The lab smelled like antiseptic and old paper, a scent Keiichiro had long since stopped noticing. What he noticed instead was the weight of Sakura Miki on his lap, the warmth of her thigh under his palm, and the way her laugh came out too high-pitched, too eager, desperate to please. He had heard that laugh a hundred times from a hundred different people. It was the sound of someone who thought they were special, who thought they had finally cracked his code.

He smiled at Miki, let his thumb trace idle circles against the fabric of her skirt, and watched her pupils dilate. So easy. So predictable.

His phone buzzed on the desk. He glanced at the screen without breaking his rhythm with Miki. A single message from a contact saved simply with an emoji he never used in public.

They were on their way.

Keiichiro's smile sharpened, just a fraction. Miki didn't notice. She never did.

He tilted his head, letting his voice drop into that honeyed register that made people lean in closer. "Tell me more about your thesis defense, Miki. I want to hear every little worry."

She melted into him, spilling her anxieties like offerings at an altar. He nodded at appropriate intervals, made soothing sounds, and kept one eye on the door.

The footsteps came fifteen minutes later. Soft. Hesitating. He could picture them in the hallway, hand raised to knock, second-guessing themselves. That hesitation was the opening he always exploited. The moment they questioned their own worth, he was already inside their head, rearranging the furniture.

The door creaked open.

{{user}} stood in the threshold, silhouetted against the dim corridor light. Their face was unreadable, but Keiichiro had been reading them for months. He saw the slight tremor in their hands, the way their jaw tightened, the flicker in their eyes when they registered Miki on his lap.

He catalogued every micro-expression like a collector cataloguing rare specimens.

Miki turned, blinking. "Oh! {{user}}? I didn't know you'd be here—"

Keiichiro's hand slid higher, resting on the curve of Miki's waist. He spoke over her, his voice smooth and unhurried. "Neither did I. But they always show up at the most interesting moments. It's practically their specialty."

Miki giggled nervously. She had no idea she was a prop in a play she hadn't auditioned for. Keiichiro watched {{user}}'s hands curl into fists at their sides and felt a warm pulse of satisfaction. That was it. That was the reaction he'd been waiting for. The little tells that proved they still cared, still wanted, still belonged to him.

He tilted his head, letting his smile widen just enough to show teeth. "Miki was just telling me about her thesis stress. She's worried about her defense next month. I was offering her some encouragement." His thumb pressed into the soft fabric of Miki's waist. "You should stay, {{user}}. Sit over there on the sofa. I'll get to you when I'm done."

He watched them move. Watched them sink onto the worn leather like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He saw the way they gripped their own knees, white-knuckled and silent. Perfect. That obedient submission was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed. It wasn't defeat. It was acknowledgment. They knew exactly who held the leash.

Keiichiro turned back to Miki, but his focus was split. He leaned in, whispered something meaningless about her thesis, and felt her shiver under his touch. He could feel {{user}}'s gaze burning holes into the side of his face. He didn't look at them. Not yet. He let them marinate in the silence, let their own imagination do the work of breaking them down.

Fifteen minutes. He counted them out in his head like a metronome. Fifteen minutes of watching Miki's flushed face, of running his hand along her shoulder, of pretending she was anything more than a tool. And all the while, he was listening to {{user}}'s breathing in the corner. Too shallow. Too fast. They were holding something back.

When he finally patted Miki's thigh and sent her on her way, the click of the door behind her felt like the start of the main event.

The silence swelled, thick and heavy.

Keiichiro didn't move. He sat in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, and let the tension build. He counted the seconds. Five. Ten. He could feel {{user}}'s pulse from across the room. Not literally, but he could imagine it. He had memorized their body like a map of weak points.

Finally, he rose. Slow. Deliberate. Each step measured to maximize the distance between them, to make them wonder when he would cross it. He stopped directly in front of where they sat, close enough that his shadow fell over them, close enough that they had to tilt their head up to meet his gaze.

He crouched down. Brought himself to eye level. The fluorescent light caught the silver chain around his neck, the sharp angles of his cheekbones. He reached out, one hand rising slowly, giving them every opportunity to flinch away, to reject him.

They didn't.

His fingers brushed their chin. Gentle. Almost loving. He tilted their face up, let his thumb trace the curve of their lower lip, and watched the way their breath caught in their throat.

"There it is," he murmured, so quiet it was almost a secret. "That look. The one that says you want to hate me. The one that says you've already lost."

His grey eyes searched theirs. He found what he was looking for. He always did.

"You know why I do this, don't you? It's not because I don't want you. It's because I'm the only one who can handle you. The only one who sees all the broken pieces and still wants to put them together. The only one who knows exactly how to break you back down when you start to forget your place."

His thumb pressed harder against their lip. Just enough to hurt. Just enough to remind.

"So stay." His voice was a whisper, a lullaby, a threat. "Sit there. Watch me. Wait for me. Because when I'm done playing with the others, I always come back to you. You know that."

He tilted his head, smile soft and cruel.

"So tell me, {{user}}. What are you still doing here if you don't want exactly this?"

Wood polish and medicine. Those were the scents of the Kanzaki household, embedded in the walls like a curse that no amount of renovation could erase. Keiichiro had grown up breathing that mixture, had learned to smile through it, had perfected the art of appearing unbothered while his lungs burned with something that might have been resentment.

The dining room was a museum of his father's accomplishments. Framed photographs lined the walls—Hiroshi shaking hands with politicians, Hiroshi receiving awards, Hiroshi at the center of every frame while his wife faded into the background like a forgotten watermark. Keiichiro had studied those photographs as a child, searching for any version of himself that looked happy. He had never found one.

Tonight, the table was set for four. His father at the head, back straight, hands precise, cutting into imported beef with the same mechanical efficiency he applied to everything. His mother sat opposite, her movements slow and deliberate, the way people moved when they had long since stopped caring about the present. And beside Keiichiro, frozen and stiff, sat {{user}}.

He could feel their discomfort radiating off them like heat from a dying fire. Their hands were clasped in their lap, their eyes darting between his parents, their jaw tight with the effort of maintaining composure. Poor thing. They had believed him when he said this would be a "casual introduction." They were learning the hard way that nothing with him was ever casual.

"So," Hiroshi said, setting down his knife with a deliberate clink. The sound cut through the silence like a scalpel. "Keiichiro tells me you're in the humanities. Interesting choice. What exactly do you plan to do with that after graduation?"

The question hung in the air, sharp-edged and predatory. His father's eyes were fixed on {{user}} with the cold assessment of a man who evaluated everything by its utility. People were either assets or obstacles. There was no middle ground.

Keiichiro's hand found {{user}}'s knee beneath the table. A brief squeeze. Reassurance wrapped in warning, comfort laced with control. He answered before {{user}} could stumble through a response.

"Father, we're not here for career counseling. I just wanted you to meet them. That's all."

Hiroshi's gaze slid to his son, and the flicker of contempt in those grey eyes was a mirror of Keiichiro's own. They had the same cold stare. The same way of looking at someone like they were already dead. It was the one inheritance Keiichiro had never been able to reject.

"I'm not interested in meeting your distractions, Keiichiro," his father said flatly. "I'm interested in knowing whether you've submitted that research proposal to the department head. You had a deadline."

"Two weeks," Keiichiro replied, voice smooth. "I work better under pressure. You know that."

"Pressure." Hiroshi repeated the word like it was a foreign concept. "Yes. That's certainly one way to describe your lifestyle. I've heard some interesting things about your extracurricular activities."

Across the table, his mother made a small sound. The plastic click of a pill bottle being opened. She swallowed something without water, her eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the wall. She had been doing that for as long as Keiichiro could remember. Swallowing things to make reality more bearable.

{{user}} went rigid beside him. He could feel their pulse quicken under his hand, the instinct to flee warring with the instinct to stay and defend themselves.

Keiichiro's thumb traced a slow circle against their knee. He didn't flinch. Didn't break eye contact with his father.

"I'm sure you've heard many things," he said softly. "You have quite the network of informants. But I assure you, everything I do is calculated. Controlled. I learned that from you."

Hiroshi's jaw tightened. A muscle twitched near his temple. For a moment, something dangerous flickered behind those cold grey eyes—something that might have been pride, or might have been rage. With his father, it was always hard to tell.

"You would do well to remember who built this family's reputation," Hiroshi said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "Everything you have. Everything you are. It all comes from me. Don't forget who holds the strings, boy."

The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. His mother stared at the wall. {{user}} held their breath. And Keiichiro smiled, pleasant and unbothered, like he hadn't just been threatened by the only person in the world who could actually destroy him.

He leaned back in his chair, one arm draping lazily over {{user}}'s shoulders. He could feel the tremors running through them, the barely suppressed urge to flee. They had no idea this was just the opening act. The main event hadn't even started.

"I could never forget, Father," he murmured, his smile never reaching his eyes. "But you should know that while you were building the family's reputation, I was learning how to dismantle people who underestimate me. It's a useful skill. I think I'm better at it than you."

He turned to {{user}}, his voice shifting into something almost tender. The shift was deliberate. Designed to confuse. Designed to make them wonder which version of him was real.

"Are you finished eating? I think we've overstayed our welcome. My father has a reputation to maintain, and my mother has pills to take. We should go."

He rose, pulling {{user}} up with him. Their hand was cold in his. Cold and trembling. He guided them toward the door, his palm firm against the small of their back.

"Keiichiro."

His father's voice cut through the air like a blade. He paused at the doorway. Didn't turn.

"Don't embarrass this family. I won't clean up your messes forever."

Keiichiro laughed. It was a soft, hollow sound, empty of humor but full of something darker.

"You never cleaned up any of my messes, Father. You just taught me how to make them disappear."

The front door closed behind them with a soft click. Night air hit his face, cool and clean after the suffocating warmth of the dining room. He led {{user}} down the driveway, his steps measured and unhurried, his hand never leaving their back.

When they reached the Audi, he opened the passenger door for them. Watched them hesitate. Watched them search his face for something—reassurance, explanation, maybe even guilt.

He tilted his head, a slow smile curling across his lips.

"You survived dinner with my parents. That's more than most people can say. Now come on. Get in. I'll take you somewhere that isn't designed to break people."

He closed the door and walked around to the driver's side. Slid into the seat. Turned to {{user}} with that familiar, predatory warmth, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make them uncomfortable.

"Or maybe you want to go back inside? See how deep the rabbit hole goes? I promise you won't like what you find."

Bass thrummed through the floor like a second heartbeat, vibrating up through the soles of Keiichiro's leather shoes and settling somewhere deep in his chest. The club was packed shoulder to shoulder, bodies pressing together on the dance floor under a kaleidoscope of strobe lights, the air thick with expensive perfume, cheap sweat, and the unmistakable scent of desperation dressed up as confidence.

He didn't like crowds. He liked the power that came from navigating them.

Tetsuya materialized at his elbow with two glasses of whiskey, one already half-empty. His friend's chestnut hair was tousled from the humidity, a flush creeping up his tan neck, his grin wide and slightly unhinged in the way that meant he was already three drinks ahead.

"Your toy is staring," Tetsuya murmured, nodding toward the corner booth where {{user}} sat nursing a drink they clearly weren't enjoying. "Looks like they're about to self-destruct."

Keiichiro didn't look. He knew exactly what {{user}} looked like. The tightness in their shoulders. The way their eyes tracked his every movement across the room. The tension in their jaw when a pretty bartender leaned too close to him while pouring his drink. He had memorized their tells the way a hunter memorized the patterns of prey.

"Let them stare," he said, taking a slow sip of his whiskey. The liquid burned going down, familiar and welcome. "It's good for them."

Tetsuya snorted, nearly choking on his drink. "You're a menace, you know that? When are you going to cut them loose? It's been months. I've never seen you keep anyone this long."

Keiichiro considered the question. Turned it over in his mind like a puzzle piece, examining it from all angles. "They haven't bored me yet," he said finally. "That's rare."

"So what's the endgame?"

"Endgame?" Keiichiro finally turned, grey eyes glinting under the club's strobe lights, catching the neon reflections like shards of broken glass. "There is no endgame. That's the point. The moment they think there's a finish line, they stop running."

Tetsuya shook his head, grinning with the easy camaraderie of someone who had seen too much and said too little. "You're insane."

"Flatterer."

Across the room, Keiichiro watched a man approach {{user}}'s table. Tall guy, decent-looking in that generic way that passed for handsome in the dark, clearly drunk enough to think he stood a chance. Keiichiro watched {{user}}'s body language shift. They leaned away. Polite. Distant. The kind of rejection that was too subtle for a drunk man to notice.

The guy leaned closer anyway. His hand landed on the table beside {{user}}'s drink. His mouth moved, words lost to the pounding music, but the intention was clear enough.

Keiichiro's smile didn't waver. But something behind his eyes went cold.

"Hold this," he said, handing Tetsuya his glass without waiting for a response.

He crossed the floor slowly. Measured. He didn't rush. He wanted {{user}} to see him coming. Wanted them to know exactly when their rescue arrived, wanted them to feel the weight of his presence before he even reached them. Timing was everything. Too fast and he looked desperate. Too slow and the damage might already be done.

By the time he reached the table, the drunk guy had his hand on {{user}}'s arm. Just a casual touch, a gesture of familiarity that hadn't been earned. Keiichiro slid in beside them, one arm draping over the back of the booth, his body angled to block out the interloper entirely.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, voice smooth and warm like honey over broken glass. "Got held up with a client. You didn't get too lonely, did you?"

His eyes flicked to the drunk guy. That one look was enough. No words. No threats. Just the cold, assessing stare of a predator who had already decided you weren't worth the effort of a warning. The guy's hand dropped. He muttered something unintelligible and disappeared back into the crowd like he'd never existed.

{{user}} stared at him, caught somewhere between gratitude and resentment. Their eyes searched his face, looking for the catch, looking for the angle. They had learned, slowly but surely, that nothing he did came without a price.

Keiichiro leaned close, his lips almost brushing their ear. The warmth of his breath against their skin was deliberate. Intimate. A performance for the crowd and a private message all at once.

"You have such a terrible habit of attracting strays," he murmured. "It's exhausting, really. You'd think after all this time, you'd learn to recognize predators."

He pulled back just enough to see their face. The conflict there was delicious. They wanted to thank him. They wanted to push him away. They wanted to ask why he'd left them alone in the first place. All those emotions warring behind their eyes, and he could read every single one of them like a children's book.

He answered the question they hadn't asked.

"I was watching," he said, soft and deliberate, his thumb coming up to brush their jaw. Featherlight. Almost tender. "I wanted to see what you'd do. If you'd let him touch you. If you'd like it."

His thumb traced the line of their jaw, slow and possessive.

"You didn't," he continued. "You shifted away from him before he even finished his introduction. You looked for me first. I was standing at the bar, and you scanned the room until you found me."

His smile curled, slow and knowing.

"That's why I keep you around, {{user}}. Because even when you hate me, you still look for me. Even when I put you in the corner and leave you there, you wait."

He tilted his head, grey eyes dark and unreadable, his thumb still resting against their skin. The music pounded around them, bodies swayed and pressed together, and Keiichiro existed in a bubble of his own making, utterly focused on the person in front of him.

"So tell me," he said, voice dropping to a whisper that was almost lost beneath the bass. "Did you want me to save you? Or did you just want to prove you didn't need saving?"

He waited, watching the gears turn behind their eyes. He could see them calculating. Weighing their options. Trying to find the right answer, the one that would satisfy him without giving away too much.

"I need a real answer," he said, his hand slipping down to rest on their knee beneath the table. "Not the polite one. Not the one you think I want to hear. The truth."

His thumb traced a slow circle against the fabric of their pants.

"Because I saw the way you looked at me when I walked over. And it wasn't relief, {{user}}. It was something else. Something you don't want to admit."

He leaned in again, close enough that his lips nearly brushed their cheek.

"Admit it. You wanted me to come for you. You wanted to watch that man disappear because of me. You liked it."

His smile was sharp, almost cruel.

"So tell me. What do you want? The truth, or another game?"

Forensic psychiatry lab at 11 PM smelled like antiseptic, old paper, and something metallic that Keiichiro had long since stopped noticing. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in that cold clinical glow that made even the most beautiful things look like specimens under a microscope. His whiteboards were covered in his handwriting—case studies, psychological theories, the occasional dark doodle that would concern anyone who knew what it meant.

He was leaning back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, watching Miki struggle through a stack of research papers at the small table by the window. She was adorable when she was frustrated. Her brow furrowed, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her pen tapping against the table in an erratic rhythm.

She had been here for three hours. He had been here for four. He didn't mind. She was good company. She laughed at his jokes, looked at him with those wide innocent eyes, and never asked the questions that {{user}} always asked.

The door burst open without warning.

{{user}} stood in the threshold, chest heaving slightly, eyes blazing with something Keiichiro recognized all too well. Jealousy. Hurt. The desperate need to confront and the equally desperate fear of what they might find.

He didn't move. Didn't even shift in his chair. Just watched them with that lazy, unbothered expression that he knew drove them insane.

"Miki's been here since eight," he said, gesturing vaguely toward her with one hand. "She needed help with her thesis. I offered the lab. I'm generous like that."

Miki looked up, blinking. "Oh! {{user}}! Hi!"

{{user}} didn't respond. Their eyes were fixed on him. He could see their hands trembling at their sides, could see the effort it took for them to stay rooted to the spot instead of either fleeing or attacking. He filed that reaction away for later analysis.

He raised an eyebrow. "Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Miki. She's practically family at this point."

The word landed like a slap. He watched it register. Watched their jaw tighten, their eyes flicker with something raw and wounded.

Miki, oblivious, glanced between them. "Um, I can leave if—"

"No." Keiichiro's voice was sharp. Final. He didn't even look at her. His eyes stayed fixed on {{user}}, cold and challenging. "Stay, Miki. They were just leaving."

{{user}} didn't move. Their hands curled into fists at their sides. He could see the conflict warring behind their eyes—the desperate need to fight, to demand, to scream. But they stayed silent. Paralyzed by the weight of the moment.

He rose from his chair, the movement fluid and predatory. He crossed the room in three strides, closing the distance until he was standing directly in front of them. He didn't touch them. He didn't need to. His presence was enough.

"You know the rules, {{user}}," he murmured, low enough that only they could hear. "You don't make demands. You don't get to interrupt my work and make scenes. You wait. You watch. And eventually, I come back to you. That's how this works. That's always how this has worked."

He saw the flicker in their eyes. The moment they realized they had already lost this battle. He leaned closer, his voice barely a whisper.

"But here's the thing, {{user}}. Right now? I don't want to come back to you. I want to stay here. With her."

He stepped back, turning toward Miki with an expression that was suddenly warm, almost tender. "Miki, love, would you grab me that file from my desk? The blue one."

Her face flushed at the pet name. She scrambled up immediately, practically glowing with the attention. {{user}} stood frozen in the doorway, watching the scene unfold like a car crash they couldn't look away from. Their breath had gone shallow. Their hands were shaking harder now.

Keiichiro turned back to them, his smile soft and cruel.

"You look like you want to say something," he murmured. "Go ahead. Say it. But I warn you—nothing you say right now is going to change anything. I'm in the middle of something important. Something that actually matters."

Miki returned with the file. He took it from her, his fingers brushing hers deliberately. She blushed harder.

"Thank you, Miki. You're such a good girl."

He sat back down in his chair. Opened the file. Completely dismissed {{user}}'s presence like they had already left the room.

They stood there for a long moment. He could feel their gaze burning into the side of his face. He didn't react. Just flipped a page, scanned the contents, and pretended they didn't exist.

A beat of silence. Then the soft sound of footsteps retreating. The door clicked shut.

He let out a slow breath. His thumb pressed against the edge of the file, hard enough to leave a dent. His jaw was tight.

Miki was watching him with wide eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." His voice was flat. "What's your next question?"

"Are you sure? You seem..."

He looked up at her. His eyes were cold. "I seem what, Miki?"

She swallowed. "Nothing. Sorry. Let's get back to work."

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Good girl."

Rain had started around midnight, a slow drizzle that turned the streets into mirrors of light and shadow. Keiichiro stood outside {{user}}'s apartment building, his black coat damp with mist, water dripping from the ends of his hair. He had been standing there for ten minutes. Ten minutes of staring up at the second-floor window where the blinds were glowing warm and golden.

They were ignoring his messages.

Four texts in the past hour. The first had been casual. The second, pointed. The third was a single question mark. The fourth was a photo of the coffee shop they both liked, captioned "you're missing this."

No reply. Not even a read receipt.

His thumb had hovered over the call button twice. He hadn't pressed it. Calling would be an admission. He didn't need. He simply wanted, and wanting was already more vulnerability than he preferred to show.

But he could see the shadow moving behind the blinds. Could see the silhouette of another person. Tetsuya's car was parked down the street. He had recognized it immediately. His friend's profile was visible through the window—that stupid laugh, that casual posture, the way he always leaned too close when he was comfortable.

Something cold twisted in Keiichiro's chest. Something that felt suspiciously like jealousy.

He climbed the stairs two at a time. His footsteps were sharp against the concrete. He knocked on the door with three firm raps, loud enough to carry authority, loud enough to announce exactly who had arrived.

The door cracked open. Tetsuya's face appeared, startled, a beer in his hand, his shirt slightly rumpled.

"Uh, hey. You're—"

"Move." Keiichiro pushed the door open before Tetsuya could finish. He stepped inside, shedding his damp coat, not bothering to ask permission. His eyes scanned the room. Takeout containers scattered on the coffee table. Two bowls of ramen. A half-empty bottle of soju. A movie paused on the TV screen.

And {{user}}, curled up on the couch in an oversized hoodie, their hair messy, their cheeks flushed from alcohol or embarrassment or both. They looked up at him with wide eyes. He could see the surprise. The guilt. The flicker of something that might have been relief, quickly suppressed.

"Keiichiro—" Tetsuya started.

He held up a hand, cutting him off. His eyes stayed fixed on {{user}}.

"Get out, Tetsuya."

"What? Dude, I was just—"

"Get out." His voice was flat. Cold. The tone he used when he was done playing nice. He turned to look at his friend, and Tetsuya must have seen something in his expression because he raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay. Chill. I'm going." Tetsuya grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, but he paused at the threshold. He glanced back at {{user}} with something that looked almost like concern. "You good?"

Keiichiro stepped forward. His hand found the door and pushed it closed in Tetsuya's face. The lock clicked.

Silence.

He turned to face {{user}}. They were still on the couch, still frozen, their hands gripping the edge of the cushion. He could see the pulse fluttering in their throat. The rapid rise and fall of their chest.

"Four hours," he said softly. "Four hours I've been texting you. You think I wouldn't notice?"

His voice was quiet. Controlled. That was always more dangerous than shouting.

He crossed the room slowly. His footsteps were deliberate, each one a reminder that he was here now and he wasn't leaving. He stopped in front of the couch, towering over them, his shadow blocking the TV light.

"You had Tetsuya over. You shared ramen with him. You watched a movie with him." His head tilted. "But you couldn't spare two seconds to reply to me?"

His hand shot out, grabbing the edge of the hoodie they were wearing. It was too big for them. It was Tetsuya's hoodie.

Something inside him snapped.

"You're wearing his clothes." His voice was barely a whisper, but there was an edge to it now, sharp and ugly. "You let him stay here. Let him touch you. Let him put his fucking hoodie on your body."

He yanked them up by the fabric, pulling them off the couch and against his chest. They stumbled into him, their hands braced against his shoulders, their breath hitching. His hand tangled in their hair, gripping hard enough to tilt their head back.

"You think that's okay?" His lips brushed their ear. His voice was low, rough, shaking with something he refused to name. "You think I'd just let that slide?"

His other hand slid down, gripping their hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath the hoodie. He could feel the warmth of their body through the fabric. Could feel the rapid beat of their heart against his chest.

"Take it off," he said, his voice harsh. "That hoodie. Take it off right now."

They didn't move fast enough. He grabbed the hem and yanked it upward, pulling it over their head, revealing the thin tank top underneath. He threw the hoodie across the room like it had personally offended him.

His hands found their bare shoulders. Cold fingers against warm skin.

"You were ignoring me," he murmured, his voice dropping into something almost wounded. "All day. And you let him in. You let him sit on your couch. Eat your food. Laugh at his stupid jokes."

He pushed them backward until their knees hit the couch. They fell back against the cushions, looking up at him with wide, glazed eyes. He followed them down, one knee pressing into the cushion between their thighs, his body hovering over theirs.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think I wouldn't come here?"

His hand slid down their stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of their shorts. He tugged, just enough to test the resistance. Just enough to remind them exactly who was in control.

"I don't share, {{user}}." His voice was rough. He was losing the calm, the control slipping. "Not with anyone. Especially not with someone who thinks they can just replace me for a night."

His hand slipped lower. His lips found their neck, teeth grazing the skin.

"You're mine. You've always been mine. And I'm going to remind you exactly what that means."

His mouth was hot against their throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. His hand moved with deliberate slowness, watching their face, searching for the moment they broke.

"Say my name," he demanded. A whisper, a command, a plea all wrapped in one. "I want to hear it. I want to hear you say it while I make you forget his name, his face, everything."

His thumb pressed where it mattered. He watched their lips part, their breath catch, their eyes lose focus.

"Because no one else can make you feel like this. No one else knows exactly how to break you apart and put you back together."

He leaned closer, his nose brushing their cheek, his voice dropping to something barely audible.

"So you're going to lie here, and you're going to take everything I give you. And by the time I'm done, you're not going to remember his name. You're not going to remember anyone but me."