Sylvain forced the corners of his mouth upward, but the smile felt like cracked porcelain, ready to shatter at the slightest pressure.
Silas noticed the stiff smile on his face, he lifts his finger to trace the edge of that trembling smile, pressing just hard enough to dimple the skin.
"Better," he murmured, though the word carried no warmth. "But I can still taste the resentment underneath. It's… intoxicating."
Sylvain's thighs bracketed Silas's hips. The heat of the other man's body radiated upward like a furnace, yet every inch of contact felt like stepping onto breaking ice.
He could feel Silas's hard member pressing insistently against him. All he wanted to do right now was to run. He hated how his own body responded anyway.
A traitor pulse low in his belly. A faint, shameful tightening. The betrayal made his eyes sting.
Silas's hand slid from Sylvain's jaw to curl loosely around the front of his throat. A reminder of his ownership disguised as intimacy.
"Hands on my chest," Silas ordered.
Sylvain obeyed, palms flattening against warm skin and steady heartbeat. The contrast was cruel.
Silas's pulse was calm and even while Sylvain's own thundered so violently he was sure Silas could feel it through his fingertips.
"Lower."
Sylvain's hands drifted down, over defined muscle, past the sharp cut of hipbones. When his fingers brushed the base of Silas's cock, he hesitated.
Silas's grip on his throat tightened, just enough to leave him fighting for air. "Don't make me repeat myself."
Swallowing, Sylvain wrapped his hand around the thick length, stroking once, uncertainly.
Silas exhaled through his nose, a sound that was almost a laugh. "Pathetic." The word was soft, almost fond. "You're holding me as if I might break. I won't." His hips rolled upward in a slow, deliberate thrust into Sylvain's fist. "But you definitely will."
Sylvain's breath hitched, fighting the tears that threatened to leave his eyes.
Silas's free hand found Sylvain's hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "Continue.." A hiss escaped from his mouth.
Sylvain unprofessionally stroked the rod slowly, making Silas breathe raggedly.
"Faster.....ughh.." Silas breath hitched.
Sylvain's hand stilled the moment Silas's breathing changed—sharper, ragged, no longer the slow, controlled rhythm of a man in absolute command.
Sylvain increased the pace of the rhythm, Silas's hips jerked once, twice, then locked tight against Sylvain's palm. Warmth spilled over Sylvain's fingers in thick pulses, coating his wrist, dripping down to the sheets below.
Silas came with a low, guttural sound that vibrated through both their bodies, but he never once broke eye contact.
Sylvain kept his hand wrapped around the softening length until Silas's fingers closed around his wrist and gently pulled him away.
For several long heartbeats, the only sound in the room was their uneven breathing and the faint wet sound of skin separating.
Silas looked… almost peaceful.
The cold mask had cracked just enough to let something raw flicker underneath. Satisfaction, yes—but also something hungrier, something that hadn't been fed nearly enough.
He lifted Sylvain's cum-slick hand between them.
"Look what you did," Silas murmured, voice still rough at the edges.
Sylvain stared at his own fingers—glistening, trembling, marked. Heat crawled up his neck. Shame. Relief.
"Clean," he said simply, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Sylvain's entire body felt like it had been dipped in fire and ice at once.
Silas released his hand and rolled onto his side, propping his head on one fist so he could study Sylvain's face like a painting he hadn't quite finished judging.
"Didn't you enjoy it" Silas questioned him
Sylvain swallowed. His own arousal still throbbed painfully between his legs—untouched, but he shook his head anyway. "No."
Silas's mouth curved. Not quite a smile."Good."
He reached out and dragged the pad of one finger down the center of Sylvain's chest, between his pecs, over his frantically beating heart, all the way to the shallow dip of his navel. Sylvain's stomach jumped at the contact.
"That will make it more interesting for me" Silas continued, voice soft and certain. "Until I am satisfied before you get anything from me " his finger circled Sylvain's navel once, twice, maddeningly slow "—you have earned something from me".
Sylvain's throat worked. "What is the gift?"
Silas laughed—low, dark, genuine. "Gift" He leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched. "It's more or less like an exchange, you satisfy me I pay you. It's like a harlot business and you are the harlot. Fairness was never part of the price."
He pressed a deceptively gentle kiss to Sylvain's temple—almost sweet, if not for the words that followed.
"But you did well tonight. You didn't fight. You didn't beg. You just… gave me what I wanted." His lips brushed the shell of Sylvain's ear. "That's a start."
Silas pulled back and sat up, casual as though they'd just finished a business transaction.
He reached for the discarded robe on the floor and tossed it toward Sylvain. "Put it on. You're sleeping in the guest room tonight."
Sylvain blinked, disoriented. "I thought—"
"You thought I'd keep you in my bed?" Silas arched one brow. "Not yet. You haven't earned the privilege of waking up next to me."
The words landed like a slap—soft, precise, stinging.
Sylvain sat up slowly, he pulled the robe around himself with shaking hands, tying the belt so tightly it almost hurt.
Silas watched the entire process with lazy satisfaction. "When you're ready to beg properly," he said, standing and stretching like a large cat, "you know where to find me."
He walked toward the en-suite bathroom without looking back.
At the doorway he paused. "One more thing." Sylvain looked up.
Silas's voice dropped to something dangerously intimate. " Every part of you is owned by me, one wrong move and you pay for it". He disappeared into the bathroom.
The door clicked shut.
Sylvain sat alone on the ruined sheets, still trembling, tasting humiliation like copper on his tongue.
Three months.
He wasn't sure he'd survive the first night. The second night might be terrible.