-Treasure. (TW)
Elias had been moving around me like a different man these past two days, his tone softer, his touch featherlight, his words almost rehearsed in kindness. It was as if the room with the slammed door and the bruised ribs had never happened, as if he had rewritten the memory with this gentleness he now wore like a second skin. When he told me I could have a day off duty, I waited for the catch. Instead, he said I could go anywhere I wanted, that Mark would take care of his security, that he would stay home and keep quiet. He even assigned me a driver, like a gift wrapped in freedom.
I took it before he could change his mind.
I didn't have a plan. I just slid into the back seat of the car, told the driver to take me to the city, and watched the road unfurl in front of us. The closer we got, the lighter my chest felt. When the streets of Valmont finally came into view—choked with cars, dotted with pedestrians, neon signs stacked above one another—I breathed like I hadn't in weeks. The air, though thick with exhaust and the faint char of street food grills, felt cleaner than anything in that mansion. There was noise, color, disarray, all of it alive, all of it indifferent to me, and I felt more invisible here than I ever could, surrounded by Elias' quiet wealth.
I asked the driver to drop me off by the river, but he only shifted in his seat and told me he had orders to stay wherever I went. So I let him follow, though I kept him at a distance, like a shadow tethered by string.
The riverside was nearly empty, a stretch of benches scattered along the pavement. The water moved sluggishly, reflecting the gray of the afternoon sky, gulls dipping low every now and then before vanishing back into the horizon. I sat on a bench, letting my shoulders fall, my body sinking into the wood as if it could soak some of the restlessness out of me. For a while I just watched the water, no sound but the faint slap of it against the embankment and the occasional shuffle of a passerby.
Then came the soft bell of a pushcart. A man in a cap wheeled his gelato cart toward the riverside, the colors painted on its side faded from the sun. I got up, walked over, and ordered two scoops—vanilla and cherries. Something simple, something sweet. He handed it to me with a napkin already sticking to the cone from the cold. I thanked him and walked back to my bench.
The first taste was sharp with cold, sweet enough to pull me somewhere younger. I sat with it, the sound of traffic carrying over faintly from the nearest bridge, the driver loitering a few paces behind, pretending he wasn't watching me. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I could just… sit. No questions to answer. No orders to anticipate. Just the bite of gelato against my tongue and the river dragging itself endlessly forward.
The gelato softened at the edges, the cherry bleeding into the vanilla in slow swirls, and I stared at it longer than I actually ate it. The sweetness was almost too much, like it didn't belong in my mouth, but I kept eating because it gave me something to do with my hands. My eyes stayed on the river, though the water blurred at times, and I had to blink hard to keep it sharp.
I never realized how lonely I really was until now. Not the kind of loneliness that comes from being alone in a room, but the kind that eats at you when you know you could be surrounded by people and still feel unseen. My life had been wrapped so tightly around Devon's that I hadn't noticed what it was costing me until the thread snapped. I'd shaped everything to fit around him—his presence, his steadiness, his shadow, even his silence—and when that grip loosened, it was as if something had reached inside and torn a massive piece out of me. That piece wasn't just missing. It was mangled, spat back out, ruined in a way that meant I could never put it back where it belonged.
I didn't even know why or how I ended up here, in this position. Sitting on a bench with a driver waiting behind me, pretending not to stare. Elias giving me a day off like it was some rare kindness, as though I should be grateful to breathe air without him in it. I kept asking myself if this had been my own doing. Had I convinced myself that sticking to Elias, bending to whatever he asked, might give me a certain place in the world? Something closer to power, or recognition, or at least permanence? Or was it simpler than that—just the same hunger that's lived in me all my life, the need to belong to someone, even if belonging meant being caged?
It had to be both. I knew it in my chest as sure as I felt the river air moving across my skin. My need and his reach. My hunger and his offer. I wanted to believe I was playing at gaining a position, that I was doing something strategic, something with purpose. But deep down I knew I had just been a man trying to hold onto any hand that felt steady when mine had been shaking.
I took another bite, the cold biting at the roof of my mouth, and it almost made me laugh. Devon would have teased me for picking something so plain. He would've ordered pistachio or some sharp citrus just to get me to taste it, then laughed when I made a face. He was always finding ways to push me past whatever safe corner I'd built for myself. I didn't see it then as the gift it was. I thought I could afford to take it lightly, because I thought he'd always be there.
Now I sat with the river, with my gelato dripping down the napkin, realizing I had built my whole life around a man who had been holding me up without knowing it. And when he pulled away, I had no foundation left.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, staring at the river, and wondered if Elias knew what kind of ruin he was really holding in his house.
What unsettled me more than the bruise still blooming under my ribs was the way Elias had shifted since. His hands, suddenly careful. His words, dressed in warmth. His gestures, small freedoms offered like gifts. It made me feel unsteady, like the floor had tilted. I could take his cruelty—I knew where to put it, knew how to brace my body against it, knew what it was trying to carve out of me. But this… this kindness was the kind of thing that got under the skin and made me question what I deserved.
When he is rough, when he bares his teeth and shows me exactly what he thinks I am, I can hold myself together. I can say this is what I've chosen, that this is the price of proximity to someone like him. But when he is gentle, when he lets me breathe, when he pretends he doesn't remember the slam of my body against the door, it stings in a way I can't prepare for. It makes me wonder if maybe I've been wrong about myself all along—if maybe I do deserve kindness, if maybe I do deserve to be treated with something more than possession. And then the thought turns on itself, crueler than his hand ever was, because the moment I reach for it, I feel foolish for even thinking it could be mine.
I never asked him for tenderness, but when he gives it, it feels worse than the pain. It feels like he's dangling something above my head, letting me see what I'll never truly hold, so that when he snatches it away again, I won't even be able to complain. I'll just tell myself I was lucky to taste it once.
I pressed a hand lightly against my ribs, not for the pain but for the reminder. The bruise would heal. The confusion wouldn't.
I sat a little longer on the bench, leaning forward, elbows pressed to my knees, staring at the water until the shapes blurred into one. The driver waited a few steps back, silent, eyes averted but always watching. His presence was a leash no one could see, slack enough to make me think I was free, tight enough to remind me I wasn't.
It felt like the end of a walk. The dog's legs tired, the leash tugging back toward home. That was me. The dog was done. The cage was waiting.
I pushed myself up, my body stiff, the wood of the bench leaving shallow lines on the back of my thighs. The air that had once felt so sharp and clear now carried the faint sourness of the river's undercurrent, as if even it was done offering me relief.
The car was parked by the curb, black paint swallowing the light. I opened the door and slid inside, the leather cool against my back. The door shut with that muffled thud, sealing me in, cutting the sound of the river as if it had never been there.
The driver glanced at me through the mirror, waiting for instruction, but I didn't say anything. He already knew the destination. The mansion. The walls. Elias.
As the car pulled away, I leaned my head against the glass, watching the city smear past in streaks of neon and shadow. For a short while I had convinced myself I was breathing something freer, that the world outside still belonged to me. But the ride back told me the truth: my lungs were just borrowing. And now it was time to return what wasn't mine.
The door shut behind me with the heavy echo of wood meeting marble, the sound carrying through the wide hall like a reminder I had just locked myself back inside. My shoes clicked softly against the polished floor as I stepped in, and then I stopped.
Elias was there, standing on the staircase, one hand on the banister, watching me. He stood still long enough that I felt the weight of the silence settle in my chest. The chandelier above threw its light across him in clean strokes, leaving him washed in gold. Down where I stood, the lamps didn't reach as strongly, and the air around me felt shadowed, dimmer, as though the house itself knew where to place the brightness.
I froze, caught mid-step, the door closed firm behind me, the way out already cut off.
His voice came low, steady, but it carried. "Did you enjoy your day out?"
I nodded once, my throat dry.
He began his descent, slow and deliberate, each step measured, his shoes sounding sharper against the stairs than my own had against the floor. "Why didn't you do much?"
I swallowed, knowing already the driver must have reported every small detail of my day. "I only wanted to sit alone by the river."
He came down the last step, closing the space between us one stride at a time, his gaze never leaving mine. When he was near enough that I could see the faint reflection of the chandelier in his pupils, his expression softened, his eyes warm in a way that unsettled me more than anything else.
"I really wanted you to go all the way out," he said, almost tenderly. "Not just sit by the river."
"But all I wanted," I said, my voice thin, quiet enough that I wasn't sure if I wanted him to hear, "was to sit by the river."
It betrayed me then. The sting rose to my eyes, uninvited, and I felt the tears pressing against my vision before I could stop them.
He noticed instantly. His hand lifted and came to rest against my cheek, the touch careful, as if he were touching something fragile. His thumb brushed lightly under my eye. "What's wrong? Are you still mad at me?"
I closed my eyes at the contact, shook my head once.
"Then what's wrong?" he pressed, his voice still soft, coaxing. "Talk to me."
"I'm just… a little tired," I said, the words breaking on the air more than I meant them to.
"Then come with me," he said.
He didn't give me space to argue. He turned, and I followed. The halls were dimmer than the staircase, our footsteps echoing off the walls. He led me to his suite, into the bathroom where steam curled in the air, the smell of lavender and clean water meeting me before I saw the tub. It was already filled, the surface shimmering faintly in the low light.
Without a word, he reached for me, undoing the buttons of my shirt with a patience that unsettled me more than if he'd torn them. He slid the fabric from my shoulders, his knuckles grazing my skin in strokes that felt deliberate. My belt, my shoes, my socks, everything removed with that same gentleness, until I was bare in the fog of the room, the water waiting.
"Step in," he said, his voice a whisper against the tile.
And I did, sinking slowly into the warmth, the heat wrapping me whole, the surface closing around me until the weight on my chest eased just enough for me to breathe.
The water swallowed me whole, heat climbing up my skin until I felt as though the bruise along my ribs had been set aflame. I sank deeper, the porcelain cool against my back, steam rising around me in soft curls that blurred the edges of the room. My head tipped back, and for a brief moment I let my eyes close, the weight of the day dissolving into the bath.
When I opened them, Elias was crouched at the side, his sleeves rolled neatly above his forearms. He dipped his hand into the water, swirling it once, testing the heat as though it mattered more to him than to me. His face was calm, softened, his eyes steady on mine.
"You hold yourself so tight," he murmured, reaching for a cloth that had been folded on the counter. He dipped it, wrung it slowly, and pressed it against my shoulder, letting the warmth seep into me. "Always ready to fight. Always ready to pull away. You don't know how to be still."
The cloth trailed over my chest, deliberate, slow strokes that made me want to recoil, though the heat of the water kept me still. He moved with care, the kind of carefulness that felt less like tenderness and more like something practiced, a way of taming instead of hurting.
I swallowed, the steam heavy in my throat. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine," he said, without the edge he usually wore. "You say that because you think it keeps you safe, but I can see through it. You're exhausted. You've been carrying it in your shoulders, in your jaw, even in the way you sit." He tipped my chin up with two fingers, the wet cloth sliding down my collarbone. "You can let it down here. Just here."
The words dug into me. They didn't comfort, they unsettled. They reminded me of how fragile I must have looked sitting on that bench, staring at a river that gave me nothing back. My chest tightened again, though not from the bruise.
His hand smoothed the cloth over my arm, then down to my hand, curling his fingers briefly around mine before lifting away. "Tell me," he said softly, "what is it that makes you feel so far away even when I have you right here?"
I wanted to say nothing. I wanted to stay quiet until the steam drowned the need to answer. But the water, the heat, the weight of his gaze pressed the truth closer to the surface than I liked.
"I don't know where I belong," I said, voice so low I almost didn't recognize it as mine.
Elias tilted his head, studying me as though I were one of his inventions laid open before him. He pressed the cloth gently against my ribs, and the ache made me wince. His eyes flickered, a rare crack in that calm.
"You're here now," he said. "You belong here, with me. No one else can have you. Not anymore."
The words sank into the steam, heavy, binding, and I felt them close around me as surely as the water. I turned my face away, eyes slipping shut, because if I kept looking at him, I was afraid I might start believing it.
The robe clung to my damp skin, heavy with the lingering heat of the bath. My hair was dripping onto my shoulders, small rivulets trailing down my neck. I followed Elias quietly when he gestured for me to come with him, my steps muffled against the carpet. His room was dim, lit by the warm glow of the lamps on either side of his bed. It smelled faintly of cedar and something sharper beneath, the kind of scent that stuck to fabric and memory alike.
He motioned for me to sit, and I did, perched on the edge of his bed with my hands clutching the folds of the robe as though it might shield me from whatever was coming. Elias stood for a moment, his silhouette framed in that calm composure he wore so convincingly, before he crouched down in front of me. His hands settled firmly on my knees, grounding me, and when I looked at him he was already looking up, his eyes steady, unflinching.
"I've been thinking," he began, his voice quiet but deliberate, "maybe you need to stop being my personal security guard."
The words hit like cold water, and I snapped my head toward him so quickly my neck stung. "What do you mean?" The question left me sharper than I intended, panic slipping through the cracks of my composure.
He didn't flinch at my reaction. If anything, his expression softened further. "It seems like you being around me as a guard is causing you distress," he said slowly, as though he wanted every word to sink into me with precision. "And I hate seeing you like this. I hate seeing you frustrated and confused. That's not what I want for you."
His grip on my knees tightened almost imperceptibly. He leaned closer, his face level with mine. "I want you to genuinely enjoy your time being with me. Not because it's your job, not because you're bound by some agency contract. I want you here for you. And I hate—truly hate—that people around me keep wanting you, keep staring at you, as if you were something they could claim. It gnaws at me, Treasure."
The robe suddenly felt thinner, flimsy against the intensity of his words. My chest rose and fell in shallow rhythm, every breath weighed down by the way he was looking at me.
"You may not realize," he continued, his voice lowering, almost tender, "that you have head-turning looks. You draw attention without even trying, and I despise that it gets put on display. You're not a product. And I'm not a seller, or a donator." His thumbs pressed lightly against the fabric covering my knees. "I'm simply a man who is very interested in you. Interested to the point of possessiveness."
The word echoed, curling around the silence like smoke. Possessiveness. My pulse jumped at it, a mixture of fear and something harder to name.
I wanted to answer, but my mouth stayed closed, my tongue heavy. My mind spun with everything unsaid—the confusion, the resistance, the strange, twisting tether between us. My eyes dropped briefly to his hands, firm and steady on me, then lifted again to his gaze. He was still waiting, still watching me with that same unwavering intensity, as if daring me to push him away or daring me to stay still and accept it.
The room felt smaller, the air thicker. I parted my lips, but no words came.
Elias tilted his head, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, though his eyes betrayed nothing soft. "You hear me, don't you?" he asked, his voice dropping until it felt like it lived just beneath my skin.
I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself, though the truth was I didn't know what steadiness meant anymore.
His words still clung to me, heavy and inescapable, when his hand shifted. The warmth of his palm pressed through the fabric at my knee, steady for a heartbeat, then slid under the robe. The movement was slow, deliberate, not rushed but with a purpose that made every nerve in me bristle awake. His fingertips brushed against the bare skin of my thigh, leaving behind a trail of heat that crawled up my leg.
My breath hitched before I could stop it. I clenched my jaw, trying not to move, trying not to give away how the contact burned and unsettled me all at once. The robe felt useless now, a thin veil that had surrendered too easily.
Elias' gaze never wavered from my face. He studied me the way someone studies a code they've already cracked, certain of the outcome, confident in his control. His hand kept traveling upward, patient, as if he had all the time in the world to remind me that this was his rhythm, his pace, his decision.
I shifted slightly on the bed, though I couldn't decide if it was to get away or to ground myself against the overwhelming pull of his touch. My heart thudded in my chest, each beat loud enough I was sure he could hear it.
"You're trembling," he murmured, his voice almost tender, though it only deepened the sense that I was trapped between gentleness and something much darker. His thumb pressed against the inside of my thigh, a small anchor, and he tilted his head as if waiting for me to break the silence.
I wanted to speak, to tell him to stop, to remind him I wasn't his possession no matter how much he said it. But my throat felt tight, words caught behind the weight of the moment.
Instead, I managed only a shallow exhale, my eyes darting toward the door before returning to him.
He noticed. He always noticed. His lips curved, not quite a smile, more like a warning. "Don't think about leaving, Treasure," he whispered, his hand stilling but not withdrawing. "Think about what it means to stay."
His thumb was still there, warm against the soft skin of my inner thigh, like he meant to brand me with it. The robe gaped around me now, draped open over my hips, careless, undone, a flimsy nothing in the face of his intent. Elias hadn't moved again yet—but the stillness felt like a coil drawn tight. He wanted me to feel this, every second, every inch of his patience.
My mouth was dry. My lungs worked but it was shallow, restrained, like even air had to be earned here. He hadn't blinked once.
"I didn't say I'd stay," I rasped, my voice sounding strange in my throat, like it belonged to someone braver.
His gaze sharpened—just a flicker—and his thumb made a slow circle, just above the tender bend where thigh met hip. "You haven't said much of anything."
"I don't owe you anything."
"No," he agreed, tone smooth as silk draped over steel. "But I think you'll give it anyway."
The heat crawled higher up my neck. The look in his eyes wasn't hungry. It was certain. It wasn't the look of a man begging for permission—it was someone who had already walked through the door and was waiting for you to notice it'd never been locked.
His fingers moved again. Slow. Measured. The backs of his knuckles skated up along my thigh, brushing the edge of my briefs where the robe had fallen open. I twitched, involuntary, my breath catching again. That smirk curled again at the edge of his mouth, cruel in its softness.
I hated how my body betrayed me. My skin buzzed with the closeness, with the weight of his attention. I wanted to shove his hand away—but I didn't. Maybe I wanted him to try harder. Maybe I wanted to lose the excuse.
"I'm not yours," I whispered. It felt like trying to draw a line in wet sand with my fingertip.
Elias leaned forward, bracing one hand beside my hip. The other never left my thigh, now cradling the curve of it like something claimed. His voice dropped to a hush that pressed against my ear like a velvet chain. "You keep saying that. But you aren't doing anything about it."
A pulse pounded in my neck. I could feel it, loud and exposed. He watched my face, waiting for me to flinch or pull back, but I didn't. I didn't move at all.
His hand drifted again, sliding further between my legs, over the front of my briefs. The thin cotton gave no protection, just a barrier that made his palm feel hotter, heavier. He cupped me through the fabric, the pressure firm, fingers curling slightly as though testing weight, heat, willingness.
"Elias—"
He cut off my name with a kiss. Not rushed. Not brutal. Just… sealing. Like he wanted to press the sound back into my mouth and keep it there.
I made a sound, and grabbed at his forearm, not pushing, not pulling, just grounding myself. The kiss deepened a breath later. His tongue moved like he already knew the inside of my mouth, like he remembered it from another life. My head tilted back into the cradle of his hand.
His palm rolled against me, slow and unrelenting, stroking through the fabric with deliberate motion, and I couldn't help it—my hips shifted into the touch, subtle, shameful.
He noticed. Of course he fucking noticed.
"See?" he murmured, breaking the kiss to trail his mouth down to my jaw. "You don't need to say yes out loud. Your body already did."
I growled low, barely audible. "That doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything," Elias breathed, and slipped his hand beneath the waistband in one easy motion, fingers sliding down, warm and unforgiving.
I gasped—"Haaah—fuck—"
His fingers wrapped around me, slow and possessive, and he leaned in again, brushing a kiss to the corner of my mouth as if to hush me before I made more noise.
"You're already hard," he whispered. "You'd make such a liar out of yourself if I let you speak."
I wanted to shove him away. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to tear his clothes off or make him leave or scream his name or beg him not to say another fucking word. I didn't move.
He stroked me once, slow and sure, and my legs tensed around his arm. My throat made another noise, and his smile deepened.
"There's that sound," he muttered. "I've missed that."
His thumb swept over the tip, spreading slick heat, and my hips jerked helplessly.
"You're such a mess for me already," Elias said. "And I've barely even started."
His hand moved with agonizing purpose, a slow, deliberate drag that made every nerve strain taut beneath my skin. Each stroke was heat drawn from somewhere buried deep, coaxed out like a secret too long kept. My cock throbbed heavy in his grip, already slick, already pulsing, and every shift of his fingers sent another tremor crawling from gut to throat. He was too good at this, too familiar. Each motion—measured, certain—like a language he knew I'd forgotten how to resist.
The air thickened with him: sharp and earthy, clean soap gone dark with skin and heat. My chest lifted shallow under the open robe, ribs tight with tension I wouldn't name, couldn't—not with how it ached between my legs, hammering up through the firm wrap of his hand.
Elias leaned close, breath ghosting just under my jaw. Not quite a kiss—just presence. His tongue flicked the corner of my throat, slow and deliberate. I let out a sound—thin, shamefully soft. His grip shifted. Loose at the base, firmer near the tip, the kind of pressure that made my thighs flex tight without thought. My fingers curled into the bedding, gripping hard enough to burn. He moved again, palm dragging in a slow twist that dragged breath from my lungs with a sharp, shuddering hiss.
Then he was against me. His other hand slipped beneath my back, pulling me just slightly into him, tilting me with the kind of precision that spoke of repetition. His chest was warm against mine, steady and inevitable. His forehead dropped to my temple. He stayed there a moment, like he was soaking in the shape of me like this—laid out, responsive, trembling.
When he pulled back, it was only enough to look down—hair falling into his eyes, gaze dropping to where he held me. I felt that look like another hand, possessive, admiring, burning through every defense.
He resumed, tighter now, his wrist adding a twist that made my toes curl in the sheets. My thighs clenched, hips twitching into the rhythm I couldn't resist. Each stroke louder, wetter, his palm slick with arousal worked over and over with obscene, practiced ease. I bit down on the sound in my chest, but it broke loose anyway—low, hoarse.
"Nnnfuck—Elias—"
He made a sound, a hum of satisfaction. Not smug. Certain. Like he'd been waiting for it. His thumb rolled across the head—precise, cruel in its tenderness—and I jerked, nearly off the bed. He anchored me fast, arm braced across my hips, holding me still like it was easy.
"There you are," he murmured near my ear. "Knew you'd remember how to beg."
"I didn't—ah—fuck—" The words broke, drowned under sensation.
My breath came faster now, shallow and ragged. Pleasure poured through me like syrup—slow, sticky, overwhelming. The air reeked of sweat, of sex, of him. Elias pressed closer, mouth dragging along my collarbone, tongue dipping into the hollow above my chest. His kiss landed soft, wet, searing, just above my sternum. His cock was hard against my thigh now, still clothed, burning through the fabric.
Still, his hand didn't stop. It moved with ruthless care—spreading, stroking, squeezing just enough at the head to make me twitch with every pass. My breath cracked again, legs tensing, voice breaking open.
"Uhh—please…"
He kissed up my throat again, lips brushing just beneath my jaw, then lower, teeth skimming skin. His fingers never faltered. They worked me like a promise, a punishment. My knees spread wider, every muscle trembling under the pressure that built and built and built.
"Say it again," he whispered. "Beg me."
I couldn't speak. My body shook, caught in that rising tide. His thumb circled again, merciless, and my hand fisted in the back of his shirt without thinking. Nails scraped skin. I felt him tense, just slightly—just enough.
It hit me like a wave, ripped through me with a moan I couldn't hold back.
"Ffffuck—Elias—!"
My hips surged, cock pulsing hard in his grip as climax crashed down. I shook, clung, gasped through the rush, toes curling tight. He stroked me through it, not relenting until the last shudder passed and my body finally collapsed against him, twitching, spent.
Only then did he ease the motion, hand slowing to a lazy drag, smearing the mess across my stomach in idle strokes.
"Beautiful," he breathed, lips brushing mine, tasting my breath.
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
But I didn't push him away. My fingers stayed curled in his shirt, loose now, like they belonged there.
Elias didn't speak again. Not yet.
He just watched me. And touched me like he already knew he would again.