LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 2: STEAMY ENCOUNTER

Hi, glad to see you coming back little reader 😁 I just wanted to clarify for those who may have misunderstood: the decree is from 2030, but the story takes place 65 years later. We are in the year 2095. Now I let you enjoy the story... 😉

Wow! It's so hot! Nate lets out a breath, wiping the sweat pearling off his forehead and shirtless chest with a white towel. 

It's been a tough training; it's been a good training.

His whole body still buzzing with the burn and his mind completely empty are proof of it as he gulps down half of his bottle of water. Now, his sore muscles are yearning for only one thing: a warm shower, and that's where he's heading when he walks out of the gym room, his steps echoing in the empty hallway.

At this hour, there aren't many people left in the building. Most are already on their way home, while the night crew hasn't arrived yet, and only a few of his colleagues are still working out to gain more techniques and muscles, or just to sweat off everything haunting them. It results in a peaceful and almost eerie quietness around that Nate relishes as he hears the beats of his heart finally steadying, at least until a faint thud comes to disrupt the harmony when he reaches the room at the end of the hallway.

His eyes immediately scan the whole space, finding nothing, no sign of life, no other sound, from the row of lockers to the benches on the opposite side, and he almost overlooks the door in the middle before his gaze stops on the small inscription: 'hammam'.

Another thump is heard, this time, in his chest, and he finds himself rushing towards the door, propelled by a cold shiver arising in his guts. The want for a warm shower is long gone, and indeed, that's not what he gets when he steps into the steam room, and his blood freezes like bathed in deadly ice.

He's known this has been going to happen one day or another, considering since how long this cabin has been out of order, but he's hoped it would not harm anyone. Unfortunately from what he can see through the blurred glass, this is not the case. There is a petite silhouette in the steamy cloud.

He doesn't think twice at this sight. Following his well-trained soldier instincts, he unplugs the monitor and dashes to the door, pushing it open with his broad shoulder, just in time to catch the tiny silhouette falling through a cloud of steam.

She's unconscious; this fact hits him more than the scorching puffs from the cabin, and goosebumps are even running all over his skin when he feels her figure so feverishly hot, so frail and so light that he's afraid to break her, and his trained muscles are almost trembling. That's surely the reason why he carries her delicately in his arms as if she was made of porcelain, the sound of her labored breathing reminding him she's even more fragile, and his own breath is taken away when he looks more closely at the young woman.

There's something so pure and dainty in her features, and not even the sweat damping her whole body from her messed ponytail to the sticky fabric of her pants can blur it, although it clouds his thoughts with a boiling wrath to see her in this state.

His mind which has been so relaxed is now filling with many curse words at whoever has let this happen. Yet it's no time to plan for someone's death when the young woman needs him.

So he sets her down carefully on a soft bench, and he grabs the bottle he's dropped on the floor to splatter some water on her crimson red face, kneeling in front of her to watch her eyes fluttering open.

"Am I in heaven?" Anastasia whispers hoarsely, her thoughts rolling out of her dry lips mindlessly.

All she remembers is that it has all gone black for a second, and now, the dark dots are giving way to a man in front of her with... the face of an angel and the body of a god.