I woke to the smell of soup and the steady push of a ceiling fan that sounded like it was losing an argument with gravity.
Pain was here. Check.Blood wasn't everywhere. Weird.The ogre was gone. Heaven was unlikely.
Soft yellow light slid through a thin curtain and landed on a small room that looked lived in and warm. Clean sheets were tucked under me. I wasn't in a hospital. I wasn't dead. I was confused.
I tried to sit. My ribs objected. Bandages crisscrossed my chest. There was a couch under me and a knit blanket that smelled like fabric softener and something warm and human. My mouth was dry. My head felt full of marbles.
"Hey," a woman said from the doorway. "Take it slow. Your body hates you today."
I turned my head and forgot how to blink for a few beats. She was leaning on the doorframe with one hand. Older than me in the best possible way. Curly dark hair tied up in a messy knot. Warm eyes. Laugh lines that said she actually laughed. An oversized tee and short shorts that didn't try to hide the way her hips moved when she stepped into the room. Her legs looked like they actually used stairs. Her shirt hung a little loose and then it didn't, and my brain lost its place in the script.
She noticed where my eyes went, because of course she did.
She was so close I could smell her shampoo and the faint sweetness of her skin. She was so close the collar of her tee slid when she bent. She was so close my vocabulary lost half its words.
"You heal better with water or with pure embarrassment?" she asked, smiling like she already knew the answer.
"I can try to multitask," I said. My voice sounded like it had escaped from a garbage disposal.
She brought a glass and knelt beside the couch. She helped me sit with one arm behind my back. Her palm was steady and warm. Her hip pressed into the cushion near my thigh. She tilted the glass to my mouth. I drank. The water tasted like the best thing I'd ever had.
"I'm Mara," she said. "I work support on the guild volunteer squads. Sometimes the guild pays me. Sometimes they forget I exist. You're Ethan, right?"
"Did I introduce myself while I was dying?"
"You had a guild ID," she said. "You also said, very loudly, 'I do not want to die a—'" She let the sentence hang and arched an eyebrow.
"Fantastic," I muttered, staring at my lap in embarrassment.
"I've heard worse," she said. "Usually from C-ranks who think I'm their mom."
"You did rescue me," I said. I looked around the small apartment. Plants alive. A pot simmering on the stove. Magnets holding children's drawings on the fridge—dragons with hearts and messy stars. "Do you have kids?"
"I have a niece and a nephew," she said. "I help out when I can." She studied my face the way healers do. "You were on the floor outside the gate. Half under a safety barricade. Everyone else had already moved on."
"Classic," I said. "How did I make it here?"
"You were lucky and stubborn," she said. "You were breathing like a broken engine. I wrapped you, yelled at a guard until he stopped pretending he couldn't hear me, and drove you here. I didn't want to waste time with forms." She flexed a bicep like a joke, and her tee pulled tight for a second. My brain dropped whatever file it was holding. She noticed. "Are you hungry?"
"Yes," I said. The word "hungry" dragged two other words with it. I kept those to myself.
She brought soup in a mug. I tried to take it and immediately failed to coordinate my hands. She didn't laugh. She fed me with a spoon like it was normal. It tasted like chicken and vegetables and not dying.
"Thank you," I said when the mug was empty.
She sat on the coffee table facing me. Her knee touched the cushion near my hip. She was close enough I could feel the heat from her skin.
"How long have you been going into gates?"
"I worked as a porter for a year," I said. "Scraped F-rank three months ago. I'm not good at math and I'm worse at believing posters."
"Posters?" she asked, smiling.
"The ones with guild heroes cutting a dragon in half," I said. "I believed all of them."
"And you want to be more than a background character," she said, not in a question.
The words hit an old bruise. "Yes."
She nodded like that was the only honest answer. "I like nerdy younger men," she said, casual. "I like the ones who read field guides and forget lunch. The ones who make jokes when they're scared. The ones who listen." She leaned in a little. "I like the ones who look at me like I'm going to ruin them and can't decide if that's terrifying or perfect."
The room went quiet in the way that made every small sound loud. I could hear the fan click every third rotation. I could hear her breathing. I could hear mine trying to keep up. She set the empty mug aside. She put her fingers in my hair and smoothed it back. Her palm cupped my cheek. The touch said breathe, you're here.
"I'm aggressively unsmooth," I warned, because I was and because if I didn't say something I'd forget language.
"I know," she said, voice low and warm. "That's why I think I like you."
Then out of nothing, she kissed me. My brain stopped and restarted with a new operating system. Her mouth was warm and sure. She tasted like pepper from the soup and something sweeter. My hand found her waist. I held on like gravity was optional. She shifted closer until her thigh pressed against my hip.
"Are you okay?" she asked against my mouth.
"Yes," I said too fast. Then I said it again, slower. "Yes."
The world narrowed to touch. She was so close I could feel every breath she took. I could feel the way her body settled into mine like a puzzle piece that had been waiting years. My head kept repeating this is happening, this is happening, this is happening, and it wasn't helpful but it was honest. Just yesterday I thought I was going to die a virgin in a metro station turned dungeon, crushed by an ogre swinging a rebar-concrete bat. Now I was here. Finally. After twenty-two years of nothing, I was losing it… with a MILF. No less. Universe, you are a weird bastard, but thank you.
She laughed against my jaw, low and mean in the best way. "Relax," she whispered. "I like younger men who blush. I like making them good in bed. Listen to me and you'll be fine."
"I'm listening so hard," I said, and she smiled in a way I wanted to frame.
"Good boy," she said, and my nervous system decided to throw confetti.
We made it to her bedroom because the couch squeaked and I refused to let the couch narrate my first time. The room was small, clean. A soft lamp threw a pool of light. Paperbacks stacked on the nightstand. She closed the door with her foot and pulled me in by the waistband like gravity had an opinion.
She leaned closer and the hem of her shirt rode up. My eyes betrayed me. Smooth skin, a line of her stomach, the curve that kept going down into shorts too small to be legal. Her tits pushed against the thin cotton of her tee and my brain just stopped functioning. Heavy, soft, perfect. My mouth went dry.
"You're staring," Mara said, amused. She wasn't pulling away. She was enjoying it.
"Sorry," I muttered. "You saved me, I should be—uh—polite—"
She grabbed my chin with two fingers and made me look at her. Her smile had weight. "I told you. I like younger men who blush. I like nerdy little hunters who don't know what to do with themselves. And right now? You're exactly my type."
My heart slammed like it wanted out of my chest. My pants tightened. I couldn't hide it.
She noticed. Of course she noticed. Her hand slid down my chest, over the bandages, stopping just above the waistband of my jeans. She pressed her palm there lightly. My whole body lit up like bad wiring.
"You've never done this before, have you?" she asked.
The question hit harder than any monster. "N-no," I stammered.
Her smile widened. "Good. I like first times. I like making them good."
She kissed me before I could say anything dumb, which meant my brain instantly tried to crash Windows. Her mouth was warm, soft, hungry, and her tongue teased at my lips until I opened like she'd just guessed the password.
My hands clung to her hips like I'd drown without them. She climbed into my lap, straddling me, shorts riding high. Her thighs squeezed my sides, hot skin against skin, and—yep—blood left my brain entirely. Her tits pressed into my chest, heavy and soft, and every neuron in my skull gave up on language.
"Touch me," she whispered.
I slid my hands up under her shirt, palms skating across smooth skin until—oh god. Actual boobs. My first boobs. Heavy, warm, filling my hands. I squeezed like I was trying to confirm they were real, and she moaned low in her throat. My cock twitched so hard I almost embarrassed myself right there.
"Easy," she teased, biting my lip. "We haven't even started yet."
Then she yanked her shirt off. No bra. Her tits bounced free and my jaw unhinged like a cartoon wolf. Perfect. Full. Nipples already hard, just daring me.
"You're staring again," she said, smug.
"Yeah," I croaked. "Holy shit, yeah."
She shoved me back onto the bed and kissed down my chest, teeth dragging lightly across my bandages, while tugging at my pants. My cock sprang free, hard and twitching like it was auditioning for a horror movie. Her eyes lit up like she'd just unwrapped a present.
"Mmm," she hummed, stroking me slow, deliberate. "Big for a nerdy little F-rank."
I groaned, hips jerking without permission. Pre already smeared her palm. My whole body screamed this is it, this is it, and I was seconds away from humiliating myself.
"Not yet," she scolded, voice firm. Then she slid her shorts and panties down in one motion, and suddenly she was naked in my lap. Naked. In my lap. Thick thighs, soft stomach, wide hips, tits swaying, dripping wet pussy inches from me. My mouth went desert-dry. My brain blue-screened.
She grabbed me, lined me up, and sank down slow. Inch by inch, hot and tight, squeezing around me. I gasped so hard it hurt my ribs.
"Fuck," I choked.
"Exactly," she whispered, grinding until I was buried to the hilt.
It was too much. Way too much. I'd dreamed about sex, jerked off to porn a thousand times, but nothing—nothing—prepared me for this. Her heat wrapped me, her walls gripped me, her tits bounced in my face like physics wanted me dead. My virgin brain was screaming don't cum, don't cum, don't—
She started to ride me, slow, deliberate, circling her hips to drag every inch out of me. My cock pulsed, twitching inside her. Her tits swayed in my face and I grabbed them, sucked one nipple into my mouth like I'd been waiting twenty-two years to do it. She moaned, ground harder, and my balls went nuclear.
"I—I'm gonna—" I stammered.
"Good," she gasped, eyes locked on mine. "Come for me. Fill me up."
That was it. No hope. Her pussy clamped tight and I exploded, groaning so loud it rattled my chest. Hot spurts poured into her, more than I thought my body could make. My vision blurred, body convulsed like I'd stuck my dick in a socket.
She didn't stop. She kept moving, milking me, moaning like she loved watching me get ruined. I collapsed back, gasping, cock twitching uselessly inside her. She leaned down, kissed me deep, her tongue teasing mine.
"Not bad for a first time," she whispered, voice low and smug. Then her pussy clenched around me one last time, making me jolt and whimper even though I was spent. "But don't think we're finished. Round two—I'll show you how to really fuck me."
My brain lit up like somebody had plugged me straight into the wall. My dick twitched pathetically, still hard but completely wrecked. My chest heaved, bandages tugging tight. My ribs burned. My muscles screamed. My cock whimpered in protest.
"I—yeah—just… gimme a second," I muttered, trying to sound like a man and failing.
She grinned devilish. "I like eager. Rest a minute. Then we'll—"
"Uh-huh," I said, already half-asleep. My eyelids weighed twenty pounds each. My head spun. My body didn't care about pride. It cared about shutting down before I exploded like a bad battery.
Mara kissed me again, slow and warm, tits pressing into my chest, hips grinding gently like she knew she'd broken me. I wanted to keep up. I wanted to stay awake. I wanted—
[Conquest Achieved]
[Partner Registered: Mara]
Reward: Absolute Regeneration (SSS-Rank)
"…What the actual fuck," I croaked.
[Welcome to the System.]
[Initialization complete. Severe trauma detected.]
[Regeneration cooldown applied.]
[Sleep enforced for recovery.]
Then…
Darkness swallowed me.