Chapter 9: The Hour Ends
The final tick of the clock was a guillotine drop. Silence rushed in to fill the space where Dante’s ragged breathing had been the only sound. His hands, which had been moving with a frantic, automatic rhythm for the last hour, fell limp to his sides, palms up, fingers trembling. He didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling as if he’d forgotten how to do anything else, his chest rising and falling in great, shuddering heaves. His skin was sheened with sweat, his nipples a livid, peaked red against the flushed terrain of his chest.
Kenny watched him from the chair for a full minute, letting the aftermath settle. The power he’d wielded felt like a live wire in his own veins, humming and dangerous. He stood, the floor cool under his bare feet, and walked to the side of the vast bed.
“Good,” he said, his voice soft, almost reverent in the quiet. “You did well.”
Dante didn’t look at him. A single muscle twitched in his jaw, a last bastion of control. His eyes were glassy, fixed on some distant point in the plaster above.
Kenny bent down. He picked up the discarded black boxer briefs from where they’d been kicked to the floor. The fabric was cool. He held them out, letting them dangle from his fingertips over Dante’s prone form.
“Here. You can wear these, at least.”
Dante blinked, slowly, as if processing a foreign language. His gaze drifted from the ceiling to the offered garment, then to Kenny’s face. Exhaustion and confusion warred in his dark eyes. He pushed himself up on unsteady elbows, moving like a man twice his age, every muscle protesting. He took the briefs without a word, his fingers brushing Kenny’s. The contact was electric for both of them. Dante fumbled, his coordination gone, but managed to pull them on, lying back against the pillows with a heavy exhale once they were in place.
The room was so quiet Kenny could hear the faint, high-frequency whine of the electronics in the walls.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the silk dimpling under his weight. He didn’t touch Dante. Not yet. He looked out at the city, a tapestry of indifferent lights. The performance was over. The director had to become something else now, and the script was blank.
“I don’t think,” Kenny began, his voice losing its commanding edge, fraying into something quieter, more tentative. He cleared his throat. “I don’t think I would like to sleep alone tonight.”
He felt, rather than saw, Dante go still beside him.
“The entire security team is just outside,” Dante said, his voice a ruined scrape. A professional reflex.
“I know that,” Kenny said. He turned his head to look at him. Dante was staring at him now, his expression unreadable in the low light. “I was hoping you’ll… stay with me. Here. Not outside the door.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to feel. Dante’s eyes searched his face, looking for the trap, the next cruel twist in the game. He found only a raw, unguarded sincerity that seemed to unsettle him more than any command had.
Kenny held his breath.
After a long, suspended moment, Dante let out a slow, controlled breath. He didn’t speak. He just shifted his weight, turning slightly onto his side, his back to the windows. An invitation. A concession.
Kenny slid under the covers beside him. The cool silk was a shock against his skin. He didn’t turn away. He moved closer, until his chest was pressed against Dante’s side, his forehead near the junction of his shoulder. He could feel the rapid, steady drum of Dante’s heartbeat through his back.
Hesitantly, Kenny lifted his hand. He placed it flat on Dante’s sternum, over the still-thrumming heart. Dante stiffened, but didn’t recoil. Kenny began to explore, his touch entirely different now—not demanding, but mapping. His palm slid over the broad, solid plane of Dante’s chest, feeling the scatter of coarse hair, the ridges of old scar tissue over ribs. He traced the hard line of his pectoral, down the pronounced groove of his sternum to the taut muscles of his abdomen.
His fingers drifted idly through the crisp trail of hair that led from Dante’s navel down, disappearing beneath the waistband of the briefs. He didn’t go further. He drew his hand back up, skating over the dip of Dante’s belly button, up over the sternum again.
Then his fingertips brushed, feather-light, over one swollen nipple.
Dante sucked in a sharp, pained breath, his whole body twitching violently. Kenny stilled his hand instantly, letting it rest just beside the oversensitive peak.
“Sorry,” Kenny whispered, the word genuine.
“‘S fine,” Dante grunted, the sound tight.
Kenny left his hand there, a warm weight. He nuzzled his cheek against Dante’s shoulder blade, inhaling the scent of sweat, clean soap, and the faint, sterile note of the lube. “Goodnight, Dante.”
Dante didn’t reply. But after a minute, the terrible tension in his back began to seep away, muscle by locked muscle. His breathing, which had been deliberately even, deepened into something more natural. In the dark, their rhythms slowly found a syncopated harmony—the rise and fall of Kenny’s chest against Dante’s back, the shared warmth under the heavy duvet.
Kenny woke to darkness and a strangled gasp.
The body beside him was rigid, trembling. Dante was caught in the throes of a nightmare, his breaths coming in short, sharp pants, his hands fisting the sheets. A low, desperate mutter leaked from his lips. “…negative. all clear. not clear. it’s not—”
“Dante.” Kenny’s voice was soft but firm in the dark.
No response. Dante jerked, a full-body spasm, a trapped animal.
Kenny pushed himself up on one elbow. He didn’t shake him. He knew better. He placed his hand over the one Dante had clenched in the silk, covering it completely. “Dante. You’re in the penthouse. You’re safe. It’s Kenny.”
The muttering stopped. Dante’s breathing hitched, then evened out by a degree. The tremors subsided. He didn’t wake, but he turned his head towards Kenny’s voice, his brow furrowed. His fist slowly unclenched under Kenny’s palm.
Kenny stayed like that, his hand over Dante’s, until the room was silent again save for the distant hum of the city. He didn’t let go. He lay back down, their hands still connected, and waited for sleep to pull him under once more.