Chapter 78

Alex’s eyes snapped open as if a dormant machine had been jolted back to life.

The darkness that had consumed his vision was instantly replaced by blinding clarity as his senses rushed back to him. It took several seconds to orient himself; his gaze drifted across a ceiling that looked nothing like the one in his flat, and as he tried to push himself up, a surge of agonizing pain met him.

“Ah… ngh!”

A pained moan escaped him before he could suppress it. His lower back felt as if it were on the verge of snapping, and his hips ached with a deep, radiating soreness. Worse still was the sharp, stinging heat emanating from his backside; he felt raw and invaded, the phantom sensation of being stretched still lingering within him.

Slowly, the fragmented memories of the night before coalesced. He remembered his own pathetic sobs as he pleaded for Nathan to stop, and the image of his body, limp and spent after countless releases, flickered through his mind. It was as if he had expended a lifetime’s worth of desire in a single night.

Alex tentatively reached up to touch his neck, only to flinch at the stinging sensitivity of his skin. It felt as though he had been savaged, bitten and marked by someone who possessed a ruthless, unyielding focus.

While Nathan had always been a man of iron resolve, his behavior in bed had been nothing short of merciless. He had been a clinical predator; whenever Alex had tried to scramble away, Nathan had simply pinned him by the waist or seized his ankles to force him open once more.

He remembered that while they had started at a similar rhythm, Nathan had eventually begun to hold back his own climax, dragging out the act until Alex was driven to the brink of insanity.

Alex snapped his head around, scanning the room. The bedroom was silent. The hallway was silent. There was no sign of another living soul in the vast suite.

“Nathan…?”

A cold wave of anxiety rose in his chest, and Alex scrambled out of bed, ignoring the protests of his battered muscles. His eyes, already raw from hours of weeping, grew hot and blurry once more. The heavy silence of the suite pressed in on him like a physical weight.

Did he leave? Without saying a word?

The intimacy had been framed as a “treatment,” yet the thought of being discarded so abruptly made Alex’s heart feel like a hollow shell. He didn’t want it to end like this. He forced his trembling thighs to hold his weight and staggered into the living area. The space was enormous, taking up half the floor, but as he searched the multiple rooms, the shower, and the lounge, Nathan was nowhere to be found.

“Nathan, are you gone…?”

He called out to the empty air, his voice a broken thread. There was no answer. His strength vanished, replaced by a crushing, wretched loneliness.

Of course he left, Alex thought, biting his lip until it bled. What else did I expect?

Standing paralyzed in the middle of the corridor, Alex tried to remember where he had left his phone. He began to limp slowly back toward the bathroom he had used earlier.

Just as he reached for the handle, the door swung open from the inside. Alex blinked, his head snapping up to see Nathan standing there, fully dressed in his sharp suit. His hair was perfectly in place, as if the chaos of the night had never touched him, and his expression was back to its usual blank state.

For a fleeting second, Nathan’s gaze seemed to lock onto Alex’s frame with a strange, possessive intensity.

“Alex,” Nathan rasped.

“Nathan,” Alex whispered, his face lighting up with a relief so profound he struggled to hide the smile tugging at his lips. He forced his expression to remain neutral as he asked, “I… I thought you’d already left.”

“I’m leaving soon,” Nathan replied curtly. He checked his watch, but Alex knew he was only being defensive; he had planned to be at work hours ago. Nathan pushed the door wider and reached out to take Alex by the wrist. His grip was firm, a slightly rougher strength than Alex was used to, though today every touch felt amplified.

As Nathan tried to pull him forward, the movement triggered a fresh wave of pain in Alex’s lower back, and he let out a sharp gasp.

Nathan stopped instantly. “Sorry,” he muttered, his features contorting with a flash of genuine alarm.

“It’s fine,” Alex reassured him quickly, shaking his head.

With a grave expression, Nathan led him into the bathroom, where the tub was already filled with steaming water.

“I have to apologize first,” Nathan said quietly, gesturing for Alex to get into the bath.

Alex obeyed without question; his apartment only had a cramped shower stall, and the prospect of soaking his aching limbs was a luxury he couldn’t refuse. The water was a perfect, soothing temperature. As Alex settled into the porcelain basin, he looked up at Nathan.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because I acted… like a total idiot today,” Nathan confessed.

The word idiot felt entirely out of place when applied to Nathan White. Alex stared at him, his brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Nathan sat on the edge of the tub and wiped a hand over his face in a weary gesture. He looked down at Alex, his voice heavy with regret. “I didn’t prepare you well enough. I should have been more careful with the foreplay.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Alex stammered, his face turning a deep shade of rose. In truth, the shared inexperience and the somewhat clumsy nature of their encounter had been a source of comfort for him; the memory of Nathan admitting it was his first time made Alex’s chest feel tight and warm.

“I’m still sorry,” Nathan insisted.

I should be the one apologizing, not him, Alex thought. Nathan was only in this situation because Alex’s body was failing, and Nathan had been the one to provide the cure.

“I’m really okay, Nathan. I…” Alex’s voice dropped to a mere whisper. “I liked it.”

He didn’t mean that he had enjoyed the pain of the invasion. While he had reached a climax multiple times while receiving, a biological phenomenon he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around, the act had been undeniably painful.

But he had loved the proximity. Being touched by Nathan had filled him with a joy so overwhelming it was almost unbearable.

Nathan didn’t reply, his hand reaching out tentatively as if to touch Alex’s forehead, only to pull back at the last second. Alex felt a hollow sense of disappointment at the lost contact.

Nathan stood up and retrieved a bottle of water and a packet of medication from the counter. He returned to the edge of the tub and held out a capsule with a pale thumb and index finger. When Alex reached for it with a wet hand, Nathan stopped him.

“Open your mouth,” Nathan commanded.

“Huh?”

“It dissolves quickly when it touches water. You need to take it immediately.”

Alex hesitated, a flare of nerves igniting in his gut as he parted his lips. A memory of Nathan’s tongue invading his mouth flashed through his mind, making his heart hammer against his ribs. Just as he prepared to pull back, Nathan’s finger brushed his lip.

Nathan watched him in silence as he slowly placed the pill on Alex’s tongue. His index finger grazed Alex’s lower teeth and the soft inner curve of his lip as he withdrew. Alex held his breath, his body frozen, his lips trembling with a fine, electric tremor.

The only sound in the bathroom was the intermittent dripping of water. They stared at each other in the heavy silence until Nathan finally broke it with a faint sigh. He uncapped the water bottle and handed it to Alex.

Alex took the bottle like a dutiful child and swallowed the medication. Nathan was right; the pill began to melt instantly, leaving a bitter, medicinal tang on his tongue.

“You should feel better after three or four doses,” Nathan explained, his voice returning to a detached, professional tone that made their shared night feel like a fever dream. “After that, switch to the suppressants prescribed by Royal London.”

“However, you need to maintain a regular sexual cycle once or twice a year. The neutralizing agent only manages the side effects; even the best drugs can’t prevent permanent damage if you continue to rely solely on suppressants like you did in the past.”

Nathan stood up, and Alex felt his heart sink. He knew he shouldn’t cling, but the thought of Nathan walking out that door was unbearable.

“Are you… leaving now?” Alex asked, his voice thick with unstated longing.

Nathan paused, then gave a curt nod. He checked his watch one last time and hesitated before offering a brief explanation. “I have things I need to attend to at work.”

“I see,” Alex whispered, lowering his head. His brain struggled to process the rejection; he felt a childish sense of dejection that he knew was entirely unearned. They weren’t in a relationship. They were nothing.

“Goodbye, Nathan,” he murmured.

Please don’t go.

“Yeah,” Nathan replied simply.

Alex stared into the clear water of the tub, but as the sound of Nathan’s shoes clicking against the marble floor grew more distant, instinct took over. He lunged upward, the water sloshing over the side of the tub as he reached out and seized Nathan’s wrist. He used a strength that startled even himself; he had never held Nathan with such desperation.

Nathan stumbled, forced to turn back by the sheer force of the movement. His green eyes were wide with surprise as they met Alex’s dark, pleading gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Alex stammered, reality finally catching up to him.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he looked down at Alex’s hand on his suit sleeve. After a moment of silence, he spoke in a low, troubled tone. “I’m already late… I really have to go.”

Nathan placed his own hand over Alex’s fingers. The hand that had spent hours caressing and possessing him was now gently but firmly removing him. It wasn’t a cruel movement, yet it wasn’t a tender one either; it was merely a professional correction. As each of Alex’s fingers was peeled away, he felt as though his very heart were being fractured into pieces.

Finally, the contact was broken entirely.

“Take the next dose of the neutralizer sometime next week,” Nathan said, his voice flat. “I don’t care about the checkout time, so leave tomorrow whenever you’re ready. I’ve already cleared your meals with the front desk.”

That was his final word.

Without a backward glance, Nathan walked out and closed the bathroom door. Alex sat back down in the tub, listening to the muffled sound of footsteps in the hallway followed by the final, heavy thud of the suite’s main door.

He sat in the silence for a long time, his mind a total void. Then, slowly, a hot, painful surge of emotion rose in his throat, a loneliness so acute it felt like a physical wound.

It really was nothing to him, Alex thought, his vision swimming.

He stared down at his own body, at the vivid red marks scattered across his thighs and torso. He curled into a ball, burying his face against his knees as a shallow, broken sob escaped him. A dull ache spread from the center of his chest, radiating through his entire being.

It’s okay, he whispered to himself.

Even if it was nothing to him… it still meant everything to me.

Alex let out a long, weary sigh and began to wash the remnants of the night from his skin. By the time he finished, the tears pooled in his eyes had merged with the bathwater, leaving no trace of his sorrow behind. Just like their relationship, they had vanished into the deep.

[END of VOLUME 2]