A/N: Got carried away and went overboard, sorry... and thank y’all for reading.

**

Combined with the sunlight flooding through the glass walls, the entire bed felt less like furniture and more like the physical manifestation of a life Phei had spent ten years being denied and was now receiving in such overwhelming, indecent, daily abundance that his capacity for gratitude had been permanently recalibrated and ordinary happiness would never be sufficient again.

Outside the glass, Hell’s Paradise Island had already awakened.

Far below Infinity Chaos Hotel, the city glittered beneath the morning sun — traffic flowing like rivers of light between impossible architecture, polished towers reaching arrogantly toward heaven, the whole gleaming spectacle of Legacy wealth arranged across the island as though gods had designed a city specifically for people who believed they deserved one.

Beyond the city, the forests waited. Ancient. Endless.

The monstrous wilderness surrounding civilisation stretched beneath the morning skies with the patient indifference of something that had been here before any of this existed and would be here long after all of it was dust.

Even from this height the forests carried presence — something old and vast and quietly contemptuous of the bright little human settlement nestled against its edge.

The warm sunlight flooding through the penthouse remained locked in its eternal quiet war against the cold emanating from those endless woods.

And as usual, luxury was winning.

Barely.

Phei stirred awake beneath the blankets with the exhausted reluctance, his body had no interest in participating in consciousness.

His cock, however, had been awake for some time — hard and thick and warm against his stomach beneath the silk, the morning erection compounded by the fact that he was naked and five women were pressed against him in various states of undress and proximity and his body had been processing that information on a subconscious level for the last hour with the quiet diligence of a system that never fully shut down.

For several moments he didn’t open his eyes. Just lay there. Warm. Breathing. Letting his awareness expand slowly through the bed like a man mapping territory by feel alone.

The subtle, possessive, unconscious grip of women who had claimed him in their dreams and were still holding on.

The thought of waking up like this repeatedly was beginning to permanently damage his relationship with ordinary life.

How was someone supposed to return to normal mornings after this? After silk sheets and sleeping women and the golden light of a penthouse that cost more than small nations...?

...At this point even heaven itself would need renovations before it impressed him, because whatever paradise was supposed to look like, it probably didn’t include Patricia Bloom’s fingers two inches from his cock or Maddie Whitmore drooling faintly on his collarbone or a beautiful princess glowing bare and golden three inches to his left.

Slowly, he opened his eyes more awake now.

Golden light. Distant ceiling. The vast quiet bedroom stretching around him in warm amber tones.

Maddie shifted on top of him with a small sleepy sound — a soft, unconscious hum that vibrated against his neck — and snuggled closer, her leg sliding higher on his thigh, her knee brushing against his bare cock beneath the sheets with nothing between her skin and his.

Whether she’d done it on purpose in her sleep was a question for philosophers and women who pretended to be unconscious when it suited them. Phei’s cock didn’t care about the epistemology. It simply responded.

’Gods, I love her.’

The thought arrived without permission. Just showed up, fully formed, warm, stupid, terrifying — and completely true.

She was drooling on him; literally drooling a small damp patch on his collarbone that any sane man would find slightly disgusting, and all he could think was: ’she feels safe enough to drool on me. She sleeps this hard because she trusts me this completely.’

And somehow that was more intimate than anything they’d done with their clothes off.

Patricia’s arm tightened fractionally around his waist. A sleeping reflex. Her fingers pressing closer against his hip, her body leaning into his warmth.

Sierra remained perfectly, dangerously still. Asleep. Beautiful. Her bare back rising and falling.

Valentina’s lashes fluttered — the first sign of approaching consciousness, her body shifting beneath the silk, her leg stretching against his, her back arching in a slow feline movement that pulled her sleep cloth tighter across her chest and made the dark shadows of her nipples press sharper against the fabric.

Phei stared at the ceiling for a few quiet moments.

Then exhaled softly.

"...My life is genuinely absurd."

And — lying in a bed that cost more than ambition, surrounded by five women whose combined beauty could destabilize governments, his cock hard, his chest warm, the morning sun worshipping every surface in the room including his face with the shameless favoritism of a star that had looked down, seen what it was illuminating, and decided to linger —

He wasn’t complaining.

Not even a little bit.

Valentina’s eyes opened. Slow and immediately sharp, because Valentina didn’t do groggy — she went from unconscious to operational with the efficiency of a weapons system that had been on standby rather than off.

Her gaze found his. Held.

"You’re staring at us, aren’t you love?" she murmured. Sleep-rough voice. Warm.

"I’m admiring," he corrected. "There’s a distinction. Staring implies I might stop."

The corner of her mouth curved. Just barely. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to have several inappropriate thoughts and one genuinely moving emotional revelation." He paused. "The inappropriate thoughts won, for the record."

"Naturally." Her leg shifted against his beneath the sheets, deliberate now, her thigh pressing warm and slow against his in a way that was absolutely not accidental and they both knew it. "And the emotional revelation?"

He looked at the ceiling. Looked at Maddie drooling softly on his chest, Delilah, to Sierra’s bare golden back then Patricia’s hand on his hip, her fingers still curled against bare skin like a sleeping claim she hadn’t released.

Looked back at Valentina.

"I’m happy," he said.

Two words. Quiet. Said the way you said something you weren’t used to saying yet — carefully, like the words might shatter if he held them too hard.

Valentina studied him for a moment — really studied him, the way she did when she was deciding whether something he’d said deserved amusement or devastation — and then her expression softened into something private and warm and entirely for him.

"Good," she whispered. "You deserve to be."

Maddie stirred against his chest with a sleepy grumble. "...whoever’s talking, shut up or bring me coffee. Those are the only two acceptable morning activities."

Phei huffed a laugh. Soft. Real.

’Yeah,’ he thought, closing his eyes again and letting the warmth swallow him whole.

’This is mine.’