Johan POV

It started with a glance. A fleeting flicker of emotion across his face.

North had always kept a safe distance—guarded, polite, observant. But that day... something slipped. Something small.

And I caught it.

I had leaned in, just slightly, to help him reach the top shelf. My chest brushed against his back. Barely. Accidental. Calculated.

He inhaled sharply.

The book slipped from his hand and hit the floor.

He turned—eyes wide, lips parted just a fraction too long—and when our gazes met, his cheeks flushed pink.

He looked away instantly.

Mumbled something incoherent. Reached for the book too fast. His hand bumped mine, and he pulled back like he’d been scorched.

I didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

Because inside, something low and wicked thrummed.

Not satisfaction.

Possession.

He blushed for me.

But the high didn't last.

Later that afternoon, I watched from across the street as some classmate of his—some eager, stupid boy in a puffer jacket—made him laugh. A real one.

He tucked his chin into his scarf, hands fidgeting at the hem of his sleeves. Blushing.

That same shade of pink.

The one he gave me.

I gripped the edge of the café table until my knuckles paled. The porcelain teacup cracked between my fingers, ceramic splitting with a sound that felt like bones breaking.

The café girl gasped. “Sir—are you okay?”

I didn’t answer.

I was watching North.

His smile.

My smile.

Given away like it was nothing.

I walked away before I did something... irreversible.

But not before I memorized the boy’s face.

Name. Family. Course schedule. Dating history.

I’d erase him if I needed to.

Quietly.

Without leaving a trace.

Back at the apartment, I stood in the dark for a long time. Watching North’s window glow.

He was inside. Probably studying. Maybe listening to that sleepy indie playlist he always chose. Maybe thinking about Mark.

Maybe not.

Either way, he was mine.

He just didn’t know it yet.

My burner phone buzzed.

I knew the number. Tiger.

“Talk,” I said.

His voice was gravel. “Shipment to Volgograd got intercepted.”

“Intercepted?” I said slowly, dangerously. “By who?”

“Unknown. Signal interference. Satellite lost. The container’s off radar. We think someone on the inside tipped them.”

Another rat.

Another liar.

Another idiot who thought Johan Armani didn’t see everything.

“Put a tracker on every handler in the Russian line,” I said, pacing the window.

“Freeze movement on Eastern ports. If one dock supervisor even sneezes out of rhythm, I want their entire family gutted.”

“Yes, boss.”

“And Tiger?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself this time.”

Click.

Silence.

I exhaled and looked across the street again.

North’s silhouette moved behind the curtains.

Soft.

Unaware.

Beautiful in his silence.

Everything I couldn’t control in the underworld—I could control here. With him.

I was going to take him. Mold him. Strip him from the world.

Until no one else could make him blush.

No one else would hear his laugh.

No one else would touch his soul.

Just me.

Always me.

________________

He moved like an unknowing sin.

The screen flickered faintly in the dark, casting pale light across my face.
My breath slowed, my eyes unblinking. North had just stepped out of the shower, steam curling behind him like phantom silk. His back was bare—smooth, lithe, dripping with silver droplets that traced the delicate line of his spine.

He was drying his hair lazily with a towel, strands still damp, curling at the edges, sticking to the soft slope of his neck. He looked untouched. Unaware. Untouched.

Mine.

My fingers curled tightly against the desk as a slow burn coiled in my stomach. He rubbed lotion across his shoulder with one hand, his expression absent-minded. Routine. Ordinary. And yet to me—he looked like something sacred.

Beautiful. Fragile. Breakable.

My body tensed as a heat rose I didn’t want to name. Every movement he made pulled me deeper into a place that had no bottom. His skin glowed under the dim yellow lights of his room, and I could feel a low thrum in my chest—unsteady. Hungry.

No one should see him like this.

No one should get to be this close.

Not even the mirror.

I leaned back slowly, fingers lifting from the edge of the table like I had just touched fire. My jaw clenched as I inhaled, sharp and quiet, trying to contain the flood rising inside me. But my mind wouldn’t stop playing it over—his exposed collarbones, the soft flush to his cheeks, the unguarded stillness he wore when alone.

He belonged to me. He just didn’t know it yet.

And I wanted to consume him—not just his body, but everything.

His blush.

His trust.

His name when he said it like he still owned it.

I wanted to strip him.

Consume him.

Cage him.

Fuck him till he did not know any name other than mine.

Then a sharp knock at my door nearly startled me.

I didn’t answer it.

Didn’t care who it was.

My eyes were still fixed on the screen as North crossed his room in nothing but low-hanging pajama pants. My breath hitched—rage and desire battling beneath my skin. I reached for the laptop, hesitated, then shut it with a quiet click.

Not because I couldn’t look.

But because I was afraid of what I might do if I kept watching.

I spun the chair around slowly, grounding myself in the dark of my office. The air felt too still, too full of him.

His name lived on my tongue.

“North…” I whispered.

Like a prayer.

Like a warning.

Heat slowly pooled in my body. Sweat droplets marking my neck, an unknowing hunger arising within every nerve of my body.
My hands slowly unknowingly reached down unbuckling my pants.
I could feel my hardened member throbbing.

Fuck!

I slowly pulled my pants zipper down touching my throbbing member that was completely hard now.

I precisely adjusted my position on the chair and opened my legs wide as my palms begin stroking the hardened junior aching for relief.

"Uhmm" a groan escaped me as I imagined the pink parted lips of North , juicy , plumpy asking to be devoured.

Juicy , sweet and only mine.

"Mmmmhh" i quickened my pace imagining his pink lips on my member giving me the best head of my life while looking at me with those big doe eyes , my hands tangled in his hair while he took every inch of my junior in his mouth slick with his saliva.
Taking me in and out so well , so trained , so precisely.
More sweat beads formed on my forehead. My tongue licked my bottom lips before biting it

"N- north" a moaned escaped me, my pace increasing a little more as i imagined him increasing his pace as well as he took me deep. Whimpering, sweat slicked, almost gagging but trying his best .

"Fck north..." I came with a groan.

I roughly grabbed some tissue from the desk cleaning myself when my phone lit up.

Tiger.

Business.

Reality shoved its way in like a blunt instrument.

I answered, voice colder than ice.

“Speak.”

“There’s been another delay. Arms shipment in the Black Sea. Unmarked interference again. Signal was jammed. We’ve got eyes on nothing.”

I closed my eyes.

Not now.

Not when I was this far gone. Not when I could still smell the phantom scent of North’s soap in my mind. Still feel the ache in my chest from watching something so soft—so unknowingly his—walk barefoot across a carpet that should’ve been ours.

“Handle it,” I said tightly.

Tiger hesitated. “We think it’s internal again.”

My fist closed. Hard. “Then dig them out. Tear through every contact. If one of them so much as paused at customs, I want their name erased from every system and their body dropped six feet under.”

“Understood.”

Click.

I didn’t move for a long time.

My heartbeat echoed against the silence. My hands trembled—not from fear, but from restraint.

North didn’t know I was in his life. Not really. Not the way I needed to be.

But he would.

Because obsession, once ignited, does not flicker out. It consumes. Quietly. Fully.

And I’d make sure no one else ever got to see what I saw.

Not his smile.

Not his skin.

Not his warmth.

"He is mine."