CHAPTER 555: THE WRONG HANDS

Micah felt too hot. Not the normal kind of warmth from blankets or the slow heat that built up after sleeping through a summer night. The heat was heavy, suffocating like a furnace shaped like an octopus, its many arms wrapped tight around him. It squeezed, pressed and roasted him from the inside out. Its weight draped over his chest and limbs as if the thing had decided he was its personal pillow.

Micah groaned and shoved blindly at it, half-asleep and cranky, expecting it to slide away.

But it didn’t budge. The creature, or whatever his feverish mind decided it was, latched tighter. Thick, burning limbs clung stubbornly to him. Micah, annoyed and still stuck between sleep and waking, kicked at the intruder as if trying to boot a clingy octopus off his body.

Someone grumbled next to his ear.

Micah frowned. His head felt stuffed with cotton, and his thoughts drifted like fog. His hand rose to scratch an itch near his ear, but instead of hitting fabric or his own hair, his fingers brushed warm skin, smooth and unmistakably human. Confused, his hand continued to wander. His fingertip went straight to somewhere wet and shockingly hot.

Then something bit him.

Teeth closed around his finger, grinding lightly, almost playfully, before a slow tongue dragged over the skin in a long, appreciative lick.

Micah froze.

"Hey, stop it..." he mumbled sluggishly. His brain, slow and hazy from sleep, assumed the obvious culprit. Clyde.

"Not again!" he grumbled.

Crap! He was having another wet dream. Fuck it! It was all Clyde’s fault for seducing him and putting cloth on him that way. His hormones were at it again, denying him a peaceful sleep.

It wasn’t the first time that it happened. He refused to be fooled for a second time into thinking it was real.

Except, the licking did not stop. The mouth closed over another knuckle, warm tongue pressing insistently. A voice breathed against his skin, low and husky, dripping arrogance.

"Your hand is so pretty."

Micah’s sleeping brain did not register the difference for a second.

"Let me sleep. I’m tired," he muttered, his words slurred. A part of him realised something was odd. The tone felt different, wrong, too husky and smug. But he was too far under to question it.

A chuckle brushed his ear. "But it’s my turn. That bastard wouldn’t give you to me until this morning." The voice clicked its tongue, irritated. "Tsk. I should have gotten rid of him from the beginning. Such a control freak."

Micah’s brows knitted. A distant alarm bell rang somewhere in his groggy mind.

Why did Clyde sound wrong? Had he gotten sick? And what the heck was he talking about? This dream made no sense.

But before his thoughts could settle, his tormentor wasn’t done. Fingers curled around his wrist and dragged his hand downward.

Much lower. Micah’s skin touched something far too hot, far too alive and too stiff.

He jolted like someone dumped ice water over him. His eyes snapped open so fast his head hurt.

"What the...WHAT THE FUCK?!"

His voice cracked, echoing sharply as everything came into focus.

The room around him wasn’t Clyde’s. It wasn’t his. It wasn’t familiar at all. The lighting was dim, tinted gold. The sheets were silk, blood red. And lying beside him, no, flaunting himself beside him, was Aidan Wilson.

The situation in front of him made colour drain from his face.

On the bed was Aidan Wilson, the fourth original male lead. The disaster magnet. The walking red flag.

And he was in his birthday suit, leaning on one elbow with a smirk so smug that Micah itched to punch a hole in his face.

Aidan raised an eyebrow, eyes full of provocation.

But that was not the worst part.

The worst part was Micah’s hand. Specifically, where it had been placed.

Micah’s stomach flipped violently.

Aidan’s smirk deepened. "Why the pause?" he asked, voice utterly delighted. "Come on. I taught you last time. Start from the tip and go to the base, remember?"

Micah stared at him, horrified beyond speech.

Aidan chuckled. "Don’t freeze up now. It’s cute, but..."

"SHUT UP!" Micah roared, yanking his hand away as if it had touched boiling oil. Disgust surged up his chest.

"Oh? Feisty this morning! I like it even more. I thought that bastard drained you dry, but look at you... You even have the gut to talk back." Aidan’s tongue swiped over his lower lip in a lewd gesture. "That works better for me."

Micah gagged. He genuinely gagged. His skin crawled. Part of him wanted to bleach his entire arm, or just cut the damn hand off to erase what touched him.

"How..." he said through gritted teeth, "how the hell did you get here?!" His voice shook with fury.

Aidan stretched lazily like a satisfied cat. "Get here? Sweetheart, what are you talking about? This is my room."

Micah’s jaw dropped. "What? No. Why would I be here?" But before the sentence could finish, the scene in front of him twisted.

Aidan’s lips moved, forming words Micah couldn’t hear. No sound came out. His gestures slowed, like underwater. Then his entire figure warped, dissolving at the edges. The room bent inward, colours smearing together like someone wiped the world with a wet cloth.

Then everything turned blank. A colourless void.

"Micah?" a voice called faintly.

Micah spun around instinctively, adrenaline spiking. His body moved before his mind did. His breath came fast, chest tight, throat burning.

"Micah?" the voice said again, closer.

He jumped away from the sound, stumbling backward off the bed, agitated. His heart was beating fast, wild and painful. Bile rising in his throat.

His ears rang, vision still hazy. He could hear someone calling him. But his mind was stuck, stuck in that nightmare, Aidan Wilson on the bed, his hand....

Micah gagged violently, doubling over. He emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

No... hell no. He would rather die than end up in bed with that lunatic, that rapist, good-for-nothing male lead.