The phone was slammed face down onto the tabletop. The sound of the impact not loud, but it cleanly sever the intensely enchanting atmosphere rising within the room.
Absolute frustration flared up in the depths of Dominic Vance's eyes. In the very moment their lips were about to touch, that yearning desire to thoroughly devour and pounce upon the person beneath him was abruptly doused with a bucket of cold water by that accursed ringtone. He clicked his tongue softly, his chest heaving lightly, his breathing still entangled with the heavy weight of a lust that had not yet been completely appeased.
He wanted to continue that unfinished kiss. He wanted to taste exactly how unimaginably sweet that tiny mouth, which had just uttered the words "I like you" truly was. However, just as Dominic Vance was about to lower his head once more, the youth curled up within the silk blankets suddenly shrank back.
Lucien resembled a small, startled beast jolted awake by a sudden noise. His gaze was thoroughly panicked, carrying an extreme level of terror as he avoided the blazing stare of Dominic Vance. With both hands, he forcefully pulled the edges of the blanket all the way up to his chin, his frail body trembling violently as he retreated deeply toward the headboard.
"Dominic... Dominic Vance... Miles..." The voice of Lucien was trembling and completely shattered, carrying a suppressed sob: "Miles has returned... he... he is going to kill me..."
This fragile, evasive, and overwhelmingly insecure posture displayed by Lucien was no different from a potent stimulant splashed directly upon the rapidly expanding possessive instincts of the man.
The sensation of having merely tasted but not yet eaten to satisfaction, only to be abruptly interrupted by someone else, caused the complexion of Dominic Vance to thoroughly darken, turning so freezing cold it was genuinely terrifying. He furrowed his brows, and just as he was about to reach out and pull Lucien back into his embrace to soothe him, a series of sounds tore through the profound silence from the courtyard of the villa below.
It seemed as though someone had entered the villa. The noise was quite considerable, and even though the room was thoroughly soundproofed, a fraction of the commotion still managed to slip inside.
Those noises transmitted distinctly all the way up to the second floor. Then came the frantic, hurried sound of footsteps pounding heavily against the floorboards, taking step after step in a mad dash up the staircase. The newcomer had absolutely no intention of maintaining any decorum, nor did they care in the slightest that this was a strictly private area.
Lucien, lying beneath the blankets, slightly narrowed his eyes; most likely, the servants had already informed Miles, which was exactly why he was going so utterly insane.
So much the better.
Hah.
Bang!
The thick, heavy mahogany door of the bedroom was ruthlessly shoved wide open with tremendous force, colliding violently against the wall and creating an ear-splitting, deafening crash.
Miles Sinclair stood towering at the doorway, his chest heaving violently. His eyes were entirely bloodshot as they madly swept a sweeping glance around the entire bedroom.
And then, the scene presenting itself before his very eyes acted like a heavy sledgehammer viciously smashing straight into the center of his forehead, utterly shattering every last shred of rationality remaining within Miles.
The scent lingering within the bedroom was overwhelmingly obvious. It was that cloying, sickly sweet, and heavy scent of semen mingled together with the aroma of sweat and ambiguous lust following an intensely fierce session of lovemaking, so incredibly potent that it could almost make one nauseous. Even though the room had already been cleaned, the scent had not yet dissipated into the air.
Dominic Vance was standing right beside the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but a loosely draped bathrobe that hung wide open, exposing a firm, muscular chest that still bore the faint, lingering trails of scratch marks.
As for the expansive, massive bed, Lucien Sinclair was currently shrinking himself down within the layers of silk blankets, his tear-soaked eyes a flushed red, while his slightly damp hair drooped over his pale, ashen forehead. Although the bedsheets had indeed been freshly replaced, the sticky, obscenely depraved atmosphere completely enveloping the two of them served as the clearest, most irrefutable evidence of what had just transpired.
"You... what the hell are you doing?!"
The voice of Miles shrieked out, tearing through his throat, carrying an extreme degree of sheer bewilderment, horror, and utmost indignation. His eyes widened to such an extent that they seemed as though they were about to pop straight out of their sockets, pointing a finger directly at Lucien: "You... you and him?! Right here inside this house?!"
He seemed to have been driven utterly mad by his rage, entirely forgetting that this villa originally belonged to Dominic Vance.
Lucien was violently startled by that piercing, ear-splitting scream. The physiological tears that had already been brimming at the corners of his eyes immediately rolled down his cheeks. He was so terrified that his complexion turned a ghastly white, his entire body trembling uncontrollably like an autumn leaf fluttering in the wind.
Under the furious gaze of his half-brother who looked as if he wanted to devour him alive, Lucien bit his lower lip tightly, his eyes carrying a feeble, pleading look as he hesitantly glanced toward the only man capable of saving him.
Then, with a movement so minute it appeared almost entirely accidental, Lucien slightly shifted his body forward. A slender, frail, and pale hand slowly reached out from beneath the layer of blankets, trembling as it gripped the lapel of Dominic Vance's bathrobe.
He exerted a slight force to tighten his grip, pulling the tall, imposing frame of the man to conceal half of his own body. Lucien half-closed his eyes, nuzzling his head behind the man's back, his sobbing voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz yet distinctly entering the ears of both individuals present: "I... I am sorry... hic... I am sorry..."
An apology lacking both head and tail, not addressing anyone by name, yet when placed within this specific context, it transformed into a fatal, lethal blade. To Miles, that act of cowering to seek shelter was the most blatant and shameless insult, no different from shamelessly flaunting one's triumph right before his face. As for Dominic Vance, this incredibly soft and vulnerable reliance served as the most soothing, gentle caress to his masculine ego.
Miles went entirely insane. A maddening, frenzied jealousy scorched and burned through his internal organs. The man he had always desperately yearned for, the person who always maintained a frigidly indifferent attitude the moment he stepped out of bed, the man whom he had endured pain for yet still failed to serve properly, had now just finished rolling around on the bed with this lowly, timid bastard!