Chapter 19 #2
The flinch. The automatic recoil that had lived in him for as long as he could remember.
The urge to cover himself, to hide the evidence of what he'd done, what he'd let someone do to him.
Some internal alarm that would sound and say this is wrong, this is shameful, you should be embarrassed that you let someone do this to you, that you begged for it.
He waited.
He stood there, naked and marked and flushed, and waited for the familiar shame to rise up and claim him.
Nothing.
What came instead was a quiet, blooming warmth.
It started in his chest and spread outward, slow and steady, like heat from a fire you didn't realize you'd been sitting next to. It filled him degree by degree, pushed against the edges of him, made something in his throat tighten.
These marks meant something.
They meant someone wanted to leave them.
Someone had looked at his body, all of it, the soft and the round and the parts he'd spent his whole life hiding, and instead of wanting to change it or diminish it or turn away from it, had wanted to mark it as theirs.
Someone had wanted the world to know. Or at least had wanted Adriel to know.
That he was claimed. Chosen. That someone had looked at him and thought mine.
No one had ever done that before.
No one had ever been proud enough of being with Adriel to stake a claim.
Zach had hidden him. Had never introduced him to friends, had never wanted to be seen with him in public unless it was late and the lighting was bad and no one they knew would be there.
Had made Adriel feel, in a thousand small ways, that being with him was something to be embarrassed of rather than proud.
His parents had wished he was someone else. Had praised him when he lost weight, had fallen silent when he gained it back, had looked at him his whole life with expressions that said almost but not quite.
Every person who had ever touched his body had done so with reservation. With distance. With the implicit understanding that Adriel should be grateful for whatever scraps of attention he received. That he was lucky anyone was willing to touch him at all.
Landen had spanked him until he screamed.
Had held him through it; had held him after, had whispered things against his skin that made Adriel's eyes sting.
Adriel's hand lifted.
He touched the marks on his hip lightly. Pressed just enough to feel the tenderness, the ache that was still there, the reminder that this had happened, that it was real. The skin was warm under his fingers, sensitive.
He didn't cover them.
He didn't look away.
He stood in front of the mirror, naked and marked and flushed, and looked at himself.
And for the first time, he did not hate what he saw.
∞∞∞
The next day was harder than he expected.
Adriel knew this going in. He'd braced for it on the metro, had told himself it would be strange, had rehearsed the professional distance they'd agreed to maintain. He'd thought he was ready.
He wasn't.
Every movement reminded him.
Sitting at his desk sent a dull ache through his ass that made his breath catch.
The pressure of the chair against his skin, against the marks he could still feel even though he couldn't see them, sent a ripple of sensation through him that was half pain and half something else entirely.
He shifted in his chair and the ache flared and he had to press his lips together to keep from making a sound.
Standing up too quickly was somehow worse. He'd stood to get coffee and had to grip the edge of his desk for a moment, eyes closed, breathing through it.
It was like carrying a secret under his clothes. A secret that pulsed and ached and reminded him with every movement that he was someone's.
He couldn't stop thinking about it.
Landen was at his desk when Adriel stepped in. His jacket hung on the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled, his hair perfectly in place. He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine spread.
He didn't look at Adriel for too long. Didn't linger.
Didn't acknowledge what they'd done together, what they'd said, what Adriel's body still carried evidence of.
If Adriel hadn't known better, if he hadn't spent the night in that apartment, in that bed, in those arms, he would have believed nothing had changed.
"Morning Adriel. Here you go. Need the notes on the first ten chapters by the end of the day." Landen said evenly, passing him a folder.
Their fingers didn't touch.
"Sure. I’ll get right on it." Adriel replied.
He took the folder. Returned to his desk. Sat down carefully, trying to find an angle that didn't press too hard against the bruises. Failed. Settled for breathing through it and pretending he wasn't.
He understood, logically, why they'd agreed to keep things separate at work. The power imbalance was real. The gossip would be relentless. The way it would reflect on both of them, the questions it would raise, the assumptions people would make. He'd agreed to it. He still agreed with it.
But the restraint hurt more than he expected.
Not because it was wrong. Not because Landen was being cold or dismissive or anything other than exactly what they'd agreed he should be. But because the distance felt like a costume now. Something Landen put on that didn't match the man Adriel knew.
The man who had bent Adriel over his bed and fucked him until he came screaming.
The man who had pulled him into his arms afterward and whispered you're everything against his skin.
That man was somewhere inside the polished editor in the office across the floor. But Adriel couldn't see him. Couldn't reach him. Couldn't acknowledge him in any way without breaking the careful rules they'd set.
He looked across the office at Landen's closed door and felt the gap between the private and the public like a physical ache layered on top of all the others.