Another method

The restraints were gone.

Lara blinked in disbelief, her wrists light and aching from the pressure that had gripped them for hours. She was still naked, the cold air of the bunker a familiar ghost against her skin, but she stood now—free. Or at least, unbound. Her legs felt stiff. Her body sore. But she was on her feet, and that was something.

Kratt stood across the room, perfectly composed in his tailored suit, the only sound the soft hiss of his gloves as he adjusted them on his hands. The chair was gone. The artifacts gone. No guards. Just them.

“I’ve decided to try… another method,” he said, his voice like silk drawn over glass. “One less crude. One more… revealing.”

Lara didn’t answer. Her eyes narrowed. She was calculating.

Kratt approached, slowly, each step echoing softly in the concrete room. His gloves gleamed in the low light as he reached toward her—not roughly, not cruelly—but with the calm exactness of a surgeon. When his hands made contact, it was clinical. A touch without heat. Fingers trailed her arms, her ribs, the lines of her hips—not lingering in lust, but assessing, mapping.

Her breath hitched despite herself. Not from desire, not yet. From the sensation of being touched so deliberately—like she was being studied, not seduced.

His gloved hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face toward his.

“I’m not interested in breaking you, Lara,” he said. “I want to see what you do… when no one’s forcing you.”

And then his lips touched hers.

Not a kiss. Not really. Just contact. Cool. Precise. She leaned into it instinctively, but there was no return. His mouth was still, just barely parted, offering nothing. Like kissing a statue.

She felt the fire in her gut coil tighter.

He touched her again—gloved fingers skimming her breasts, down her stomach, between her thighs—but it was all too clean, too calculated. Her body responded with infuriating honesty—her skin heating, her muscles tightening, breath catching—but the man touching her may as well have been made of marble.

There was no intimacy in it. No desire. Just the methodology of a man probing a puzzle.

She tried to push closer, to tilt her face for a real kiss, to meet his movements with her own rhythm—but he denied her at every turn. When she moaned quietly, his hand on her hip tightened—not in passion, but control.

"You're trying to distract yourself," he said, lips near her ear. "You're mistaking what your body feels… for something it isn’t."

"And you’re mistaking control for connection," she snapped back, breathless.

Kratt stepped behind her. She felt him pressing against her—through the fabric of his tailored pants, never letting her feel skin, never letting her in. It was maddening. The suit, the gloves, the detachment—it was as if he had insulated himself from her entirely. She wasn’t sure if she hated him more for how he touched her… or for how he didn’t.

Even when he finally entered her—slowly, deliberately—his movements were devoid of urgency. No grunts, no gasps. Just a quiet, mechanical rhythm. Her hands reached for his face, his hair, anything to make it human—but he tilted just out of reach, never letting her hold on.

She groaned, frustration mixing with **** pleasure.

“Take it off,” she whispered. “The gloves. The suit. Just—touch me.”

He said nothing. His pace didn’t change.

“Please.”

Still nothing. No answer. Just the unchanging tempo of a man working through a problem.

And that, more than anything, made her want to scream.

She tried to meet him, to draw him in. Her movements grew more ****, her breath catching, her hands clawing at his jacket as she arched into him—but he kept that maddening distance, even while buried inside her. He gave her everything except what she craved.

By the time she climaxed, it wasn’t even about the pleasure anymore—it was defiance. Her body trembled, shaking against his, but she kept her eyes on his face, looking for anything. A crack. A flicker. A sign of heat.

Nothing.

When he finished, he exhaled—not a groan, not a cry. Just a sigh. Like closing a file. Like ending a meeting.

He pulled back, adjusting his gloves once again. Still not a hair out of place.

Lara slumped slightly, panting, still kneeling, her body flushed and slick and aching for more. But not the kind of “more” he would give.

“You’re a machine,” she said quietly, bitterly.

Kratt didn’t answer.

He just walked to the door, glancing over his shoulder.

“We’ll continue tomorrow.”

And then he was gone.

Leaving her naked. Empty. And for the first time… unsure if she wanted to fight him, or make him feel anything.