The sheets were a war zone, soaked and twisted from the raw, relentless hours we’d spent devouring each other. Sweat, cum, and the faint scent of her arousal still clung to the fabric like evidence of a beautiful crime.

I lay flat on my back in what used to be a perfectly made bed and was now a topographical map of where two people had wrecked each other for the better part of the afternoon.

One pillow had been banished to the floor. The fitted sheet had given up completely, curled into the far corner of the mattress like a wounded animal trying to hide.

Mira was tucked warm and heavy against my side, her body soft and flushed, one sheer black stocking still stubbornly clinging to her left thigh like the lone survivor of our frenzy.

Her hair spilled in a glorious, tangled mess across my chest and collarbone. She smelled like sex mingled with the fading notes of her expensive perfume and the clean salt of her sweat. Every breath I took pulled her deeper into me.

’God, I love her.’

The TV at the foot of the bed droned on, some prestige drama on Nutflix, full of moody soundtracks, lingering close-ups, and characters staring meaningfully into the middle distance while refusing to say what they actually meant.

Neither of us had retained a single plot point. We’d been too busy moaning, gasping, and laughing into each other’s mouths.

"Sweetheart," Mira murmured against my skin, Her voice was husky, still carrying the afterglow. "You’re thinking again."

"I’m always thinking."

"You’re thinking loud." She nipped lightly at my skin, playful.

I laughed, a low rumble that made her head bounce gently against my chest. She responded by tracing a slow, deliberate figure-eight on my stomach with one sharp fingernail, each loop dipping teasingly lower, brushing the sensitive skin just above my cock. I noticed.

My body stirred despite how thoroughly she’d drained me earlier. I wasn’t about to call it out though, I wanted to see how far she would take it.

"This show is bad," I declared, my hand idly stroking down the curve of her spine.

"This show is excellent," she countered, eyes still closed, a smile playing on her lips.

"What’s it about?"

"Sweetheart, I have no idea."

"So it’s bad."

"It’s beautifully shot and I cannot recall a single line. That’s not bad at all. That’s atmosphere. It lingers. It makes you feel without needing to understand every little thing." Her fingernail dipped lower still, grazing the base of me, sending a lazy spark of heat through my groin.

I smirked. "That’s the Mira definition of good content. Pretty, expensive, and completely incomprehensible."

She smiled wider, shifting so her breasts pressed more firmly against my side. "Mm. Like me."

"You’re not incomprehensible, Aunt." My voice dropped, fingers tightening on her ass as I pulled her closer. "Not at all. I understood you so well these past hours, every gasp, every clench, every time you begged me not to stop. I understood exactly what you needed."

She made a soft, pleased sound and rolled more fully onto me. Her thigh slid across mine deliberately, the silk of her remaining stocking whispering against my skin, her warmth pressing right where I could feel myself starting to thicken again. It was definitely not accidental.

Then, in that same lazy voice, she said. "Your mother knows we’ve met, by the way."

I went completely still. The teasing circles on my belly stopped. Right, she talked to my my mother.

I groaned and let my head thump back against the pillow. "Of course she knows. She still hasn’t lost the habit of meddling. She did it when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, when I left home. And now she’s doing it right now, while I’m naked in bed with you, using you as her latest proxy. Different vehicle, same fucking engine. The woman has a network. I think when she dies they’re going to find a small intelligence agency operating out of her basement—files on everyone, surveillance, the works."

Mira’s mouth twitched against my chest in silent amusement, but she didn’t laugh outright.

"It’s exhausting. She’s exhausting."

Mira’s voice softened. "Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I told her about you on the call."

"Don’t be." I exhaled slowly, running my fingers through her messy hair. "You didn’t do anything wrong. If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been the doorman. If not the doorman, the guy at the gas station who filled up my car. She has a gift. A sixth sense for inserting herself into my life no matter how far I run."

She didn’t smile this time. Her eyes had gone soft in that careful, searching way that was a hundred times harder to handle than her teasing. She looked up at me, chin resting on my chest, "...Will you ever forgive her, Lukas?"

The answer sat polished at the front of my mind, where it had lived for years.

"There isn’t anything to forgive."

She blinked, clearly surprised by the flatness of it.

"I mean it." I shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t lying on, trying to keep my body relaxed beneath her. "I really don’t care anymore, Aunt. It isn’t a wound. I’m not hurt. She and my father loved me in their own way, with all their conditions, their expectations, their endless tug-of-war over who got to shape me. One day I just decided I didn’t want that kind of love anymore. I’m not punishing her. I’m not sitting around waiting for some grand apology. I’m just... not interested. That Chapter’s closed."

My voice stayed steady and calm, almost clinical. I thought I sounded like a man who had truly moved on.

Deep down, I knew people who had genuinely moved on didn’t usually deliver clean four-sentence theses about how moved on they were. But that observation got quietly filed away under "issues to revisit later"—preferably when I wasn’t lying naked with my aunt’s thigh draped over my cock and her scent all over me.

Mira looked at me for a long, searching second. Then she sighed, just a small, knowing exhale that said *I’ve known you for twenty-four years and I’m not going to argue with you tonight.*

"Okay, sweetheart."

She reached up and brushed her thumb tenderly along my jawline, tracing the stubble there. Then she leaned in and kissed the underside of it—slow, warm, lingering. The gentleness of it made something twist uncomfortably in my chest.

She settled back down against me, pulled my arm tighter around her waist, and said nothing more about my mother. She just held on, breathing steadily, her body molding perfectly to mine.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

Time to change the subject.

"Hey." I shifted carefully, dislodging her just enough to reach over the side of the bed. My pants were in a crumpled heap on the floor. I dug through the pocket and rolled back over with the object cradled in my palm.

Mira propped herself up on one elbow, eyebrow arched in that elegantly wicked way of hers,"Sweetheart, if that’s what I think it is, we are not done in this bed yet. I can go again. You know I can."

"It’s a battery." I couldn’t help but grin at her horniness.

She paused, then laughed softly. "That’s the worst pillow talk I have ever heard in my life."

"Look at it anyway."

The lithium battery was the size of my palm—matte gray, heavy, sealed in tough opaque casing with a small, precise port on one end. To anyone else, it was the world’s most boring object, something you’d toss in a drawer and forget.

To me, it was the future. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Mira took it from me carefully and turned it over in her hands, her expression shifting into that focused, analytical frown she reserved for disappointing wine lists or unsatisfactory contracts. She ran her thumb along the edges, testing its weight.

"Cute," she said eventually, glancing up at me with curiosity sparkling in her eyes, "but what is it, Lukas? Tell me everything."