Chapter 5
Adriel
The break room was small and smelled of microwaved soup and the burnt-sugar residue of the coffee machine running too long. Two chairs. A narrow counter. A window that looked out onto the building next door, close enough to see the offices opposite but not close enough to see into them properly.
Adriel had it to himself.
He stood at the counter, back to the door, waiting for the kettle to boil. His shoulders were loose for once.
It had been a decent morning. A manuscript that actually excited him. A quiet desk. No one needing anything from him. He'd let himself have it; the small luxury of existing without bracing. Four minutes, maybe five. He counted them like currency, these moments when his body forgot to be afraid.
The kettle hummed. He watched the steam rise.
Then he heard them, just outside of the open door.
Two voices. Adriel recognized one of them; John, senior editor, salt-and-pepper hair. The other voice he knew less well. Someone from the third floor. He'd seen him in the lift.
He kept his back turned. Reached for his teabag.
"…did you see the notes on the Whitmore revision?" John was saying. "Three rounds and he's still not getting it. I'm this close to just…"
The other voice laughed. Something about authors, about the death count, about how many cups of coffee it would take to get through the afternoon.
Adriel stopped listening.
Then he heard his name.
Not directed at him. Just dropped in, casual, the way you'd reference a piece of furniture. The new assistant. Something about Landen giving him extra time on the Slater notes. Something about how that was…
"Waters is very generous with his time." A pause. The quality of it sharpening into something cruel. "Then again, maybe he just feels sorry for him."
The kettle kept heating.
"The boy's sweet," John said. "Leave it."
"I'm just saying." Easy. Unbothered. "You've seen him. Waddles in every morning with that coffee, wearing those jumpers." A small sound, not quite a laugh. "Someone should tell him he’s not 50."
A beat.
John, quieter. "That's enough."
"Fine…" another laugh, lighter, the laugh of a man who had never once had to think about this. "Bless his heart. He's trying."
The kettle clicked off as they entered.
The sound was loud in the sudden silence. He stared at the counter. At the cup in his hand. At the steam still rising, indifferent and unchanged.
He did what he had always done.
He folded it inward. Pressed it down, deep, somewhere it could sit with all the others.
The file in his chest marked things people said was thick by now, but there was always room for one more.
He folded it carefully, the way you folded a letter you couldn't throw away but couldn't bear to read, and tucked it into the space behind his ribs.
He poured his tea. His hand didn't shake.
He was proud of that, distantly.
∞∞∞
Landen
Landen was on his way back from the second floor, folder under his arm, already thinking ahead; the Calloway notes, the two o'clock, the editorial letter sitting unfinished on his desk. He passed the break room without slowing.
You've seen him. Waddles in every morning with that coffee, wearing those jumpers…
Landen stopped.
He stepped into the doorway, and his eyes went first, instinctively, before he'd made a decision about it, to the counter.
To Adriel.
Back to the room. Both hands around his mug, shoulders set, spine very straight. Frozen at the counter in that cream sweater, the one that was too big for him and sat soft against the curve of his shoulders.
Landen's eyes moved to John. Then to the man beside him.
John had the grace to look like a man who wished he were somewhere else. The other one took a half second longer.
"Gentlemen." Perfectly level. "I don't believe either of you have the Calloway notes ready for this afternoon."
They left. Quickly. The door swung shut behind them.
Adriel hadn't moved. Landen looked at him, really looked, and felt something shift in his chest in a way that was inconvenient and immediate and not entirely explicable.
He was slight, was the thing. Not in height, not in build, but in the way he was holding himself right now, pulled inward, shoulders drawn up just a fraction, trying to make himself smaller. His honey-blond hair curled at the nape of his neck where the collar of his sweater sat. His ears were pink.
"Adriel."
A pause. A beat too long.
Then Adriel turned.
Landen had seen him flustered before, but this was different.
This was a face that had been very recently and very carefully put back together, the seams still visible if you knew where to look.
The brightness at the edges of his eyes.
The color in his cheeks that had nothing to do with warmth.
His expression was composed, and the effort of it was written in the slight tension of his jaw, the careful set of his mouth.
He was, Landen thought, with a clarity that arrived without invitation, extraordinarily pretty. Even now. Especially now, with the pink high in his cheeks and his eyes too bright and his hands still wrapped around the mug like it was the most solid thing in the room.
"Sorry." Already moving, already angling toward the door. "I'll get out of your way."
"You're not in my way." Landen kept his voice even. "Take your time."
Adriel looked at him.
Just for a moment. Something in his expression shifting, the composure flickering at its edges before he got it back under control. Then he nodded, dropped his gaze, and slipped past Landen through the door.
The coffee machine hummed. The kettle sat cooling on its base. Outside in the corridor, footsteps faded, and the floor went on without them, the ordinary sounds of an ordinary day carrying on regardless.
Landen thought about the pink of his ears. The too-bright eyes. The way he'd looked at Landen for that one uncertain moment.
The anger was still there. Quiet and cold, sitting directly behind his sternum.
Which was strange. Disproportionate, if he was being honest. He didn't know Adriel; four weeks, perhaps. A handful of conversations. A new hire who was good at his job, flushed easily, and apologized too much. A stranger, essentially.
And yet the anger wasn't moving.
And yet he was still standing in the break room thinking about the curve of Adriel's shoulders in that too-big sweater, and feeling something that was considerably more than the mild professional concern of a man for someone in his employ.
He picked up his folder. Walked out.
The two o'clock was in forty minutes. Seventeen things required his attention before that.
He thought about Adriel's face all the way to his office.
∞∞∞
The Knot was a second skin.
The anteroom's hush. The approving nod from Charles. The weight of the ledger under his signature. All of it as familiar and grounding as his own heartbeat. Tonight he'd requested one of the private rooms. He needed the focus.
He needed, specifically, to stop thinking about a break room, a cream sweater, pink cheeks, and too-bright eyes.
The submissive waited for him inside.
Landen knew him well. They'd played half a dozen times over the past year. Beautiful in a conventional way; lean, sculpted, with a natural grace and a responsive body that sang under attention. He knelt by the low leather bench, head bowed, a picture of willing surrender.
Landen approached, shoes silent on the padded floor. He cupped his chin, tilting his face up. Dark, eager eyes met his. He ran his thumb over his lower lip.
"Open."
The boy obeyed. His mouth fell slack. Landen pushed his thumb inside, feeling the warm wet heat, the press of a tongue. A low sound of pleasure vibrated against his skin.
He withdrew his thumb, slick with saliva, and traced it down the line of the boy's throat, over his collarbone.
Landen pressed him back over the bench, the arch of his spine a perfect curve, and took the leather restraints from the wall, buckling them with a series of familiar clicks.
He leaned down, mouth close to the boy's ear.
"Count for me."
He started with his hand. Sharp, stinging spanks that lit up the pale skin.
One. Two. Three.
The counts came breathy, punctuated by gasps. Landen watched the skin bloom pink, then red. He focused on the angle of his wrist, the transfer of force, the reactive jump of muscle; adjusting pressure, seeking the pitch of sting without true hurt.
On the fourth strike, his mind left the room.
Slipped its moorings the way it had been doing all afternoon, sliding away from the warm willing body beneath his hands to a break room on the tenth floor. The smell of microwaved soup and burnt coffee.
That face. The brightness at the edges of his eyes. The pink high in his cheeks; it lived in his face the way warmth lived in certain rooms, but today it had been different.
His next strike landed harder than he intended.
"Ten!" the boy called out, voice tighter.
Landen blinked. Ran a soothing palm over the heated skin. "Good. Breathe through it."
He reached for the flogger. Swung it in a measured, rhythmic arc. It landed with a dull whisper. The boy moaned, pushing up into the impact, seeking more.
Instead of pulling him into the present, the sound carried him back..
Sorry. I'll get out of your way.
You're not in my way.
He'd meant it. That was the thing. He'd said it with a directness that had nothing to do with professional courtesy and everything to do with the fact that the image of Adriel making himself smaller to accommodate men who had no business having opinions about him was making Landen quietly, specifically furious.
It hadn't dissipated through the entire afternoon and showed no signs of dissipating now.
He set the flogger aside. Ran both hands down the boy's sweat-slicked back. The muscles quivered under his palms.
He reached for the crop.
And there he was again. Adriel. The honey-blond hair curling soft at the nape of his neck. The pink ears. The way he'd looked at Landen just before dropping his gaze; uncertain, briefly and painfully unguarded, so needlessly apologetic.
The boy beneath him shifted. "Sir?"
Landen closed his eyes. Breathed. Opened his eyes. Raised the crop. Brought it down.
The boy gasped.
And Landen watched himself go through the motions, felt his body perform the familiar choreography, and wondered, for the first time in years, if this was still what he wanted.
He dropped the crop.
His hands went to the buckle of his own trousers.
He freed his cock, put on a condom, stroked himself once, grip firm, as he positioned himself behind the boy.
He poured lubricant into his palm. The cool gel was a shock against his skin.
He smoothed it over himself, then pressed a slick finger against the boy's entrance.
He was loose. Open. Ready. He'd prepared himself beforehand, as instructed.
Landen pushed inside in one slow, relentless glide.
The heat was perfect. Tight and welcoming. The boy cried out; a raw, beautiful sound of being filled.
Landen set a deep, driving rhythm, his hips snapping forward. The slap of skin on skin. Ragged breathing. The creak of the bench. He chased the building tension in his own groin, the coiling promise of release.
But with every thrust, his mind pulled him elsewhere.
Shaking hands around a mug.
He drove deeper, grinding against that perfect spot inside the boy, who was sobbing with pleasure now, undone.
Too-bright eyes.
He felt his orgasm gathering, a storm at the base of his spine. He reached around, fisting the boy's cock in time with his thrusts.
The pink. That specific, devastating pink. High in his cheeks. The tips of his ears. Disappearing beneath the soft collar of that sweater.
How far does it go?
The thought arrived without warning. Vivid. Entirely inappropriate.
And with it, before he could stop it; Adriel. Soft and flushed and warm. Bent over this same bench. Landen's hands on the generous curve of his ass, his pale skin lit gold by candlelight, that blush spreading down his back and further still as Landen drove into him.
The image tipped him over.
His release tore through him with a violence that was almost painful.
He spilled into the condom with a groan that was more frustration than pleasure, his forehead dropping between the submissive's shoulder blades, his whole body shuddering through it.
White noise. His own heartbeat, loud and accusatory in his ears.
As the aftershocks faded, the dissatisfaction rushed in to fill the void. Sharper than anything he'd felt in this room before.
He pulled out. Disposed of the condom. Began aftercare on autopilot; unbuckling the restraints, murmuring praise, fetching the blanket and the water.
The boy smiled up at him, spent and worshipful, nuzzling into his hand. "Thank you, Sir."
“Good boy.” The words were ash in Landen's mouth.
He stayed until the boy was grounded, until his breathing had evened and subspace had released him back into himself. Then he rose quietly and left him to dress.
In the small adjacent washroom, Landen splashed cold water on his face and stared at his reflection. Hair disheveled. Shirt untucked. His eyes held something restless and unfamiliar.
He examined it anyway.
The scene had been good. The sub had been good; responsive, present, giving everything asked of him without hesitation. Landen had done everything right. His hands had known what to do. His voice had known what to say.
And through all of it, from the first strike to the last gasp, his mind had been somewhere else entirely.
He turned the tap off.
The truth was inescapable. Whatever dull hunger had been gnawing at him for weeks, whatever abstract absence he'd been circling without naming, now had a face.