Bryce braced himself, expecting the searing crack of a whip or the crushing grip of rough hands. Every muscle locked tight, his body preparing for agony that never came.
Instead, something strange reached him.
A scent slowly seeped into the air.
It was so faint at first that he almost dismissed it as a trick of his disoriented mind, but with every breath it grew richer and heavier until it completely eclipsed everything else around him.
It wasn’t perfume.
It wasn’t anything he had ever smelled before. The fragrance was deep, intoxicating, and impossible to describe, carrying an almost primal warmth that slipped into his lungs before spreading through every corner of his body.
His pulse lurched violently.
A strange heat unfurled beneath his skin, racing through his veins with alarming speed. What had begun as a faint warmth rapidly intensified, setting every nerve in his body alight.
A restless ache slowly coiled deep inside him, spreading through his body until every inch of him felt unbearably sensitive.
The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It wasn’t pain, yet it robbed him of comfort. It wasn’t pleasure either, but it awakened a craving so fierce he couldn’t even begin to name it.
Every part of him longed to be touched, and his mind instinctively reached for Dave before violently recoiling from the thought.
The very idea of Dave’s hands on him now filled him with revulsion, while the mysterious scent pulling at him became the only thing his body seemed willing to chase.
Still trapped between consciousness and oblivion, his head instinctively turned toward the source of the scent, his body yielding to its irresistible pull before his mind could make sense of it.
His chest rose with a deep, involuntary inhales, each breath greedier than the last, as though his body had decided that scent was more essential than oxygen itself.
A fiercer wave of heat crashed through him, finally overpowering whatever had kept his eyes shut and forcing them open.
He lurched upright in a sharp reflex, his chest heaving as ragged breaths spilled from parted lips.
His skin burned beneath a thin sheen of perspiration, while his clothes suddenly felt suffocatingly tight against his feverish body, as though they were trapping the unbearable heat beneath them.
Before he could understand what he was doing, he was already on his feet. His legs trembled beneath him, his body swaying unsteadily, but none of it stopped him from stepping toward the man standing only a few feet away, desperate to close the distance between them.
His vision blurred frustratingly, refusing to focus on anything except the man before him, whose features still dissolved into an indistinct outline.
"What does he think he’s doing?!" the woman’s voice cut through the room again, far clearer than before.
The sharpness of her voice pulled at his attention, drawing his gaze away from the man as his eyes wandered across the room until the second figure came into view, both of them slowly emerging from the haze clouding his sight.
Their features slowly came into focus, carrying a familiarity that tugged insistently at his memory. He searched his memory for only a brief moment before recognition crashed into him.
He had seen them countless times on TV, across the covers of business magazines, and in newspaper headlines. There was no mistake-
Vincent Walker and his wife, Leah Walker.
The names surfaced effortlessly.
Vincent Walker was one of the most influential businessmen in the world, the founder of the largest luxury jewelry company in existence, a brand celebrated for crafting genuine gold jewelry of a quality no competitor had ever managed to replicate.
Bryce knew his face well.
Whenever Vincent appeared in interviews or documentaries, Bryce never failed to watch. He admired the man’s journey from obscurity to unimaginable success and often reminded himself that one day he would build his own clothing and accessories company, taking it to the very top just as Vincent had done.
That dream had driven him through years of study.
He had specialized in fashion design, fabrics, and accessories- particularly jewelry design. Even before graduation, he had already been searching for a job opportunity that would launch his career and set him on the path toward building the future he had dreamed of for years.
The shock that followed the recognition hit Bryce with crushing force. Countless questions stormed his mind at once.
Was he dreaming?
If this wasn’t a dream, how had he ended up standing before someone like Vincent Walker?
And even more bewildering, why did it feel as though Vincent recognized him?
His mind demanded answers. Every instinct urged him to stop and make sense of the impossible situation unfolding before him, but his body refused to listen.
His unsteady legs continued carrying him toward Vincent as though they no longer belonged to him.
The desperate need consuming him drowned out every rational thought, leaving room for only one overwhelming desire: to close the distance between them.
He wanted to be held in those strong arms, to breathe in more of that intoxicating scent that seemed to set every nerve in his body ablaze. He wanted to bury himself against him, to feel his touch, to lose himself in his embrace.
Step by trembling step, Bryce drew closer.
Vincent didn’t moved.
He simply watched him with an unreadable intensity, his unwavering gaze fixed on Bryce from the moment his eyes had opened.
Something about those piercing eyes only poured fuel onto the unbearable heat raging through Bryce’s body, making the ache inside him burn even hotter.
Just as Bryce closed the remaining distance, his fingertips almost brushing Vincent, Leah lunged forward, seized his arm, and wrenched him back before pulling Vincent firmly against herself.
A frustrated groan left Bryce’s throat, a violent surge of instinct exploded through his body. Every muscle tightened, a fierce, irrational urge flooding him with the need to shove her away, to tear her off Vincent, to eliminate anything standing between him and the man he wanted with every breath he took.
"Stop releasing your pheromones now that he’s awake!" she snapped, her voice even sharper than before. "You’re only pulling him closer when you should be rejecting him already."
"I’m not releasing anything," Vincent replied, his voice faltering for the first time. "I... I can’t stop it..." His breathing grew ragged, each breath heavier than the last as his composure visibly crumbled.
He pressed a hand firmly against his chest, his jaw tightening as he fought the overwhelming urge ravaging every ounce of his self control.
No matter how fiercely he resisted it, no matter how many times he reminded himself that he would never touch a man, never desire one, the instinct refused to yield.
The thought of having a male mate filled him with bitter resentment, especially because it ruined his plans.
He couldn’t help wondering if this was the Moon Goddess’s cruelest punishment for everything he had done, and everything he still intended to do. After all, no one knew better than himself that he wasn’t a good man.
He had been fighting the urge from the very moment he found this young man, who was supposedly his mate. Every second had been testing the limits of his self control.
Simply watching him lie unconscious on the couch without touching him had already been a form of torture he could barely endure.
Now that Bryce was awake, the battle inside him had become impossible to contain. Every instinct screamed at him to close the distance between them, and even something as simple as speaking the words of rejection had become impossibly difficult.
His eyes refused to leave the young man before him. The full, slightly parted red lips, the piercing blue eyes clouded by heat, the soft blond strands spilling carelessly across his forehead... every feature looked impossibly beautiful, as though each had been crafted to belong exactly where it was.
Even the way Bryce’s body trembled only drew Vincent in further.
The warm vanilla scent wrapping itself around him soothed every restless corner of his body while, at the same time, feeding the one desire he could no longer suppress.
It only made him want Bryce more. He wanted to pull him into his arms, capture those inviting lips with his own, and lose himself in the warmth radiating from the trembling body.
Bryce, on the other hand, could no longer endure the unbearable heat consuming him. A desperate groan escaped his lips as his trembling hands reached for his clothes.
He tugged frantically at the loose T-shirt and oversized hoodie clinging to his body, ripping them off in a frantic attempt to escape the suffocating warmth.
His bare upper body was left exposed, revealing pale, fever flushed skin glistening beneath a fine sheen of perspiration. His chest rose and fell in uneven, labored breaths, every inhale heavier than the last.
Vincent’s eyes darkened almost instantly.
The sight struck him harder than he expected.
Before he realized it, he had already removed Leah’s hand from his arm and stepped toward Bryce.
The fragile control he had been clinging to finally broke as Bryce’s trembling hands wandered over his own feverish body.