Chapter 551 | Tactical Math on the Heart

Her hair fell around us in long lime curtains. It hung past her shoulder blades now that the tie was gone, far longer than anyone guessed from the ponytail, and the ends brushed my chest whenever she breathed. Up close her eyes were the same electric green as her hair, wet at the corners and glassy from the first orgasm.

She braced both palms on my scars and rose until only the tip stayed inside her. She held there to make me wait, and I learned exactly how closely she’d been watching every time I did the same thing to her.

Then she lowered herself all the way down, and her breath shuddered out once I was buried to the hilt.

She rode me just as she ran drills, brutal on pace and stingy on mercy. Her abs flexed in the lamplight on every roll of her hips. Her breasts swung above me and leaked onto my stomach, so I reached up to fill both hands and squeezed until milk ran over my knuckles and dripped onto my ribs.

[Silver-tier target consumed for twenty-five points.]

“Is it better than…” She cut herself off and glared down at me. “Forget it, I gave you an order, and that order applies to me too.”

“I didn’t say anything, Captain.”

“Your face said something, and your face can do twenty push-ups tomorrow.”

I dug my thumbs into the crease of her hips and pulled her down harder, and her threat dissolved into a groan that made the certificate rattle again.

“I couldn’t make a single clone.”

She said it without slowing down. Her eyes stayed fixed on my chest, on the spot where the graft sat behind my sternum, and her hips kept moving while her voice went flat.

“When you went into that water I stood on the ridge with six clones ready, and I couldn’t call even one of them, Jace.”

I didn’t make a joke. I held her hips and let her keep going, because she needed to say it more than she needed me to fix it.

“I thought you were dead for four whole seconds, and tonight you made me spit one out by accident.”

“Sounds like we’re even now, Captain.”

“That isn’t how even works, you complete idiot.”

She leaned down and kissed me anyway, slow this time, her hair closing around both our faces until the room disappeared behind a wall of green. Her tongue pressed against mine, and I felt her inner muscles flutter in response to the kiss alone.

I sat up underneath her and wrapped both arms around her back, then pulled her flush against my chest. The new angle drove me deeper, and Misato’s forehead dropped onto my shoulder with a groan I felt in my collarbone.

The bed made a noise like it was filing a formal complaint with housing.

“If this frame breaks, you’re paying for it, Monroe.”

“Belle will invoice me for it anyway, so we might as well get our money’s worth.”

“You said her name, that’s another twenty.”

“Worth it, Captain.”

I turned on Sensory Hijack and fed it straight into touch, doubling every inch where our bodies met. Then I shoved Euphoric Feedback to eight on top of it.

Misato bit my shoulder hard enough to draw blood. Her pace fell apart completely. She stopped riding and started grinding down into me in frantic little circles, chasing the friction on her clit while her whole body trembled in my arms.

“Jace, oh god, I can’t, it’s too much for me.”

“You can take one more, Captain, I’ve seen your cardio numbers.” ℯ𝐥.

That made her laugh against my neck, and the laugh turned into a sob, and the sob became the loudest scream of the night when the third orgasm tore through her.

Her whole body locked up around me. Her thighs crushed my hips and her inner walls pulsed so hard they dragged me over the edge with her. I came buried inside her while she shook in my arms and raked her nails down my back.

The graft lit up behind my ribs like someone had kicked a stove on in there.

Then the notifications started stacking in the corner of my vision.

◆ ABILITY THEFT COMPLETE ◆

Target identified as Misato Ayame, Silver Rank.

Ability acquired: Legion Split at Copper Rank.

Copper performance allows one clone at half power.

Library updated to six total abilities.

◆ DIVINE EMPOWERMENT APPLIED ◆

Legion Split boosted from Silver to Gold for forty-eight hours.

Devotion climbed from sixty-one percent to eighty-four percent.

Current status for this target: Yours.

The lime ring in my skull settled into a steady burn right beside the silver-pink one, and I held her while she breathed into my neck.

She didn’t move for a long time. Her heartbeat slowed against my chest while her hair stuck to my shoulders in damp ropes.

“You took something just now, I felt it go.”

“Legion Split, Copper rank, one clone at half power.”

She pulled back far enough to stare at me. Her cheeks had gone blotchy red and her lashes were clumped together, and she wore the expression of a woman doing tactical math on her own heart.

“So you get one sad half of yourself running around.”

“One sad half of me is still pretty great, though.”

“You are unbearable, Monroe, completely unbearable.”

“You have a Gold buff for two days, so I think you’ll survive me.”

She paused to check something inside herself, and her face went blank while she felt the new rank settle into her channels. Then her mouth fell open.

“I can feel five more of me waiting, and every single one is stronger.”

“Try not to spawn them during morning drills.”

“I will absolutely spawn them on you during morning drills, and every one of them will be holding a stopwatch.”

I believed her completely.

Since I’m a scientist at heart and a moron in practice, I pulled up the new ability and tried it. Copper Legion Split pulled at my chest like a hook catching a rib, and a second me popped into existence beside the bed in a smear of lime light.

He was also naked. He was also extremely happy to be there.

Misato screamed and grabbed the sheet.

“Put clothes on it, Jace, put clothes on it right now.”

“He’s me, Captain, he doesn’t own any clothes yet.”

My clone looked at Misato, looked at me, and gave me a thumbs up so smug I wanted to punch myself. I felt the shared senses kick in, two sets of eyes and two sets of cold feet on her floorboards, and my head spun hard enough that I dismissed him on reflex.

He vanished in green sparks, still giving the thumbs up.

“Never do that in my bedroom again.”

“Noted, Captain, that one goes in the regulation handbook.”

She punched my chest, then collapsed back on top of me because the twin bed offered no other options. I lay down with her sprawled across me, my shoulder still hanging off the mattress and my feet still sticking out into the cold. She tucked her head under my chin and threw one leg across mine, her body heavy and warm and slick with sweat and milk.

The lamp still burned on the nightstand. Beside it sat the silver frame, younger Misato and her mother grinning at a camera on some beach.

Misato reached over without lifting her head and turned the photo face down.

“She doesn’t get to see this part.”

I laughed hard enough to make the bed creak again, and she pinched my side until I stopped.

“You’re staying until my alarm at five-thirty, because I’m not walking you home at midnight looking like this.”

“Is that an order, Captain?”

“Everything I say to you is an order, field lead, you just keep forgetting.”

Her breathing slowed against my throat. Her fingers found the four ridges on my chest and traced them once, top to bottom, before her hand went still over the graft.

“Your cardio is acceptable,” she mumbled, already half asleep.