* * *
The study was Silver’s personal space, which few were allowed to enter. Even the maids were turned away. Nuri had a tendency to tidy up whenever he was there, but for the most part, Silver kept it to his liking and didn’t want anyone messing about with his things.
An entire wall was made of a projection screen currently packed with handwritten notes. The colors varied and years of living with him had taught Nuri what most of those colors signified. Anything done in bright tones was important, anything done in cool tones were mere ideas still taking fruition. If it was in red, it needed solving immediately.
Notes about work took up most of the board, and something else appeared on the digital screen when Nuri entered, the words large and in blood red.
“Who is Ackor Hue?” Nuri asked, pausing to read it over a few times. He played around with it but wasn’t familiar with the name.
The entire right wall was lined with bookshelves, though instead of books there were items collected over the years,most of them gifts given by Nuri during birthdays and holidays when it’d been deemed inappropriate for him not to give Silver something.
The Emperor was currently standing behind his desk, a large slab of wood with nothing on it aside from the stylus. A screen was set into the surface of the desk which connected to the large wall, which he’d just used to scrawl the name down. He tapped at his multi-slate, sending a file to the large screen, and then rounded the desk.
“Apparently that’s his name,” he replied coolly.
“Who’s name?”
Silver pointed to the screen just as the file he’d sent opened.
One second it looked like a whiteboard covered in words and numbers, and the next a video file was filling the entire wall. It was dark and at first Nuri didn’t know what he was looking at, but then someone moaned, the sound guttural and filling the entire study in an instant, and it all became clear.
Two men were having sex in a dark hotel room. As if knowing the camera was there, one of them reached out and flicked on the end table light, bathing them both in a rich golden glow.
Silver had a man practically bent in half on the bed, his hands pressed beneath his thighs, folding him so that the man’s knees were almost at the side of his head. The angle was at the side of the bed, so the two of them and their position was easy to make out. When he pulled back, his long cock came into view a second before he plowed it forward, causing the man beneath him to jerk and cry out a second time.
Nuri gasped and looked away, cheeks flushing. The sounds continued, the slick coming together of flesh against flesh and the throaty moans of the man Silver was fucking. It wasn’t the first time Nuri had seen the Emperor naked—they’droomed together for nearly a decade, after all—but he’d never seen anything likethisbefore. He was aware that Silver had sex, obviously, but he tried not to think about it, in part because it was intrusive, but also because…
He gulped and fisted his hands at his sides.
“Could you turn that off please?” he asked, his voice coming out strained and almost far away. He was embarrassed, but not enough to retract his request.
“We’re almost at the good part,” Silver told him, stepping closer. But he wasn’t watching the screen. His eyes were glued to Nuri, the interest there apparent.
A wave of indignation clawed its way past the embarrassment and Nuri glared. It was rare for him to show his emotions in the presence of the Emperor, even more so for him to direct any negative ones toward the other man, but this was pushing his boundaries and he found himself giving in to the urge.
“You’re trying to make me uncomfortable on purpose,” he accused, “and I do not appreciate it, majesty.”
“Is that what it seems like?”
“Yes.”
Silver nodded, but he didn’t turn the video off.
“If this is why you called me in here—”
“I’m being blackmailed,” he cut him off before he could say he was leaving and pointed to the screen, “with this.”
It wasn’t common to share sex tapes or do it out in public, but the people of Ignite could hardly be considered prudes. This wouldn’t exactly be the end of the world if it were to leak, especially considering Silver was constantly being fawned over by the media and public. Sure, his position as CEO could be put in jeopardy if it seemed like he wasn’t taking care of the company or his employees, but because he’d had sex and been filmed? Unlikely.
“Just ignore it,” Nuri suggested. “It’ll make headline news for a couple of weeks, but that’s about all.”
“I told you,” Silver said, “we’re almost at the good part.”
The man he was with in the video, the one Nuri now assumed was Ackor Hue, came almost immediately after Silver finished that sentence. Nuri didn’t want to look, kept his eyes on Silver’s stubbornly, but after a while when the sounds continued despite Ackor having clearly finished, he found his curiosity growing. There had to be more to this than a mere sex scandal if Silver really was concerned about it getting out there.
“Here,” the Emperor told him, indicating the spot in the video he’d meant.
Almost as if possessed, Nuri found his head turning back to the screen, unable to look away.
