The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 41

Chapter 41: 41 | Sustained Contact Under Mismatched Pretenses

My brain short-circuited.

She wasn’t pulling back. She was leaning into the contact. Adjusting her position so my hand sat more firmly on her inner thigh.

What the actual fuck.

I squeezed again, less tentatively this time. More deliberately. My fingers spreading slightly against her skin.

Diane’s breathing changed. Not dramatically. Just enough that I could hear the difference in the quiet theater.

〘 Diane Fitzgerald – Temptation Gauge: 23% (+4%)

Status: Aroused, conflicted, testing boundaries

Recommendation: Continue contact. Subject responding positively to physical initiation. 〙

Twenty-three percent. She’d jumped four percent from a hand on her thigh.

This was insane. This was absolutely fucking insane. I was sitting next to her daughter while touching Diane’s bare thigh under a blanket and she was letting me do it.

"This movie is ridiculous," Sloane said beside me, completely oblivious. "Nobody defuses a bomb while kissing someone."

"It’s fantasy," Diane replied, her voice perfectly normal. Steady. Like she was genuinely critiquing the screenwriting and not currently letting her ward’s hand rest several inches above her knee. "That’s the whole point of the genre."

My hand stayed on her thigh. I could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric. The smoothness of it. The way her muscle tensed slightly under my palm every time something loud happened on screen.

And underneath all of that, I could feel her pulse. Fast. Faster than it should be for someone who was just sitting here watching an action movie on a Friday night.

Sterling was in a car chase now. Bullets ricocheted off metal in slow motion as he redirected kinetic energy through his palms, making his car accelerate impossibly fast while bad guys unloaded automatic weapons from three different vehicles. The action ramped up with explosions blooming across the screen, tires screeching, glass shattering in crystalline sprays that caught the light.

Sloane shifted beside me, adjusting her position against my shoulder.

I waited until she settled.

Then I moved my thumb. Just slightly. A small, deliberate circle against the inside of Diane’s thigh.

She inhaled through her nose. Barely audible over the gunfire and orchestral score. But I heard it.

Her hand moved under the blanket.

For a second, I thought she was going to push mine away. Wrap her fingers around my wrist and physically remove it from her leg. Tell me, very quietly and very firmly, that this was not happening and would not be happening again.

Instead, her fingers wrapped around my wrist and stayed there.

Not pulling away.

Not guiding me off.

Holding me there. Confirming the contact. Acknowledging it in a way that made it impossible to pretend this was accidental proximity under a shared blanket.

My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I was genuinely concerned both of them could hear it over the sound of Sterling’s car flipping end-over-end in a fiery explosion.

Diane’s grip on my wrist tightened slightly, then relaxed. She wasn’t moving my hand. She was just acknowledging it. Confirming she knew exactly what was happening under this blanket.

The quest timer appeared in my vision: 0:00:37 of 7:00:00 with Diane Fitzgerald.

Thirty-seven seconds down. Six minutes and twenty-three seconds to go.

Then I had to do the same thing with Sloane.

While sitting between both of them.

Without either of them figuring out I was touching the other one.

I was so completely fucked.

"You want some water?" Sloane asked suddenly, already starting to get up.

"I’m good," I said, probably too fast.

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