Click. The bathroom door locked. Elian looked around the space he’d been dragged into with wide, stunned eyes. He never would have guessed that behind what looked like an ordinary wardrobe, a room like this was hidden. It was a secret bathroom — quietly added onto the inner office by the previous lord, Elian’s father, during his lifetime for his private indulgences.
A fine layer of dust coated every surface, but the floor and walls were finished in high-grade marble, and in the center of the room sat a massive circular bathtub — large enough to fit three or four grown men without issue.
“Ha. The residents are starving to death, and he built something like this.”
Elian clicked his tongue. The previous lord wasn’t truly his father, but the man’s extravagance made him embarrassed on his behalf — though Calix paid it no mind whatsoever, already hauling Elian roughly toward the tub.
“Fill it first.”
Calix pressed his palm against the large Mana stone set into the head of the bathtub. A low hum of vibration sounded, the stone glowed red, and hot water began gushing from the faucet in a heavy rush. It was a premium installation, fully equipped with magical engineering.
“S-sir. It’ll take some time to fill. While we wait, I can step outside—”
“I told you I don’t have time to wait.”
Calix turned Elian around to face him. Steam from the rising water was already filling the bathroom rapidly.
“Take it off.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re covered in dirt anyway. Were you planning to just sit there until the tub fills up?”
Calix’s crimson eyes fixed on Elian’s work clothes. A sharp, predatory look — as though he might tear them off himself at any moment.
“I’ll do it myself!”
Elian reached up in a hurry. But the stiffened buttons refused to budge against his fingers, which had gone clumsy from the cold.
“Move.”
Unable to stand the wait, Calix batted Elian’s hands aside. Pop. Snap. Under Calix’s grip, the buttons were wrenched free. As the rough handling pulled the collar open, Elian’s pale skin — hidden beneath the layer of dirt and dust — was exposed. He had a firm, well-defined torso with lean muscle, but against Calix’s towering frame, he looked almost slight.
“Hm.”
Calix’s gaze moved over Elian’s collarbone and chest with slow, deliberate intent. The bare skin revealed through the steam was far fairer and smoother than he had imagined. And the muscle — unexpected as it was — was pleasing to look at.
Elian’s ears burned red with embarrassment. A man looking at another man’s body — why does it feel like this?
“Get in.”
Calix gestured with his chin toward the bathtub, now half-filled with water. Elian practically fled into it.
Splash. Hot water rose to his shoulders. The heat enveloping his entire body loosened the muscles that had been locked tight with tension. The body that had gone stiff from shoveling frozen ground began to soften.
Ahh. I feel human again.
But the peace didn’t last. A heavy splash sounded behind him. Elian spun around in alarm. Calix, completely undressed, was stepping into the tub. Elian’s eyes went wide.
Never mind the rest of him — is that thing between his legs actually meant to be on a person?
He was staring blankly when Calix let out a quiet snort.
“What are you looking at.”
“I — w-won’t it be too cramped?”
“Stay still.”
Instead of answering, Calix gripped Elian’s shoulders and turned him back around. He settled himself at the edge of the tub and positioned Elian between his legs, caging him in. Then he dropped a water-soaked cloth across Elian’s back.
“Ngh…”
Even with the hot cloth against him, the fingers pressing over it were ice-cold. The strange sensation of heat and cold hitting him at once drew a short sound from Elian’s throat.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Calix replied flatly and began to scrub Elian’s back. Stroke. Stroke. It was not a gentle touch. The stated purpose was to wash off the dirt — but to Elian, it felt more like having his skin scraped off.
“Sir, a little gentler, please—”
“Stay still.”
Calix’s hand moved down along the line of his spine. Past the ridge of his shoulder blades, down into the narrow curve of his waist, and all the way to just above his hips. For something that was supposed to be a simple wash, the movements were far too slow and deliberate.
Calix watched the skin revealed where the dirt was rinsed away — white enough to be almost painful to look at. He could see the spots where his hands had been flushing red. Like dropping red paint onto a white canvas.
“Warm. I like it.”
The words slipped out without intention. It wasn’t the heat of the bathwater. The vitality churning inside this man’s body was seeping through the skin into his veins with every point of contact. The senses that had been frozen solid by his Mana’s chill were waking up one by one. Without quite realizing it, Calix curved both hands around Elian’s waist and pulled him in.
Ding―!
[System Notice: Exposed Underwater Contact Bonus applied!]
[Conductivity 200%… Absorbing Mana in large quantities]
[1,500 BP… 1,800 BP…]
The numbers in the System Window before Elian’s eyes were climbing like mad. Fifteen hundred? Eighteen hundred? This was no ordinary charge. It was practically a jackpot. Elian forgot his humiliation and cheered internally. He’d already burned through his Points buying materials for the defense wall.
That’s right. Scrub away. Scrub it all. So what if some skin comes off. We’re building a defense wall.
Blinded by Points, he failed to notice that Calix’s hands were moving somewhere increasingly dangerous.
“Your body is well-built.”
Calix murmured low. He slid his arms in under Elian’s from behind and began to wash his chest. Soap-slick fingers grazed over a pink nipple in passing.
“Hk—!”
Elian’s body jerked sharply at the cold stimulus hitting somewhere sensitive. A current of electricity seemed to arc from deep in his lower belly. This was supposed to be a purely transactional arrangement — but the moment a man’s fingers brushed his nipple, an instinctive rush of shame hit him alongside a heat that made no sense at all. The sound of his own heartbeat grew so loud it rang in his ears.
Wait. What’s happening to me?
Elian bit down hard on his lip. In his previous life he’d been practically unresponsive to sensation — so flinching just from a nipple being touched was strange. Points or no Points, at this rate he was going to make a sound he couldn’t take back. The skin where Calix’s hand had passed was burning as if scalded.
“S-sir! Not there—!”
“There was dirt on it.”
A lie. But Calix didn’t stop. He shifted himself deeper into the tub and moved in behind Elian entirely. Caught off guard, Elian instinctively lifted his hips — and beneath the water, the lower halves of their bodies brushed against each other.
Calix pulled the awkwardly raised Elian down fully onto his thighs. Their bodies pressed flush together without a gap between them. The sensation of soft, yielding weight settling over his firm thighs was both foreign and dizzying. I want to crush him against me until he becomes part of me. That was the only thought occupying his mind.
The cold Grand Duke’s body drank in Elian’s heat with ravenous greed. A tremor — like parched ground finally receiving rain. Rational thought was shutting down, and only instinct was coming awake.
At that moment, Elian was reeling at what he felt pressing against him from behind. The size of what was touching him was something that had no business being attached to a human being.
“…Sir?”
Something was wrong. This was no longer a simple act of warming away a Mana-driven chill. The chest pressed against his back was rising and falling in rough, unsteady pulls. Calix’s breath pushed through his wet hair and tickled the back of his neck.
“You smell… good.”
Calix murmured as if in a trance. The scent of clean water and soap, and beneath that, the undercurrent of Elian’s own natural warmth. That particular fragrance was stimulating every nerve in Calix’s body in a way no finest perfume ever had.
It was impulsive. Calix lowered his head and pressed his lips to the pale, exposed curve of Elian’s nape.
“Ngh—!”
Elian’s body went rigid. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a bite — sharp enough to press the tips of Calix’s canines into the skin, like a predator confirming the vulnerability of its prey. A sting of pain shot through him, followed by an electric current that ran up the length of his spine.
Calix didn’t lift his mouth. He dragged his tongue slowly over the reddened mark his teeth had left. The sweet scent of flesh and the feel of hot skin against his lips. Something in the back of his mind snapped cleanly in two.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His heart began to pound like mad. It was nothing like the way his heart raced during a Mana surge. This was unmistakable arousal. A heavy pull gathered low in his belly. Beneath the water, his length slowly hardened, making itself known.
The stiffness pressed between Elian’s cheeks.
“…!”
Elian held his breath. Any man would have known exactly what that was.
Surely not — the Grand Duke? For me?
But the one more thrown off was Calix himself. He could feel Elian’s skin against the tip of his tongue, and he could feel his own body slipping beyond control.
What is this?
He was the Grand Duke of the North. He had lived an ascetic life. Countless noblewomen had thrown themselves at him over the years, and not once had he been moved. And the person in question was a man, on top of that. Not delicate-pretty — plainly, cleanly handsome. Unambiguously male.
So why? Why do I want to sink my teeth into this nape, why do I want to press this pale body down beneath me? This was not merely a desire to stabilize his Mana. It was something far more base. Slicker. More animal.
Am I… in heat?
Shame and confusion crashed into him at the same time. He couldn’t accept that he — of all people — was reacting to someone like this. It must be a side effect of the treatment. His body was malfunctioning from absorbing Mana too rapidly.
But his erection was far too present, far too vivid, to chalk it up to that.
“…Damn it.”
