The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 86

Chapter 86: 86 | Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

"Not another word," I promised, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

We lay there in comfortable silence, our breathing syncing up naturally. Her bedroom was a mess of sports posters and academic awards, manga volumes lining one bookshelf while a stack of Hero law textbooks occupied another. A pair of pink boxing gloves hung from a hook on her door. So perfectly Sloane – brilliant and fierce and unapologetically herself.

"Was it okay?" she asked suddenly, her voice muffled against my skin. "For your first time, I mean."

I froze. Fuck. Of course she’d assume this was my first time too. As far as she knew, I’d been the withdrawn, quiet Lukas Belmont for nine years. The kind of kid who buried himself in books and barely spoke to anyone. Not the kind who’d been having marathon sex sessions with her mother every night for the past two weeks.

Here is the expanded text:

"It was amazing," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Better than I imagined."

Which was technically true. The original Lukas hadn’t gotten to imagine anything. The transmigrant had been running calculations on Sloane’s Gauge progression and trying not to think about what crossing that 40-point threshold would require of him. Neither version had been prepared for how completely she would fall apart when I finally gave her what she’d been wanting.

"You imagined this?" She lifted her head, a smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. "With me?"

I could lie. Deflect. Make it sound like casual attraction and teenage hormones. But the Oracle Feed had been reading her for months now, and I knew what landed with Sloane Fitzgerald. Honesty hit harder than performance. She’d built her entire defensive architecture around people who performed things for her.

"Don’t act surprised." I tapped her nose lightly. "I’ve seen you in training clothes for two months. Of course I imagined it."

She laughed, the sound light and carefree in a way Sloane rarely allowed herself to be. It was the laugh she saved for moments when she forgot to perform confidence and just existed. I’d heard it maybe six times total in the two months since I’d arrived in Verano. I was keeping count without meaning to.

"Fair enough. I might have thought about it too."

"Might have?"

"Shut up." She pinched my side hard enough to leave a mark. "Your ego doesn’t need the boost."

"Too late," I said, grinning. "Now I know Sloane Fitzgerald has dirty thoughts about me during training. This changes everything."

She groaned, burying her face in a pillow. The tips of her ears were red. I could see the flush spreading down the back of her neck. "I take it back. You’re the worst."

I rolled onto my side to face her, pulling the pillow away from her face. Her hair was a mess, her mascara slightly smudged at the corners. She looked nothing like the composed, aggressive girl who’d told me three months ago that I was making a mistake applying to Halloran. She looked younger. Softer. Mine, in a way that the Temptation Gauge had been tracking long before I understood what the number meant.

"If I’m so terrible, why are your pupils still dilated?" I let my hand rest against her cheek, thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "Why is your pulse racing?" I moved my fingers to her throat, pressing lightly against the rapid flutter beneath her skin. "Why are you already thinking about round two?"

"I’m not—" she started to protest, but I kissed her before she could finish the lie.

She melted into it immediately, her hands coming up to cup my face. No hesitation. No performance. Just Sloane responding the way she’d been wanting to respond for longer than either of us had acknowledged. When I pulled back, her eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips parted and slightly swollen from how hard she’d been kissing me ten minutes ago.

"Liar," I whispered against her mouth.

"Fine," she huffed, but there was no heat in it. "You win. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic." I kissed her again, slower this time. Let her feel the difference between what I’d been doing to her before and what I was doing now. "But for the record, I’m going to need more than a minute before round two."

"Weak," she taunted, but she was smiling.

"Some of us don’t have legendary stamina, Explosion Girl."

"Don’t call me that," she said automatically. The protest was reflexive. She’d been telling people not to call her that since middle school. Too cutesy. Too reductive. She was more than her Aspect and she’d been loudly insisting on that fact since before her Gauge had a number attached to it.

"What should I call you then?" I let my hand trail down her side, over the curve of her hip. Felt her breath catch. "Sloane is so formal now that I’ve been inside you."

Her cheeks flushed pink again. "You’re impossible."

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