The clip was easy enough to pop off the stylus, but then he had to work it a bit to get it the right twisted shape. The locks on the desk were old school, probably because the hulking piece of mahogany wood was an antique. That meant the locks were already flimsy, so it didn’t take long for him to break into the first drawer.
He tugged it out and removed a metal box, setting it on the desk before flicking the lid open. There were dozens of drawings inside, maybe hundreds, and it took him a momentlonger than it should have for him to recognize what he was seeing.
Himself.
Just when he thought Pavel couldn’t get any crazier, the guy always seemed to prove him wrong.
Zane pulled a few of the drawings out, turning them so they were what he believed to be right side up. The loose pages were all different sizes, some sketched in blue ink, others in charcoal or black pen. They showed him from various points of view, some from above as though Pavel had been watching him from a vantage point, others of him bent over a work table, or…sleeping.
He shut the box and opened the next drawer with a bit more fervor, gasping when he yanked it open and discovered there wasn’t even a box to hold the contents of this one.
The photographs were…unsettling.
And abundant.
The drawer was practically stuffed so full it was a wonder he could open it without something getting caught. Like with the drawings, they were printed in different sizes, and Zane pulled out a random handful and spread them across the desk so he could get a better look.
There were shots taken of him on campus, walking between classes, and in the lab. The cafeteria. The parking lot.
Ones of him driving to and from places, and even in the back of the Imperial vehicle that had sometimes been sent for him. Samuel was in some of the pictures, in the corner or background, as if he’d gotten in the way of the camera at the last second and couldn’t be avoided.
They were the usual stalkerish photos, and since Zane had already been aware Pavel was following him around like a creep, he got over being freaked out by them relatively quickly.
Until he pulled out another handful and the images…changed.
One in particular had his heart thumping wildly in his chest and he picked it up to inspect it closer.
He was sleeping in his apartment on campus, only in his boxer briefs, his blanket tossed to the side to expose him.
Pavel’s cock was also in the frame, his hand holding himself up in a way it made it clear he was posing on purpose. He was erect and flushed, a bead of fluid rolling from his tip.
What the hell was this?
He tossed it and reached for another. This time he was sleeping in his room in the Little Palace and there was no dick.
But he was on his stomach and his underwear had been pulled down to bare his ass to the camera.
Had he been drunk when this was taken? Was that why he hadn’t woken up?
There were dozens more like those, though most of them were just shots of him sleeping and nothing else. Occasionally he’d find another lewd one, catch another glimpse of Pavel jerking himself off to his sleeping form, or stripping him to take a naked picture.
Zane fumbled with the clip when he made a grab for it again, desperately trying to slot it into the final lock in the center drawer.
He had to know what was in there.
He had to.
The second the latch came undone he was pulling, whipping it open fast enough he actually lost his balance and fell back into the chair. It didn’t matter; he was too focused on the contents to care.
His multi-slate was there, set carefully to the side of the drawer on a bed of red velvet, but Zane ignored it, eyes scanning the other items instead. There was another framed photo, onlythis time it was of him, a shot of him from the waist up at Friction. He must have just won a sparring match, because he was covered in sweat, and he was grinning.
Pavel must have been standing just at the side of the ring to capture a shot like this, and yet Zane had been completely clueless.
The last thing in the drawer was a box made from the same red velvet his multi-slate was set on. It fit in the palm of his hand when Zane pulled it out, and he tilted it this way and that before curiosity got the best of him and he opened it.
Inside there were two rings. They were gold chain circles, reminding him a lot of the ones Pavel had used to tie him up the other day, though thinner, maybe only around four millimeters or so.
Pretty, in an elegant and masculine way that called to him.
