My head snaps back toward him, fury and embarrassment warring in my chest.

“Shut up.”

I look around wildly, searching for my clothes, desperate to escape this room, this conversation, this impossible man who has turned my world upside down. I need to leave. I need to think. I need to breathe.

I start to stand, clutching the blanket around me like armor.

“Give me my clothes.”

His hands catch my wrists. He pushes me back down, and I fall onto the mattress with a soft thud that knocks the breath from my lungs. He leans over me, his weight settling against my hips, his face inches from mine.

“Moon—get off me—”

“No.”

His thumb finds my wrist, tracing lazy circles on the thin skin there, featherlight, hypnotic. The touch sends shivers up my arm, against my will, and I hate that too. He leans closer, his lips almost touching mine, his breath warm against my mouth.

“After the night we had…” His voice is a whisper, a secret meant only for me.

“After making love with me last night…”

He pauses, letting the words hang in the air between us, heavy and devastating.

“Now you’re acting like an angry little bird. That’s not fair.”

I stare at him. The words hit me like bullets, each one lodging deep in my chest, impossible to dislodge.

Making love.

Last night.

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