Raven hadn't meant to think about him again.
He'd promised himself—sworn it, even—that the stranger from the bar would stay exactly where he belonged: in the shadows of a reckless moment. But it was useless. His body remembered before his thoughts even formed.
The office was quiet. Too quiet. Everyone had gone home hours ago, and the city outside glittered with the kind of darkness that invited mistakes. His chair creaked a little as he leaned back, one hand pressed over his eyes, the other resting uselessly against his thigh.
Thanin.
He didn't even know the man's last name. Didn't know where he'd come from. Didn't know why a single touch had burned more than entire nights spent with others.
But he knew this: the deeper he tried to bury the memory, the harder it fought its way back.
Raven loosened the first few buttons of his shirt. His palm was already sweating. He hated that. He never lost control—not in private, not in silence. But tonight his self-restraint was hanging by a thread.
He tried focusing on the paperwork stacked on his desk, but his mind betrayed him. The memory didn't come as a blur. It came in razor-cut clarity.
—The bar's crimson light.
—Thanin's voice like smoke and commands.
—That moment before the door closed behind them.
Raven shifted in his seat, breath catching. His fingers drifted slowly, almost unconsciously, over the front of his slacks. The faintest pressure. Testing. Teasing. Punishing himself for reacting.
"Fuck…" he whispered, voice low and nearly voiceless.
There had been a moment that night—just one—that wrecked him in a way he wouldn't admit to anyone.
Thanin didn't even kiss him.
He'd backed Raven against the wall of the private suite and just… looked at him.
Close. Too close. One hand braced beside his head, the other tracing a line up his throat with the back of two fingers. Raven had shivered—not because he was afraid, but because something in him recognized the danger and wanted it anyway.
He could still hear Thanin's voice, soft and dark.
You don't know what you're asking for.
He did. He always had.
Raven let his head fall back against the leather of the chair. His breathing was heavier now, chest rising and falling like he'd run a race. His fingers slipped past the waistband, and he exhaled a shaky breath.
"Should've stayed," he muttered, frustrated at something he couldn't name.
He didn't move fast. He didn't need to. Every stroke was slow, deliberate, meant to drag the memory out until it carved him hollow. His hips shifted slightly, knees parting more. He was quiet by nature, but a sound still escaped him—a stifled breath that trembled on the edge of a moan.
He imagined Thanin's hand instead of his own. Rougher. Larger. Certain.
Another breath. Another quiet curse.
His entire body felt like it was remembering something that hadn't even fully happened.
And then he broke.
A soft, bitten-off sound left him, deep in his throat. His free hand clutched the armrest hard enough for his knuckles to pale.
"Thanin…" he breathed before he could stop himself.
The name tasted like surrender.
He came with a muted gasp, head tipped back, jaw tight, breath shuddering out of him in uneven bursts. For a moment, everything went quiet again—silent except for his heartbeat and the faint hiss of the AC.
Raven sat there, eyes closed, chest still rising hard. His body relaxed, but his mind didn't.
He already wanted more.
---
Across the city, someone else was losing sleep over the same ghost.
Thanin sat alone in the vast silence of his penthouse suite, the city lights reflecting faintly against the floor-to-ceiling windows. His tie was discarded, two buttons undone on his black shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up tense forearms. He'd poured himself whiskey twice and hadn't touched either glass.
His mistake wasn't sleeping with the raven-haired stranger.
It was letting him walk away.
Thanin did not chase. He did not ache. Desire, for him, was a weapon or a distraction—never a problem.
But Raven was a problem.
Thanin leaned back on the edge of the couch, elbows braced on his knees, head bowed slightly. He closed his eyes and immediately saw him again—the curve of his throat, the defiant fire in his eyes, the way his body had trembled and pretended not to.
"Stupid," he muttered to himself, voice low.
He should've asked for a name. Should've marked him somehow, even if only with teeth or bruises. Should've made sure he'd remember who he belonged to.
But he'd held back that night—far too much.
He remembered the moment with ruthless clarity: Raven pinned between him and the wall, wrists nearly caught in Thanin's grip before he let go at the last second. Thanin had watched him with a restraint he didn't understand.
If I don't hold back, you'll break.
That had been the truth. Not a threat.
Thanin's jaw flexed. His fingers ran over his own thigh, slow, restless. He never did this. He never let desire linger like smoke in his lungs after the fire should've been out.
Yet here he was, alone in a half-lit room, replaying one unfinished moment like it was a debt owed.
He leaned back further, eyes still shut, and let one hand travel down over his abdomen. The breath he released was quiet, almost inaudible—but it wasn't steady.
He wasn't gentle with himself. He didn't know how to be. His palm moved with a need that came from denial, not patience. His mind supplied the rest—Raven's parted lips, the flutter of a pulse beneath pale skin, the way he'd swallowed once like he was trying not to beg.
Thanin's breaths deepened. A low sound escaped him—no louder than a growl spun into a sigh.
He'd barely touched the boy properly. That was what infuriated him most.
He tightened his grip, pace slow but demanding. His head tipped back against the cushion, neck bared to the silence.
Images came without permission:
—Raven on his knees, eyes glazed but defiant.
—Raven's fingers curling into his shirt like surrender disguised as defiance.
—Raven gasping his name instead of air.
Thanin's breath stuttered. He bit down on a curse.
His orgasm hit like something dragged out of him against his will. No sound—his control was too ingrained for that—but his muscles tensed hard, jaw clenched, chest heaving once, twice.
His hand fell away after a moment, and he sat there breathing quietly, staring at nothing.
There were marks on his skin from where he'd dug his own fingers into his thigh. He didn't even notice.
The room still smelled like whiskey, smoke, and something darker.
Thanin finally lifted his head, eyes opening slow.
He hated unfinished things.
And Raven was far from finished.
---
Raven changed his shirt and wiped up the evidence of his lapse before anyone could notice. He washed his hands twice even though it didn't matter.
His reflection in the dark screen of his computer looked calm again. Empty. Like nothing had happened.
But everything had.
He pressed his fingers to his lips for half a heartbeat, then dropped his hand and stood, straightening his clothes like armor.
He would tell no one. Especially not Ice.
But fate had a way of circling back to unfinished business.
And neither of them had truly walked away from that night.