But he still didn’t know where they were, and outside the blizzard was still raging. There was no telling when someone from HQ would be dispatched to find them.

“Ah! Nngh, it’s itchy, hic, hahng, hnnng……”

While he deliberated, Hyde’s quiet sobbing broke into full, heaving cries. Her whole body shook and had gone completely red. Her eyes were unfocused, and the way she wailed and struggled to breathe made it look like she might pass out at any moment.

This was serious.

Just how deep in heat did she have to be, for f*ck’s sake, for the girl to cry like that.

Carbon bit down hard. His conscience still pressed down on him like a weight, but there was no more time to hesitate.

If he left her like this, her mind might drown in the pleasure and break before she ever got healed. A strong aphrodisiac was more dangerous than any drug. Helping her burn through the effects quickly was the right thing to do for Hyde’s sake.

His mind made up, Carbon moved toward her.

“Mister, hic, mister……”

“This is something I’m doing to treat you. So……”

Carbon wrapped his arms around Hyde from behind, settled her onto his lap, and whispered.

“Once the effects wear off, you have to forget all of this. Understood?”

“Hhng, yes, mmyes!”

No I don’t want to…… Even through the haze, Hyde caught that much, and she twisted her waist, turned her body around, reached up, and pulled Carbon’s thick neck into a tight embrace.

Burying her face in Carbon’s broad chest, Hyde let out a wet, trembling m*an.

“Mister, please fill my p*ssy. Pound me hard. Fill me up inside, okay?”

The old nickname hit Carbon like a wall and stopped him cold. After he had rescued Hyde, the child had called him “mister” for a long time. Even when others told her to say “Sir Hero,” she stubbornly stuck to “mister.” He had let her use it because what mattered was that the child felt comfortable, and the word seemed to carry its own kind of warmth. With fourteen years between them, being called mister wasn’t strange at all.

But as she grew older, Hyde stopped calling him that. She called him Carbon, every time, by name. After she was hired on as his sidekick, she even put a little more distance into it and called him Mr. Carbon.

And yet now, of all times, here she was in the depths of heat calling him mister again. The guilt he had been trying to bury came crashing back over him.

Just as Carbon was being pulled under by that torment, Hyde pushed her chest forward. She slid a palm underneath and lifted, and her full br*asts pressed together and rose in a soft, rounded swell. Carbon went blank.

“Touch me, mister. I’m…… itchy here……”

Hyde whined, rubbing her thumb over where her n*pples were. Carbon let out a slow, heated breath. He raised his hand and closed it around Hyde’s br*ast.

“Uh!”

He hadn’t done anything but hold her, and Hyde already felt a sharp jolt of pleasure. He’s touching me, it feels good, it feels so good. Hyde rubbed her face against Carbon’s chest and murmured to herself.

Carbon’s hands were so large that Hyde’s br*ast fit entirely in one palm. He kneaded slowly.

The thick suit, made from a special material that supposedly couldn’t be cut even with a blade, was no obstacle to Carbon at all. His superhuman strength bent steel without effort, so he could feel through the thick suit just how soft the br*ast inside it was.

Carbon pinched and twisted the small n*pple through the heavy suit. Hyde, who had been moaning softly, screwed her eyes shut. The suit was muffling the sensation and she wasn’t getting the full stimulation. She wanted to feel it directly against her skin. Hyde wet her lips and reached back. She pulled the zipper down.

“Mmnh.”

As the suit came off, the pale skin hidden beneath was revealed. Without the compression, her br*asts returned to their full size. They swayed with every breath Hyde took. Carbon’s mouth went dry.

His calloused fingers traced circles along the edge of her *reola. The rough texture of his fingertips grazing her skin made her ticklish, and Hyde swallowed short, quick breaths. Her n*pples were already hard. When he pinched the soft pink bud, Hyde’s hips snapped upward.

“Ahng!”

Hyde cried out sharply and dug her nails into Carbon’s chest. The suit blocked her and only her own nails scraped back.

“You’ll hurt your hand. Don’t grab there, grab here.”

Carbon clicked his tongue and guided Hyde’s hand to wrap around his neck instead. The low voice tickling her ear sent heat pooling below her navel. Hyde tightened her arms around his neck.

Carbon focused on her chest. He pinched and rolled her n*pples, twisted them, pressed both together and rubbed. Her br*asts were sensitive, and with every touch from Carbon the pleasure built and her body grew hotter.

The unbearable itch below was impossible to ignore any longer, and Hyde’s hand drifted down and began working at her p*ssy. Her small hand rubbed around her entrance, and she slipped her fingertips just inside and teased herself. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy the need.

Carbon had been curious about what Hyde was fidgeting at in his arms and looked down, then paused at what he saw. Hyde felt his gaze and looked up.

“Mister, hhng, I’m, itchy, hhng……”

She pressed small kisses to Carbon’s angular jaw, whining against it.

“Do, something, mmh, please……”

Carbon’s patience snapped. Muttering a curse under his breath, he coated his fingers in her arousal and rubbed her cl*t in slow, rolling circles. The slick fl*id reduced friction and carried the pleasure fast. Her swollen cl*t stood stiff and *rect. Hyde shuddered and whimpered.

He rolled it with his fingertips, then scratched lightly with his trimmed nails without hurting her, working her cl*t for a long while before he heard a sob near his ear.

“Inside, I’m itchy, inside too……”

Hyde took Carbon’s hand and tried to guide it from her cl*t down to her entrance, which was clenching between her folds. Carbon swallowed another curse and moved the fingers that had been working her cl*t to her entrance.

The thick finger pressing into her inner walls alone made Hyde cry out. When Carbon crooked his finger like a hook and searched her walls, she let out a wailing m*an.

“Ah! Ahng! Good, hng, it’s so good!”

Hyde cried out. It felt like cool water pouring down a throat that had been burning all along.

“More, more……”

At Hyde’s urging, Carbon added his middle finger. Then his ring finger followed, pushing into her. With three thick fingers inside, her walls gripped tightly around them.

Carbon rolled her cl*t with his thumb and gave her a moment to adjust. Before long, the warm, wet flesh clung softly to his fingers. It felt warm and welcoming. Enough to make him want to stay buried there forever. But he couldn’t. Carbon gritted his teeth and moved his wrist.

Slick, slick.

“Ahng, ah, uh, mmh!”

With his fingers pressed together working inside her, the arousal that had been pooling gushed out and soaked his large hand thoroughly. Carbon paid close attention to the sensation at his fingertips and found the spot where Hyde responded most. When he pressed into the slight hollow there, the intense pleasure from below made Hyde sob.

“Haahng!”

A sharp peak she had never felt before. She was climaxing. Watching Hyde arch her neck and stretch her legs out straight, Carbon realized she had reached *rgasm and withdrew his fingers from her entrance.

“Hik, hiik!”

Even the slick slide of his fingers pulling out was a tingling jolt of sensation, and Hyde trembled. Tears blurred her eyes from the pleasure that overwhelmed her.

“Haah, haah.”

Carbon held Hyde close as she panted and went limp against him.

“That’s enough. You’re safe. You’re alright.”

Hyde exhaled in shallow breaths and looked up at Carbon with hazy eyes. She met his gaze as he looked down at her with a troubled expression.

Then Carbon looked away, as though avoiding her eyes.

‘Ah……?’

Hyde blinked, dazed.

‘Why…… why?’

She felt something hard pressing against her backside. Carbon’s *rection, even beneath his suit, couldn’t hide its massive outline and pressed against her.

‘He got aroused looking at me, touching me.’

But then Hyde realized something that hit her like a shock. Carbon had been focused entirely on satisfying her, and he hadn’t touched himself at all.

More than that, even touching Hyde had been kept to a minimum. There had only been the contact needed to arouse her and bring her to cl*max. No sucking or mouthing at her br*asts, no stroking himself. This really had been, just as he said, treatment.

What Carbon said next confirmed her suspicion.

“The effects should have worn off enough by now, so sleep. When you wake up, things will be back to normal.”

The words that came out in that purely gentle voice were clean and plain, with no trace of desire anywhere in them.

‘Even after seeing me like this…… how. Am I really that unattractive to him?’

The wretchedness of it made her eyes sting. Hyde let the feeling she couldn’t contain spill out exactly as it was.

“I like you.”

“Hkk!”

The out-of-nowhere confession made Carbon choke. He stared at Hyde with wide eyes. He knew this wasn’t the time for it and she wasn’t the type to joke, but he half-wondered if she was teasing him somehow.

But the tear-wet eyes that met his were completely serious. Eyes brimming with deep emotion, an expression full of longing, and Hyde confessed again the feeling she had carried for so long.

“I like you, mister.”

“You……”

Carbon was speechless.

The confession coming at a moment like this caught him off guard, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming at all.

He had known Hyde held some feelings for him. He couldn’t have missed it even if he had tried. The heat in the gaze that followed him persistently whenever they were together, the tips of her ears going red when he praised her, lingering around him in outfits that seemed designed to tempt someone, deliberately showing off parts of her body, fluttering her lashes and baring her neck…… d*mn it. Only an idiot would miss that. At thirty-six, with a fair amount of dating experience and no shortage of women who had approached him with ulterior motives, Carbon couldn’t not know.