Nuri began undressing, painfully aware of the Emperor’s heated gaze latched onto his every movement. It’d only been a week since the last time Silver had seen him naked, and yet something about this time felt different—and not just because they were teetering on a precipice with the state of their future in the balance.
He was self-conscious in a way he’d never been before. Worried that he was going too slowly or too fast. Wondering how the others had done it, how they’d managed to seduce Silver.
To his credit, Silver didn’t say a thing, watching silently all the while, his heated gaze taking on a faraway look with every inch of skin Nuri uncovered. He was visibly hard in less than a minute, standing his ground, even when his cock started to drip.
“Now what?” Nuri brazenly asked once he’d set all his clothes to the side and stood across the other man in the nude. His nerves were shot but he hid it well, lust already causing him to second guess himself and wonder why he’d concocted this plan in the first place.
He hadn’t been lying. He wanted to see. Wanted to experience what the others had. Wanted to find out if Silver could really treat him the same as all of them, especially with the threat of losing Nuri come morning looming over his head.
Would he try to impress him to convince him to stay?
Or would he keep his word and play this out the way Nuri claimed he wanted?
“I’m rough with them,” Silver warned, and Nuri openly scoffed, ignoring the way his hole clenched at those words.
“I don’t know. This all seems pretty tame so far. Nothing I haven’t—”
Silver was on him before he could finish that sentence, practically tossing him onto the bed.
Nuri hit the end of it, only partially on, and scrambled to pull himself into a seated position before he slid to the floor, but Silver didn’t join him yet.
The first time Nuri realized he had inappropriate feelings for the Emperor, they’d been sixteen at the end of gym class. Silver had entered the open shower space, naked and uncaring who saw, and Nuri had turned, brushing soap suds out of his eyes, and in that single second somehow everything had changed.
It’d hardly been the first time they’d showered together after class, and yet something about the water sluicing over his cut abs and the way he’d closed his eyes and groaned when he’d dipped his head under the shower spray had unlocked a part of Nuri he hadn’t been aware existed.
Before that, he’d had minor crushes on both boys and girls, but nothing lasting, and nothing that even came remotely close to the all-consuming lust that had burst to life that day.
He’d rushed from the room, soap still dripping down his body, praying no one noticed he was sporting a hard-on, hiding away in one of the bathroom stalls. It’d been freezing and he’d been in such a rush he hadn’t even thought to grab a towel, but he’d been too ashamed to risk stepping outside and being seen. It’d been at least a half hour before the last student had left and he’d been late for their next class.
Now there was no reason for him to hide, and even if he’d wanted to run, his body locked up, betraying him. He was a slave to every minuscule movement the Emperor made, from the way his chest steadily rose and fell with each breath, and how his fingers practically danced down the divot between his abs,lower, until they curled in that dark snatch of hair just before his jutting cock.
Silver’s movements were elegant, sexual, the exact opposite of how Nuri’s had been earlier, and the reminder that he knew what he was doing because he’d done this a hundred—maybe a thousand—times before had Nuri’s shoulders stiffening and his lips twisting in distaste.
Before he could make contact with his weeping member, Silver pulled his hand away, the corner of his mouth twitching up when Nuri couldn’t catch his sound of disappointment in time.
The Emperor turned, and Nuri watched the movement of his ass as he walked, gulping as his gaze traveled up the line of his spine and across the expanse of the Emperor’s shoulders. He’d always had a powerful body, well-toned and hard. Even when Silver wasn’t the biggest guy in the room, he had this perfect energy about him that put everyone else off, the air around him warning them he was at the top of the food chain.
Of course, his position as the ruler of an entire planet aside, with a body like that, Silver could have anyone he wanted whenever he wanted them. Finding lovers had never been a struggle, but those encounters always ended the same way.
With the other party kicked to the curb by morning.
“Tell me the truth,” he said, trying to figure out what Silver was retrieving from the center desk drawer, but unable to see over him. “How many of them did you sleep with more than once?” Maybe he was wrong. Maybe—
“You’re the only person I’ve ever fucked twice,” Silver confirmed, finding what he was looking for. He didn’t bother to hide the objects as he carried them over, dropping them down on to the edge of the bed.
Nuri stiffened, but Silver tsked.
“Relax. It’s all part of the game.” He bent over him, using the red silk he’d retrieved to cover Nuri’s eyes. His scent surrounded him as his hands tied the long ribbon in place at the back of Nuri’s head.
“Didn’t you say I wasn’t a present?” Nuri listened closely as Silver moved away, trying to track his movements now that his vision had been blocked. Anticipation bubbled over, and he clutched fistfuls of the comforter in an attempt to redirect that energy.
“You’ve always been a gift, Nuri.”
“That isn’t the game,” he reminded.
“This game is torture. How can you expect me to treat you like you’re nobody?”
“If you can’t handle the rules, we can stop right now.” They absolutely could not, but Nuri wasn’t done making Silver squirm. He wanted this to be uncomfortable. The more difficult it was, the more he believed in those words the Emperor had said in the heat of the moment, when the fear of losing Nuri had gripped him.
