Chapter 85 Episode 85: Punishment R16

Kael’s POV

I watched him sleep for a long time after the physicians left. His chest rose and fell in a steady line. That simple movement still made my hands shake if I looked too long.

The fear from the past week hadn’t left me. It lived under my skin like a second pulse. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the empty chair and the still body and the moment the monitors might have gone flat while I was not looking.

I remembered the first night most clearly. I had sat in this same chair and counted every breath because the silence between them felt too long. I held his hand and felt how cold his fingers were. I had whispered his name and gotten nothing back.

The second night was worse. The physicians spoke in careful voices about residual damage and slipping further away. I stopped answering messages from the estate.

I stopped eating anything that took me away from the side of the cot. The only work that mattered was staying close enough to catch the next shallow rise of his chest.

By the fourth day the fear had settled into my bones. I dreamed of the service road and the blood and the way he had slumped against the shed. In the dreams I reached him too late. I woke with my heart slamming and my hand already on his wrist, checking for a pulse that was still there.

He woke slowly now. His eyes found me and a small tired smile pulled at his mouth. The smile eased the worst of the tightness in my chest but it did not erase it.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

"Sore. But better than before."

I sat on the edge of the cot. My hand rested on his blanket-covered thigh. I needed the contact. Proof that he was warm and present and not slipping away again.

"You scared me," I said.

The words came out rougher than I planned. Akira’s smile faded. He looked down at my hand.

"I didn’t mean to."

"I know." I leaned closer. "But you did. A whole week. I sat here and listened to people tell me to prepare for the worst. I stopped answering my mother’s calls because I was afraid you would die while I was gone."

He opened his mouth to speak. I kissed him before the words formed.

The kiss started soft. The fear made it desperate fast. I cupped the side of his face and deepened it until he made a quiet sound against my mouth. His good hand gripped my shirt. I kept kissing him like the contact could rewrite the days I had spent counting every breath.

I pulled back just enough to speak.

"This is for the fear you caused me."

I kissed him again. My tongue brushed his and he opened for me. The taste of him settled one restless part of me and woke another. My hand slid under the blanket. I pushed the soft pants down and wrapped my fingers around him. He was already half-hard. The moment I touched him he broke the kiss with a sharp breath.

"Kael..."

"Quiet." I stroked him once, slow and firm. "You put me through hell. Now you are going to have to take what I give you."

His hips shifted. I pressed my free hand to his good shoulder and held him still. The residual terror sat right beside the want. I needed him to feel how close I had come to losing this. I needed proof of his body answering me.

I kept the pace steady and unhurried. Every time his breathing picked up I slowed down. Every time his fingers tightened on my shirt I loosened my grip until he made a frustrated sound. The control helped. It gave the fear somewhere to go.

I remembered the fifth night when his breathing had turned irregular for almost an hour. I had held his hand so tight my own fingers went numb. I had bargained with every power I did not believe in. The memory made my current grip on him tighten for a second before I forced it to ease.

"Please," he whispered.

I kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Not yet."

I stroked him to the edge and stopped. His cock twitched in my hand. A small bead of wetness formed at the tip. I spread it with my thumb and watched his face. The open need there eased another layer of the dread that had lived in me for days.

"Kael, fuck... I can’t..."

"You can." I started again, slower than before. "You made me wait a week not knowing if you would wake up. You can wait a little longer."

He bit his lower lip hard. I leaned down and kissed the spot. My hand kept working him in long measured pulls. The fear still whispered that this could be taken away. The solid heat of him in my fist was the only answer that helped.

I thought of the messages I had ignored from the estate. My mother’s steward had stood at the door and told me the matter was no longer optional. I had asked him to close the door and had not moved from the chair. The memory of that choice still sat heavy in my chest.

When his thighs started to tremble I stopped completely.

Akira’s head dropped back against the pillow.

"Please. I need to come."

"I know, baby." The name left me without thought. "Soon."

I kissed down his neck while my hand stayed still on him. His pulse raced under my mouth. I remembered sitting in the dark listening for that same pulse and finding it too thin.

The memory made my eyes burn. I pressed my face into the curve of his throat and breathed him in until the burn faded.

I stroked him again. Faster this time. His hips tried to push up into my fist. I held him down with the hand on his shoulder and kept control of the pace.

He was leaking steadily now. The wet sounds filled the quiet room. Each sound pushed the week of silence further away.

The fear tried to rise again. It showed me the empty chair and the still monitors and the moment I might have walked in and found nothing left to hold. I answered it by focusing on the heat in my hand and the broken sounds Akira made every time I twisted my wrist just right.

"Kael... I’m close..."

I stopped.

Akira made a broken sound. His free hand grabbed my wrist and tried to make me move. I did not let him. The denial was for both of us. It forced the fear to sit still and watch him stay present and desperate and alive under my hands.

"Beg properly," I said against his ear.

"Please." His voice cracked. "Please let me come. I can’t take it. Please, Kael."

The raw need in his voice nearly undid me. I wanted to keep him on the edge until the last of my terror burned out. His body was still healing. The rib had only just started to knit. I would not risk the recovery for my own need to prove he was still here.

I kissed him hard and started stroking with clear purpose. My grip stayed firm and even. His breathing turned ragged. His fingers dug into my arm.

"That’s it," I murmured against his mouth. "Come for me. Stay with me."

He broke with a soft cry. Warmth spilled over my fingers and across his stomach. I worked him through it until the last tremor left his legs. Then I slowed and stopped.

The quiet that followed felt different from the quiet of the vigil. This quiet had him breathing hard and present and still mine to touch.

Akira lay there with his eyes half-closed and wet at the corners. I cleaned him carefully with a cloth from the side table and pulled the soft pants back into place. The blanket settled over him again. My own body ached with unfinished want but I ignored it. He was not ready for more.

I stayed seated on the edge of the cot. The fear had not fully left. It had only loosened its grip. I could still feel the ghost of those long nights when the next breath was not guaranteed. I leaned down and rested my forehead against his.

"You don’t get to scare me like that again."

"I’ll try," he whispered.

"You won’t escape me much longer." The words came out low and certain. "I’m done waiting for the right moment. When you’re strong enough I’m making this permanent. I need you where I can see you. Where I can reach you. I’m not spending another week wondering if you’re about to leave me."

Akira’s eyes opened fully. He stared up at me. I saw the understanding settle there. I did not look away. The claim sat between us, born directly from the terror of almost losing him.

I brushed my thumb across his cheek and felt the leftover wetness from earlier.

"Rest now," I said. "I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’m not going anywhere."

He nodded. His hand found mine under the blanket and held on. The room returned to its quiet rhythm of soft monitors and steady breathing. I stayed on the edge of the cot and watched him drift toward sleep again.

The fear still lived in me. It had changed shape. It sat beside the promise I had just spoken and waited for the day his body would be ready for everything that promise meant.

Until then I would keep watch the same way I had kept watch for a week. Close enough to feel every breath. Close enough to know he was still here.

I stayed awake long after he fell asleep. My hand rested on his chest so I could feel the steady rise and fall. The residual terror tried to show me empty days and silent rooms.

I answered it by counting the breaths under my palm and holding on to the solid proof that he had come back to me.

The week of fear had marked me. It had stripped away every plan that did not include him within reach. I would not return to the version of myself that could sit in an office while he bled on a service road. I would not return to unanswered calls and thin hope.

I watched his face in the low light and let the claim settle deeper. When he was strong enough I would finish what I had started with his mother’s blessing.

Until that day I would stay exactly where I was. Close. Present. Unwilling to let the fear have the final word.