CHAPTER 75: CHAPTER 75: WORDLESS CONSENT.

Elias’s breath caught halfway in his chest, stalled between denial and surrender. The room pressed in, thick with the weight of everything unspoken, the taste of Victor’s pheromones heavy in the back of his throat. His fingers, curled in the sheets, twitched once. A kiss. He offered himself to help Victor when his ether channels were shimmering and Victor refused it.

Victor’s arm tightened slightly, just enough for Elias to feel the weight of him, flesh and heat pressing along his spine. The air was humid with pheromones now, almost liquid in its intensity, and even Elias, whose body had almost never reacted to pheromones before, was beginning to tremble beneath the weight of it.

"I didn’t forget," Victor murmured, his mouth close to the shell of Elias’s ear again, the words soft but unmistakably possessive. "You said it, and I listened."

His hand slipped further under Elias’s shirt, palm skating over his ribs, knuckles grazing each one like he meant to memorize them. His fingertips paused just beneath the swell of Elias’s heart, where the rhythm betrayed him most. Then lower, tracing the dip of his waist, slow, claiming every inch of skin.

"You said forget it," Victor added, tone too calm, "but you didn’t take it back."

Elias bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard. It didn’t help.

His breath shook. The heat was everywhere now, crawling up the back of his neck, seeping between his legs, the tension winding tighter with every subtle shift of Victor’s touch. He was becoming aware of every inch of fabric separating them, how thin it suddenly felt, and how easily it could be removed.

"I offered it to shut you up," Elias muttered, the words brittle, dragged from the last edge of defiance he hadn’t yet surrendered. "Not for... this."

But even as he said it, his body betrayed him.

He shifted, without thought, without strategy, his hips rolling forward in a slow, unconscious motion that spoke more honestly than his voice ever would. The movement brought him flush against the thick, undeniable press of Victor’s arousal. Still clothed, but there, so present it burned through every inch of distance Elias had pretended still existed.

His breath left him in a low, shaken exhale, the sound catching at the end like a thread pulled too tight. His neck arched in surrender to sensation, as if his body couldn’t decide whether to lean in or flinch away.

Victor didn’t answer.

The pressure of him along Elias’s back shifted. That heat, barely restrained, poured into the space between their bodies until Elias felt it everywhere: in the small of his back where his spine arched into Victor’s chest, in the curve of his stomach where his muscles tensed with each shallow breath, and in the traitorous ache blooming low in his abdomen, dark and curling like a secret heat he couldn’t hide anymore.

Victor’s fingers left Elias’s chest slowly, brushing down his side, just long enough to be felt before they shifted up, trailing along his jaw with maddening care. Two fingers beneath Elias’s chin, his thumb hovering near the corner of his mouth.

He tilted Elias’s face by degrees, slow enough to allow for resistance, for that familiar spark of bite Elias always wielded like armor. But none came. There was only the warm hush of breath from parted lips and the subtle tilt of Elias’s body, leaning further into him without thinking, without shame.

Victor stilled.

The weight of Elias against him changed, less tense now, less coiled like a man about to flee. His cheek brushed Victor’s collarbone, just briefly, and when he turned fully, their noses nearly touched. Elias’s mouth parted slightly, the sight almost making him lose his control.

Victor’s hand cupped his cheek, thumb brushing the fine bone beneath his eye, and he looked at Elias the way a man did when he’d found something once lost, achingly familiar and just barely within reach.

Elias didn’t flinch.

He let his weight shift, slow and yielding, until he was all but folded into Victor’s front. One leg slid over Victor’s, anchoring himself there, his thigh resting high enough to feel the press of heat and arousal through every separating thread. His hands remained caught in the sheets, he didn’t know what to do with them now that the fight had left him.

Victor exhaled, the sound low and unsteady.

"Still not throwing me out," he murmured, his voice velvet-dry against Elias’s lips. "I should be worried."

Elias blinked once, heavy-lidded, the flush along his cheekbones deepening. "Do you want your kiss or not?"

Victor’s answering breath was barely a sound, the kind of exhale that slipped between them like a thread pulled taut with want. His thumb grazed Elias’s lower lip, slow and deliberate, as if confirming the moment’s reality by touch alone. That Elias was here. That he hadn’t pulled away.

"You’re going to be the death of me," Victor murmured.

Then he leaned in and closed the last inch between them.

The first press of lips was deceptively still, then he tilted Elias’s chin a touch higher and let his mouth move, coaxing, until Elias, trembling, opened to him with a breath that trembled between caution and want. His lips parted just enough, and Victor’s tongue brushed along Elias’s lower lip, unhurried, a low hum of satisfaction rising from the back of his throat as Elias responded with a soft gasp, instinct overcoming reason. The taste of him, mint and tea and something underneath, something Elias, subtle and bittersweet, lit up every nerve Victor had been holding in check.

He deepened the kiss by degrees, drawing Elias in with the steady patience of a man who had waited centuries and could wait a few more minutes. His hand slid from Elias’s jaw to the back of his neck, fingers threading through soft hair, keeping him there. His other arm curled tighter around Elias’s waist, pressing them chest to chest, no more space left between them now.

Elias’s mouth was warm. Yielding. Real. Every time Victor moved, Elias followed. Not perfectly, not gracefully, but eagerly, and with that edge of inexperience that made it all the more unbearable. The way his lips parted wider when Victor nipped lightly. The way he trembled when Victor’s tongue stroked deeper, mapping the shape of him with affection wrapped in hunger, made the alpha’s control frail.

A flicker of divine power sparked beneath Victor’s skin, unintended. Like lightning catching along a wire left exposed. It surged forward, like it had the last two times he kissed Elias.

But this time, Victor held it back.

He could feel it aching to pour through, to saturate Elias’s ether channels and brand him from the inside out. But he closed the gates. Victor just wanted this, him, the warmth of Elias’s mouth under his, the soft whimper that escaped between them, and the trust wrapped up in surrender.

And Elias...

He felt it too. The tremble of power restrained. The raw pulse of something ancient and godmade curled behind Victor’s tongue, resting behind his teeth like a promise not yet spoken. It shimmered against Elias’s skin without touching it, like heat behind glass, and it made him shiver.

Victor kissed him deeper.

He angled Elias’s head, tilting him open with the ease of long practice and unbearable tenderness. His lips moved over Elias’s like a vow, every stroke meticulous, every pull designed to undo him. Elias arched helplessly into it, his hands finally leaving the sheets and curling in Victor’s shirt.

Elias realized that Victor had never, not once, taken what he hadn’t been offered.

Victor only kissed him like this because Elias had let him.

And God help him, he was letting him now.