Morning arrived softly over Hell’s Paradise Island not with the aggressive brightness of ordinary cities where sunlight barged rudely through cheap curtains and dragged exhausted people back into routines they hated, but with the quiet arrogance of luxury itself.

The sun here seemed calmer somehow as it filtered first through the endless skies above the island, then the rooftop of the towering architecture, before finally slipping through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls surrounding Phei’s penthouse until the light entering the room no longer resembled ordinary sunlight at all.

It felt curated, golden and warm as though even nature behaved differently around enough money — adjusted its intensity, softened its edges, arrived fifteen minutes later than it did for poor people because wealth had purchased it a more civilized schedule.

His massive bedroom rested in complete silence beneath that morning glow while long layers of sunlight stretched lazily across polished dark floors and expensive furniture before eventually reaching the enormous white bed occupying the center of the room like some heavenly cloud handcrafted specifically to offend poor people emotionally.

The bed was ridiculous. Insufferably white, insufferably soft and insufferably expensive making ordinary mattresses feel like government punishment programmes designed to suppress joy.

And somewhere beneath those silk sheets, tangled in warmth and women and the faint expensive ghost of perfume layered over sleep-warmed skin, the Young Dragon slept.

Surrounded by enough beauty to make lesser men question whether they had accidentally died and entered a suspiciously attractive version of the afterlife where the entry requirements were being handsome and morally flexible.

Phei remained unconscious for several moments longer while the sunlight crept across the bed in slow golden layers, illuminating the women around him piece by piece — a bare shoulder here, a spill of dark hair there, the curve of a hip beneath twisted silk — as though morning itself was taking its time to admire the scene properly before waking anyone up.

Maddie had migrated during the night:

The girl slept the way she lived — shamelessly, expansively, with the territorial ambition of a small empire that had not yet been introduced to the concept of borders. Nearly half her body was draped over his now, heavy and warm and possessive, one leg thrown high across his thigh so her knee rested dangerously close to his cock.

Her hip was pressed flush against his side while the soft full curve of her ass settled against him like it belonged there, and the thin silk of her camisole had ridden up during the night, leaving the bare, smooth skin of her stomach and the lower swell of her tits exposed against his ribs.

Her tits...

...were soft and heavy, braless beneath the thin fabric, and they were pressed right against him — warm, plush, and yielding, the full weight of them resting on his chest with every slow breath she took.

The deep valley between them brushed his skin with every exhale, and the hard little peaks of her nipples, faintly stiff from the morning chill, dragged lightly against him through the silk every time she shifted even slightly in her sleep.

Maddie’s hair spilled across his chest and shoulder in chaotic, sleep-mussed waves that smelled of expensive shampoo, skin, and the deeper, muskier scent of her — sleep-warm and intimate, the kind of scent that clung to sheets and skin and made a man want to bury his face in it and stay there.

Her face was tucked against his neck, her lips parted against his collarbone, her slow, damp breath ghosting over his skin in warm little puffs that sent heat straight down his spine.

One of Maddie’s arms was slung across his stomach, her hand resting low on his abdomen, fingers curled loosely like she was unconsciously claiming territory even in her dreams.

Even unconscious, Maddie radiated emotionally greedy affection that didn’t know how to hold back.

She loved with her whole body once she was allowed to, and right now her whole body was wrapped around him, draped over him, pressed against him with shameless, sleepy intimacy.

Her thigh was high on his, her hip grinding lazily against him every time she breathed, and the soft, warm weight of her tits kept shifting against his ribs in a slow, unconscious rhythm that was driving him insane.

Phei’s cock was already half-hard, trapped between the heat of her thigh and the firm press of her hip, and Maddie — still deeply asleep — had no idea what she was doing to him.

Or maybe she did.

Even in sleep, she seemed to know exactly how to drape herself over Phei to make him ache for her snatch.

Sierra slept closer to his other side; quieter and elegant than Maddie, stiller, but somehow more dangerous because Sierra sleeping was a weapon nobody had figured out how to defend against.

She lay on her stomach with her face half-buried in the pillows, one arm folded beneath her, the other resting firmly against his arm beneath the sheets as if she was scared Phei would be away when he wakes up.

The blanket had slipped during the night, exposing the long bare line of her back from shoulder blade to the dip above her ass — smooth, golden-lit, the morning light touching her skin so carefully it looked reverent.

Like the sunlight itself understood what it was touching and had decided to be gentle about it.

Her hair fanned dark across the white pillow, and the curve of her waist narrowing into her hips beneath the bunched silk was doing things to Phei’s peripheral awareness that his still-waking brain hadn’t authorised but his cock had already co-signed.

He let his gaze stay on her. Didn’t rush it, didn’t feel guilty about it, or look away...

...Just... admired as the golden light pooled in the small of her back as her shoulder blades moved with each slow breath. The impossible geometry of waist-to-hip that his hands had memorized but his eyes kept rediscovering like they couldn’t quite believe the data was real.

’She’s ridiculous,’ he thought. Not the word a poet would use or a man performing sophistication would reach for.

But it was the right, the honest one that sat warm in his chest and meant: you are so beautiful it makes me stupid, and I don’t even mind.

Sierra sleeping made him feel still. And stillness used to be dangerous — used to mean you’d stopped running, stopped watching, stopped surviving.

But this kind of stillness was different; this one meant he had finally found something worth being still for.

Valentina rested farther up near the headboard, though sometime during the night she had apparently decided personal space was a social construct invented by emotionally lonely people and had abandoned it entirely.

One of her long legs remained somehow tangled with Phei’s beneath the sheets thanks to her insane flexibility; bare, warm, smooth, her thigh pressed against his in a way that generated a very specific kind of heat that had nothing to do with ambient temperature and everything to do with the fact that Valentina’s thighs could feature in religious art and nobody would question it.

Her dark hair spread across the white pillows in a fan that the morning light caught and gilded, and her body — even in sleep, even relaxed, even curled loosely on her side — carried the architecture of a woman built for desire.