The moment he began unwrapping bandages, he knew this wasn't going to be easy. From the first feather-light touch, a touch felt more through the slow lessening of pressure rather than its increase, Soubi looked away, his face set in that unreachable mask he always wore when he was hurting and didn't want anyone to see.

For the moment, Kaname allowed it, slowly freeing each layer of fabric and letting it trail onto the floor until, finally, so little was left that it dropped away, stolen by gravity, and long-covered skin was bared to the kiss of his breath.

Now that his hands were empty of cloth, he wound long blond hair around his fingers as he leaned even closer, barely brushing his lips over skin sensitized by confinement. "Beloved." He mouthed the word carved into Soubi's throat. There was little voice behind the movement of lips, but Soubi shuddered anyway, knowing what he'd said without needing to hear it.

"No." It was a denial rather than a refusal; this close to him, inhaling the scent of his body, Kaname would have been able to tell the difference even if he hadn't been able to hear it in the subtle intonations of his voice.

"Yes," he breathed, tracing each letter slowly, carefully, with his tongue. Soubi shuddered underneath him, but didn't move away. The scent of skin, the heat of his body, the pulse so close he could feel it... it all turned him on, heightening already superhuman senses. Kaname released Soubi's hair and stepped back, fangs clearly displayed and eyes burning red with suppressed lust, tracing the letters again, this time with a long, pale finger.

"Beloved," Kaname repeated, this time as endearment rather than mere recitation of the words another had carved into flesh, and kissed his throat, pressure of lips over a heartbeat fluttering with arousal or panic or some of both. He hungered for the blood that was so near he thought he could already taste it, but made no move to break the skin, careful enough of his fangs that they didn't even scratch.

He took a step away, then another, each easier than the last, and sat carefully on the couch, leaning back and watching him with a faint smile that disguised all he felt, only the color of his eyes now hinting at the hunger it took so much effort to control. Soubi was beautiful like this – expression still so cold, but his eyes like open wounds, trembling slightly with a vulnerability he wouldn't feel if all his clothes were gone and the bandages remained. To a vampire, his weakness was as loud as a shout in a suddenly silent room, urging Kaname to pursue, to claim. Even as Soubi stubbornly lifted his head to return his stare, the light rendering the eyes behind his glasses momentarily invisible, the tension in his body still proclaimed him prey and, no matter what beliefs he espoused, Kaname was still a predator.

A predator and yet, despite the whispering urges in his blood, he continued to wait, draped over the couch like someone's wet dream, tongue sliding over lips as his eyes traced the ragged scars, a third and unnecessary repetition of a pattern his tongue and fingers had already memorized. Kaname waited for a response, for an invitation he suspected Soubi might never give. Beloved.