"Good boy," I murmured.

His breath caught.

A faint pink crept up his neck, spreading across his cheeks like a fever, staining his skin in a way I had never seen before. Advik — the man who didn't blush, who didn't bend, who ruled every room with a glance — was blushing because I had called him a good boy while gripping his hair.

The sight of it did something dangerous to my chest.

I tugged gently, just enough to tilt his head back, just enough to watch his throat work as he swallowed. "Now go have a shower," I said, my voice lower than I intended. "You smell like a distillery."

He didn't move immediately. His eyes held mine, dark and dazed and something else — something that looked almost like awe.

"Fine." His hand found my wrist, his fingers circling the bone with a gentleness that felt new. He pressed a kiss to the inside of my palm, his lips warm and soft against my skin. "I'll listen to you like a good boy."

He gave me a light kiss on my cheek — soft, fleeting, tender — and went inside the bathroom. The door swung shut behind him, and I stood alone in the center of his room, my fingers touching the place where his lips had been, my heart still hammering against my ribs.

But before the latch clicked, he paused.

He looked back at me over his shoulder, his hand on the doorframe, water droplets still clinging to his neck from the earlier shower he hadn't finished. And he smiled.

It wasn't his normal smile.

Not the smirk that made my blood boil. Not the predatory grin from the cafeteria. Not the forced casualness he wore like armor when he was hurting. This was something else entirely — a curve of his mouth that reached his eyes, crinkling the corners, lighting up his face with a warmth that made my stomach flip.

But beneath the warmth, there was something sharper.

Calculating. Mischievous. The smile of a man who had just surrendered his king and was already planning three moves ahead.

He was planning something inside that beautiful, devious head of his. Something that made the hair on my arms stand up and my pulse stutter with an anticipation that felt dangerously close to excitement.

Then he disappeared behind the door.

The latch clicked. The shower turned on — a hiss of water against tile that filled the silence of the flat. I stood there for a long moment, staring at the closed door, wondering what I had just agreed to. Wondering if the boy on his knees had been real, or if he had been another performance, another trap dressed as vulnerability.

After a few minutes, the water was still running, steam curling from beneath the door, carrying the scent of his soap — sandalwood and something darker — into the room where I stood.

I realized I was still on my knees.

My legs had gone numb. My hands were trembling. And the smile he had given me before closing the door was burned into my retinas, a warning and a promise all at once.

I got up slowly, my joints aching, and walked to the window. The city stretched below, indifferent and vast, and I pressed my forehead to the cool glass, trying to remember how to breathe without him in the room.

Trying to remember who I was before I needed him to need me.

I heard him calling.

His voice echoed from the bathroom, low and teasing, curling around my name like smoke. "Kitten? I think I need some help in here."

I knew.

Before I even turned toward the door, before my feet started moving across the carpet, I knew. Whatever he was planning behind that fogged glass, I was already caught in it. The smile he had given me before disappearing — that calculating, mischievous warmth — had been a warning I was too slow to read.

I walked to the bed. His towel was there, folded with the precision that was so uniquely his, and I picked it up with hands that had stopped trembling only minutes ago. I walked to the bathroom door, steam curling from beneath the frame, and stretched my arm toward the gap without looking.

I wasn't going to fall for it. I was being careful. Smart.

"Here." My voice came out steady. "Take it."

A wet hand shot out and closed around my wrist.

He pulled.

I stumbled forward, my shoulder hitting the door, and then I was inside, the door clicking shut behind me with a sound that felt like a lock sliding into place. I closed my eyes instinctively, my heart lurching against my ribs, water droplets hanging in the steamy air, the scent of his soap everywhere — sandalwood and heat and something darker that made my knees weak.

He pushed me against the wall.

The tiles were cold against my back, shockingly cold, and his body was warm and wet and barely clothed in front of me, trapping me between the chill of the bathroom and the furnace of his skin.

"Advik." My voice cracked. "What are you doing?"