Against the Algorithm

Chapter 61: The Line Between Trust and Fire

"I do," she whispered, breath hot against his ear, lips brushing over the shell as her fingers slid up his chest. "I want you. I trust you."

"You're drunk," he snapped, voice strained and breaking, his restraint held together by sheer force of will. "And I am not going to let this happen when you're like this. I don't care how much you trust me, I'm not touching you like that tonight."

She stilled.

Blinking slowly.

Confused.

Shy.

Beautiful.

Then curled tighter into his lap with a soft, sheepish pout and mumbled faintly, "...But I'm horny..."

And Sicheng—Lu Sicheng, Captain of ZGDX, apex predator of the league, cold-blooded tactician with steel nerves and an ice-laced tongue.... Let out a broken sound, closed his eyes hard, and muttered into her hair like a man ready to die, "You are going to be the end of me." He held her tighter. Unmoving. Not because he didn't want her. But because he did. Too much. Far too much to ever risk touching her when she wasn't sober enough to mean every damn word.

She gave him that look, the wide, shimmering Bambi eyes that turned grown men into fools and teammates into blubbering disasters, Lu Sicheng felt the last of his defenses teeter dangerously close to crumbling. Her lower lip, already pink from the wine, jutted forward just enough. Her cheeks were glowing, her platinum hair tumbling loose around her flushed face, and her voice, soft, trembling, layered with confused longing and fragile vulnerability slipped out like a quiet wound. "...Don't you want me?"

And just like that, he lost the war for composure. He didn't let her move. Didn't let her grind down on him again. But his entire body shook with the restraint it took to keep his hands where they were. "Fuck," he muttered viciously, voice torn between reverence and desperation. "You are never drinking again. Ever. Or at least not without a damn conversation first, about consent, about what's okay, about what the hell you're comfortable with. Because this?" His voice cracked lower, raw and shaking. "This is not how your first time is going to happen."

Yao blinked, her expression faltering slightly, confusion blooming behind her flushed cheeks.

"I want you, Yao," he said hoarsely, his voice like gravel and heat, his hands cupping her waist as he held her still in his lap. "Gods, I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. But not like this. Not when you're like this. Not when you're tipsy and your voice is slurring and you might not remember all of this clearly in the morning."

Her brows furrowed, her hands curling weakly in the fabric of his shirt. She looked like she didn't know whether to cry or apologize, her lips parting and closing again with indecision. And then she whispered something. So faint. So soft. Like a confession made in the quiet dark of a locked room, sealed with the weight of secrecy and innocence both. "I looked it up," she said, her voice barely more than a breath, her fingers trembling slightly where they clung to his chest. "After the first time you... touched me there."

Sicheng froze, as every breath left his lungs in a slow, controlled exhale as she leaned closer, burying her face against the side of his neck, her voice muffled and mortified.

"I didn't know how it was supposed to feel when you're... alone. But I remembered how it felt with you. So I looked it up. How to touch. What to do. I..." She faltered. Then, shy, breathless, her lips barely moving against his skin, "I've done it. More than once. I think about you every time."

His body went still. His hands clenched. His cock throbbed violently beneath her. And his groan—this time—escaped before he could stop it. Rough. Guttural. Torn straight from his chest. "Yao." Her name came out like a prayer choked in sin, his forehead pressing hard against her shoulder as his jaw clenched so tight he thought it might snap. "You're going to kill me."