4) Systems Overheating

Exactly forty-two minutes had passed since Matteo issued his "release her at the first port" command. I was trying to calculate how much longer it would take to reach the harbor, but right now, I was facing a much more vital and biological crisis: my bladder was about to burst. My pee was on the verge of turning into tears and leaking out of my eyes! Yes, there was water everywhere, but guess who didn't know how to swim?

Due to the risk of sunstroke, I had chugged a half-liter bottle of water that one of the crew members had left in front of me. Now, I was wandering through the lower deck of this luxury, labyrinth-like yacht, searching for the restroom. Everywhere I looked, it was a blur of identical teak-wood doors and ultra-luxurious gray walls. The design might have been sleek, but it was an absolute nightmare for a pathfinding algorithm.

"Turn right, follow the hallway, that robot in the suit had said," I muttered to myself. Adjusting my glasses on my nose, I advanced toward a massive, slightly ajar door at the very end of the corridor. A heavy sound of rushing water was coming from inside. Splash, splash...

"This is it," I said with relief. "Bathroom coordinates located."

I pushed the door slightly and stepped inside. But this wasn't some ordinary yacht restroom. It was a massive master suite bathroom connected to a bedroom, complete with smoked glass, a marble jacuzzi, and a giant walk-in shower. And the main problem... the frosted glass door of the shower was completely open.

My feet froze mid-stride. I was literally paralyzed.

Standing in front of me, with his back turned to me as he washed beneath the running water, was a man. Matteo.

He didn't have a single thread of clothing on.

Water droplets cascading from his wet, dark curly hair slid down his wide shoulders—which formed a perfect inverted triangle—tracing every single contour of his back muscles. The muscle anatomy on the man's back was so flawless that the muscle charts in medical schools could easily go hide in shame. His tanned skin glistened under the water, and the droplets ran down the curve of his waist at a dangerously fast pace.

A normal girl would scream in this scenario, cover her eyes, turn around, and run away, right?

But my Asperger's brain completely shifted into "visual data analysis" mode.

Instead of fleeing, I stood there blinking, calculating the movement angle of those perfect back muscles under the water and the decibels of the sound the water made as it struck his skin. The mischievous voice inside me had already kicked into high gear: Okay, sure, the man might be a mafia boss, but these body contours are definitely illegal.

Right at that moment, as if sensing a presence behind him—specifically the amateur energy I was radiating—Matteo suddenly spun around under the stream of water.

Water was dripping from his face. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw me standing in the middle of his bathroom, wearing oversized horn-rimmed glasses, staring at him intently.

Time stopped.

Matteo had likely survived numerous assassination attempts in his life, but he definitely hadn't expected to be ogled while naked by a bespectacled software-geek girl who had infiltrated his bathroom. His eyes widened in shock, and then that shock instantly transformed into volcanic fury.

"You..." he roared. His voice easily exceeded 150 hertz as it echoed off the marble walls of the bathroom. "What the hell are you doing in here?!"

"I... well," I said, my eyes involuntarily drifting from his water-streaked, broad chest muscles down to the flawless six-pack of his abs. "I was looking for the restroom coordinates. But you... you are currently completely naked. As in, anatomically in a state of one hundred percent nudity."

Driven mad with rage, Matteo took a massive step out of the shower. He lunged to grab a black towel from the adjacent marble counter to cover his body, but his foot slipped slightly on the wet floor. Refleksively, he reached out toward me to regain his balance.

"Don't touch me!" I screamed suddenly.

But it was too late. As Matteo lurched forward to stabilize himself, his massive, soaking-wet, and completely naked body came crashing down directly on top of me. My back slammed against the hard bathroom wall, and Matteo’s wet, hot, muscular chest sealed itself completely against my skin through my clothes.

The breath caught in my throat. Every system inside my mind crashed. I couldn't even trigger a blue screen of death  the computer had completely caught fire !

Matteo's face was so close to mine that there were only a few millimeters between our lips. I could see the dangerous, dark sparks dancing in his eyes. And worst of all... with both hands gripping the wall, he had pinned me completely between the wall and his dripping, naked body.

Right then, the outer door of the suite was kicked open with a loud crash.

"Boss!" shouted the ominous voice of one of the bodyguards who rushed inside. "Enemy boats have blocked the harbor entrance, they've surrounded us! Get the weapons ready!"

Matteo snapped his head toward the door, then looked back at me. Trapped between the wall and his bare chest, I began to hear the echoes of gunfire outside rattling against the hull of the yacht.

We were cornered. And in the most naked, dangerous way imaginable.