My gloved fingers press against Drake's thigh in this sterile room where every command carries weight. The stirrups stand cold and ready beneath the thin paper sheet that still shields him, while the door stays unlocked and the world continues just beyond it.

I have protected myself with clinical precision for years, never letting anyone close enough to see the fear beneath my authority after the last time trust cost me everything. Yet the moment I touch him, that control slips into something possessive and intimate, and the tension in his shoulders only sharpens the hunger I cannot name because it matches the craving I hide even from myself.

If I tell him to place his feet in the stirrups now, I cross a line that could cost me my fellowship and the distance I have always needed to survive.