The phone rang just as Elias was shoving his stethoscope into his locker. He ignored it once. Twice. By the third time, he dragged it out, already scowling at the number.
Lucian.
He should’ve silenced it. Should’ve thrown the damn phone into his bag and walked away. But exhaustion loosened his grip, and before he could think better of it, he answered.
“Busy,” Elias muttered.
“You’re off shift.” Lucian’s voice was smooth, certain. Not a question.
“I should be asleep.”
“You should,” Lucian agreed easily. Then, after a pause, “Come here.”
Elias laughed once, dry and humorless. “No.”
“Elias.” Just his name. Drawn out like silk stretched thin.
Elias leaned back against the cool metal lockers, closing his eyes. His body begged for sleep, but his pulse betrayed him, quickening despite everything. “Why would I?”
“Because you’re tired.” Lucian’s tone never wavered. “And I’ll take better care of you than your empty apartment ever could.”
The words slid beneath his ribs, dangerously close to the hollow spaces he never let anyone touch. He wanted to hang up. He should have.
Instead, silence answered for him.
Lucian didn’t push further. “Thirty-ninth floor. I’ll be waiting.”
The line went dead.
Elias stared at the phone in his hand, heart hammering, until finally—against reason, against pride—he found himself in the back of another car, the city lights blurring past like warnings he ignored.
---
The elevator opened into quiet luxury. Golds and blacks, glass walls that made the night city sprawl endless. Elias stepped out stiffly, too aware of his own cheap sneakers against marble.
Lucian was already at the door. He didn’t say hello. Didn’t ask about Elias’s day. He just looked him over once—sharp, thorough—and then said, “I drew a bath.”
Elias blinked. “What?”
“This way.”
Lucian turned, expecting him to follow. And Elias did, against every protest screaming in his chest.
The master bathroom was larger than his entire apartment. A sunken tub glowed under recessed lighting, steam curling upward in lazy ribbons. The scent of cedarwood and something darker—Lucian himself—hung in the air.
“This feels like a trap,” Elias muttered, his voice too thin against the quiet.
Lucian’s smile was faint, unreadable. “Then call it mercy. You look like you’re drowning.”
The words stung because they were true. His body was frayed to the edges, each nerve ending raw. He wanted to argue. Wanted to leave. Instead, his hands moved numbly to his scrubs, peeling away sweat-soaked fabric.
He hated that Lucian watched.
He hated more that Lucian didn’t look away.
Slowly, Elias lowered himself into the water. The heat swallowed him whole, pulling a groan from his chest he couldn’t suppress. His muscles eased instantly, as if they’d been waiting for this moment of surrender all week.
When he looked up, Lucian hadn’t moved.
He sat in a corner chair, sleeves rolled, one ankle crossed over his knee. His posture was casual, but his gaze was anything but.
“You’re staying?” Elias asked. His voice was steadier than he felt.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lucian tilted his head, eyes dark and calm. “Because I want to.”
Elias let out a short laugh, tilting his head back against the edge of the tub. “You don’t even try to pretend you’re normal, do you?”
“I told you,” Lucian murmured. “I don’t do normal.”
Steam curled between them. The water lapped softly at Elias’s chest. He stretched his arms along the sides of the tub, exposing his throat, his collarbone. The movement was innocent. Should’ve been, anyway. But Lucian’s gaze tracked it like a predator watching something fragile.
And Elias let him.
---
Time blurred. Neither of them spoke. Neither moved.
It should have been unbearable. But the silence didn’t suffocate. It pulsed—alive, charged, like a wire stretched too tight.
Elias sank lower into the bath, heat searing into bone. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, his head tipping back. He felt Lucian’s gaze even then, heavy and insistent.
When his eyes opened again, they locked immediately on Lucian’s.
Something unspoken passed.
Not words. Instinct.
Come here.
Not yet.
Please.
Not yet.
Lucian’s fingers twitched once against his knee. That was all.
And Elias, instead of recoiling, let his lips curve into something that wasn’t quite a smile. A dare. A challenge.
The city glowed behind the glass walls, a hundred stories of distance between them and the rest of the world.
Elias had never felt more exposed. Or more excited
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