Chapter 1: The Office Seduction
The house was too quiet after dinner. Merlin could hear the old grandfather clock ticking in the hall, each second a measured beat in the stifling silence. He stood outside the study door, his palm flat against the cool wood. His father was in there. He always was.
He pushed the door open without knocking.
Arthur didn’t look up from his ledger, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, a fountain pen poised in his strong hand. The lamplight pooled on the desk, leaving the corners of the room in deep shadow. Bookshelves climbed the walls, packed tight with volumes on law and history, a fortress of respectability.
“You should be studying,” Arthur said, his voice a low rumble. He turned a page.
“I was. Got bored.” Merlin drifted further into the room, the Persian rug soft under his socks. He could smell the old paper, the faint hint of his father’s cologne, something sharp and clean. It made his stomach tighten.
“Then find something useful to do. Your portfolio for the arts college isn’t going to complete itself.” Arthur finally glanced up, his blue eyes sharp behind the lenses. “Or have you given up on that folly, too?”
The words were a needle, precisely aimed. Merlin felt them prick behind his ribs. Folly. His drawings, his paintings, the only things that made sense in his head—all just a folly to this man.
“No,” Merlin said, his own voice quieter than he intended. He came around the side of the massive oak desk. “I haven’t given up.”
He stopped beside Arthur’s leather chair. From here, he could see the grey just starting to silver his father’s temples, the tired lines at the corners of his eyes. The ledger was full of precise, angry numbers.
“What are you working on?” Merlin asked, leaning over slightly. His t-shirt brushed Arthur’s shoulder.
“The Henderson accounts. It’s tedious. Go to bed, Merlin.”
“I’m not tired.”
A sigh, full of paternal exasperation. Arthur set his pen down carefully. “Then what do you want? You’re hovering.”
Merlin’s heart was a frantic bird against his ribs. This was the moment, the dizzying, terrifying ledge. He’d dreamed it, hated himself for it, craved it in the dark. He swung one leg over Arthur’s lap, straddling him in the chair before his own courage could fail.
Arthur went utterly still. “What the hell are you doing?” His voice was dangerously calm.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” Merlin whispered, the words shaky. He could feel the solid warmth of his father’s thighs beneath him, the hard plane of his stomach. He put his hands on Arthur’s shoulders, feeling the tense muscle under the crisp cotton shirt.
“Get off.” It was an order, flat and cold.
Merlin didn’t move. Instead, he rocked his hips down, a slow, deliberate grind. The friction through their trousers sent a bolt of heat straight to his groin. He was already half-hard, shamefully eager. “You don’t mean that.”
Arthur’s hands came up, not to push him away, but to grip his hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Merlin. Stop this. Now.”
“You’re not stopping me.” He did it again, grinding down, a shameless, needy roll of his body. He could feel the stirring response beneath him, the betraying thickening in Arthur’s slacks. A wild, victorious thrill shot through him. “See? You want it too. You’re just scared.”
“Scared?” Arthur’s laugh was a short, harsh sound. His control was fracturing, Merlin could see it in the clench of his jaw, the wild storm in his eyes. “You have no idea what you’re playing with.”
“Then show me,” Merlin breathed, leaning in until his lips were almost touching his father’s ear. “Show me what I’m playing with. Or are you too much of a coward?”
The change was instantaneous. Arthur erupted into motion.
In one violent, fluid movement, he surged up from the chair, his grip on Merlin’s hips unbreakable. He spun them and slammed Merlin down onto the hard surface of the desk. Ledgers and papers scattered, fluttering to the floor like wounded birds. The lamp rocked, sending shadows lurching across the ceiling.
Merlin gasped, the breath knocked out of him, his back pressed against the cold, smooth wood. Arthur loomed over him, pinning his wrists above his head with one large hand. His father’s face was a mask of fury and something else, something dark and ravenous.
“You think this is a game?” Arthur snarled, his breath hot against Merlin’s face. “You think you can tease a man and just walk away?”
“I’m not walking away,” Merlin panted, straining against the grip. He was fully hard now, aching, every nerve alight.
Arthur used his free hand to fumble with Merlin’s belt, the leather tearing open with a rough yank. The button on his jeans popped, the zipper grated down. Cold air hit his skin, then the hotter, shocking touch of his father’s hand wrapping around his cock.
Merlin cried out, back arching off the desk. It was nothing like his own touch. It was rough, possessive, utterly overwhelming.
“This what you wanted?” Arthur hissed, his stroke brutal and efficient. “You wanted your father to fuck you? To treat you like a cheap little whore begging for it on my desk?”
The filthy words, the degrading truth of them, sent a searing wave of pleasure through Merlin’s shame. “Yes,” he moaned, mindless. “God, yes.”
Arthur released his cock. Merlin heard the frantic rustle of clothing, the tear of a foil packet – where had he gotten that? – and then the blunt, insistent pressure against his hole. He was dry, terrified, ready.
“Please,” Merlin begged, turning his face into the wood grain.
“You asked for this.” Arthur’s voice was guttural, alien.
He pushed in.
The pain was a white-hot splitting. Merlin screamed, a short, sharp sound swallowed by the silent house. He felt stretched to breaking, impaled, owned. Arthur didn’t pause, didn’t gentle. He buried himself to the hilt with a ragged groan, his body a dead weight on top of Merlin’s.
For a second, they were both frozen, locked in the agony and the obscenity of it. Merlin choked on a sob.
Then Arthur began to move.
It was a punishing rhythm, each thrust jolting Merlin up the desk. The pain blurred, mutated, began to spark with a perverse, deep-seated pleasure. Arthur fucked him with a focused, ruthless intensity, his hips pistoning, his breathing harsh grunts in Merlin’s ear. The desk creaked in protest, a steady, rhythmic complaint.
Merlin’s own cock, trapped and leaking between their sweat-slicked stomachs, throbbed with every slam. He was unmoored, shattered. This was hatred and need and a terrible, twisted love all fused into a single act. He came with a broken gasp, stripes of white painting his own abdomen and Arthur’s shirt, his body clamping down violently around the invasion.
Arthur’s rhythm faltered. He drove in deep once, twice more, and then shuddered, a low, animal sound ripped from his throat as he emptied himself inside the condom.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by their ragged breaths. The tick of the hall clock seeped back in.
Arthur pulled out. The loss was sudden, shocking. Merlin heard the soft snap of latex, the shuffle of clothing being adjusted.
He couldn’t move. He lay on the ruined desk, exposed and trembling, feeling the cold air on his wet skin, the slick, aching mess between his legs. He heard his father’s footsteps cross the room.
The study door opened.
“Clean yourself up,” Arthur said from the doorway. His voice was flat, emptied out. The voice of the judge, not the lover. Not the father. “We will never speak of this.”
The door clicked shut.
Merlin lay in the lamplight, amidst the scattered pages of his father’s respectable life. He slowly brought his shaking hands down, hugging his own bare, bruised hips. The clock kept ticking, measuring the new, terrible silence. The chapter of before was irrevocably closed.