Chapter Six
Show him you love him.
Kelran’s words echoed on a mocking repeat of reprove in Rizeth’s head. When Ashenivir got back from the Haven, he’d tried to apologise—too tired, Ashenivir brushed him off with, wanting to go right to bed. The morning after, Rizeth waited for him to broach the subject, determined not to snap, to be rational, but Ashenivir hadn’t tried again. Rizeth didn’t know if he’d succeeded in scaring him away from the topic, exactly as he’d stupidly wanted, or simply succeeded in scaring Ashenivir from talking to him about it.
Neither felt good, but it was a necessary discomfort. Ashenivir didn’t understand what he was asking for. Books told him nothing. Books painted pretty, appealing fantasies of rules and rituals, not the reality of what living under them entailed, nor did they properly convey the destruction of affection such rules could cause. Trying desperately to have them had turned Rizeth into a monster and his relationship to ash, and he wouldn’t allow history to repeat itself.
So they hadn’t discussed it. Rizeth threw himself into displays of affection Kelran would surely approve of—all Ashenivir’s favourite meals, new books, fresh flowers every time he came back from yet another Arcanum meeting. He said please, asked permission, and took nothing, not so much as a kiss, without it. Ashenivir seemed to forgive him, or at least didn’t walk out on him, which he hoped were the same thing.
An afternoon finally came entirely free, and Ashenivir lit up when Rizeth asked him to come to the House.
“Can I have my new toy there?”
His eyes were brighter than they’d been in days. “You may,” Rizeth said, and Ashenivir kissed him, and he felt that perhaps all might be alright with the world.
They returned to the first playroom they’d ever used, with its mirrored wall and ceiling chains, because he remembered how much Ashenivir liked them—indeed, he didn’t miss the flicker of delight that crossed Ashenivir’s face when they entered.
“Choose a drawer,” he said, inclining his head to the wall cabinet. Ashenivir picked the largest one, ducking his head to hide a smile when Rizeth called him greedy. The scent of well-oiled leather flooded Rizeth’s senses as he opened the drawer, along with a wash of memory—he hadn’t enjoyed Kelran teaching him how these worked, but he was certain Ashenivir would be far more appreciative.
He turned to see Ashenivir already naked and kneeling. So beautifully suited he was to such a position—to have that beauty naught but a word away at all times; for it to be, by his command, the first thing he saw whenever he returned home…
Rizeth severed the thought before it could go too far. “Rise,” he said. Ashenivir rose smoothly to his feet, keeping his arms folded behind his back. The muscles of his legs flexed, slim and strong, as well-kept as the leather in Rizeth’s hands. “Arms out behind your back, parallel—very good, Ra’soltha.”
“Are you to bind me, Master? Those are long cuffs for doing that.”
“Arms higher,” Rizeth said. He’d get his answer soon enough. He turned Ashenivir so he could see their reflections in the mirror as he slid the long sleeves onto his arms and laced them snugly from mid-bicep to wrist. The rich russet leather paired excellently with his deep violet skin—a fact Ashenivir was all too clearly admiring alongside his Master.
“Wrists together.”
Further criss-crossing tugs of laces through eyelets sewed the sleeves flush and, as Rizeth reached the halfway point, Ashenivir’s breath caught. Rizeth pressed a kiss to the top of his spine and tapped the mark: excitement, eager anticipation and, to his relief, not a trace of resentment or anger. He’d not dared look at Ashenivir’s emotions like this before now—far too intrusive, when he knew he should just ask. Here his insecure searching hid behind a Master’s responsibility of care, and Ashenivir would never know otherwise.
“In your dancing,” Rizeth said, as he finished his lacing, “how is your balance?”
“Improving, Master.”
“I am pleased to hear it. Bend over.”
Legs braced wide, Ashenivir bent at the waist. Rizeth trailed a hand up his thigh to squeeze the taut muscle of his ass. “You do keep yourself very well for me, Ra’soltha. Shall we reward your efforts?”
“Please, Master.”
Rizeth left him in position, and fetched a length of braided cord from the cabinet, which he wove through loops set along the outer edges of the arm-binds. He kept his motions slow, verging on painfully so—Ashenivir made not one word of complaint, though he fairly vibrated with readiness. Rizeth lowered the ceiling chain and attached the cord to the ring at its end. With so much slack in the line, it put no strain on Ashenivir whatsoever.
“Hold your position,” Rizeth said, and shortened the cord.
Ashenivir yelped, staggering as he was pulled onto his toes. His hair, left loose today, fell in perfect disarray about his face. Rizeth patted his hip. “Good boy. If you need me to stop, stamp your foot three times. Show me you can.”
Obediently, Ashenivir thumped the ball of his foot against the floor. Rizeth tilted his chin up—his eyes were huge and hungry already, lips parted as though he couldn’t remember how to close them.
“Would you like your toy now?” An eager nod. From his pocket, Rizeth withdrew a small velvet pouch, and took out its contents for Ashenivir to see. “This,” he said, “is going inside you.”
It wasn’t a particularly large plug. Small and simple, wood so dark it was almost black, magically treated and smooth as glass. He tilted the flat, flared base up, and Ashenivir gave a soft whimper—Rizeth’s initials were burned into it.
Angling Ashenivir so he could very clearly see in the mirror what his Master was doing, Rizeth slicked the toy with a cantrip, and slowly worked it into him. The end curved up slightly, and Ashenivir gasped when it hit the place Rizeth had hoped it would. He tapped the end, drawing a whimper.
“Tell me how it feels,” Rizeth said. “Tell me what you like about this.”
“Good, Master.” Rizeth pulsed the toy deeper, and Ashenivir’s toes flexed as he fought to maintain his balance. “Hard, but not the way your cock is; full but not the way you fill me. I like watching you use it on me and I like that it’s made so it would stay if you...if you...”
He bit his lip. Rizeth knew that look. He tapped the base of the plug, and Ashenivir moaned.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Ra’soltha. What is it you’re fantasising about?”
“You leaving it in while we’re at a party here.” A whine escaped him as Rizeth reached around to tease the head of his cock with light fingers. “My breeches are very tight—everyone would know how hard I was. Could see how hard you make me if you teased me with it.”
“Like this?”
Rizeth tapped the base three times, and Ashenivir made a strangled noise. “Yes! Thank you, Master, thank you—oh, gods.”
The idea of any kind of sex where others could see, even here at the House, did not overly endear itself to Rizeth. From the way Ashenivir’s breath quickened, the concept certainly appealed—pre-cum slicked Rizeth’s fingers, Ashenivir’s cock hard as iron under his strokes. A little fantasy indoors didn’t hurt, especially if it made Ashenivir happy. “Keep going, Ra’soltha. What other ideas has that fine mind concocted?”
“You could…you could make me wear it outside. Take me to dinner with it inside me.”
“That does not sound very comfortable.”
Ashenivir rocked back against his hand. “No. I’d have to squirm all night, and only you’d know why, Master. I’d forget all my Common, all I’d think about is how easy it would be for you to just take it out and fuck me over the table.”
“In the middle of dinner, Ra’soltha? How ill-mannered.”
“I don’t ca–are—!” The word stuttered and dragged out as Rizeth drove the plug as deep as it would go, at the same time speeding the roll of his hand. “I don’t care, Master, I want you inside me, that’s all I can think about like this—how much I want it to be your cock instead.”
If he’d known the effect such a simple toy would have, Rizeth would’ve gotten one far sooner. He fucked Ashenivir with it, short and sharp, over and over as his bound arms strained, hands scrabbling at one another, desperate for purchase where there was none to be found. He wouldn’t fall—Rizeth would never let him—but tied like this, it would feel as though he might, as though at any moment he’d lose his balance entirely. The tension of it added to his pleasure; Rizeth saw it, heard it, felt it every time he brushed his mind to the mark.
He shoved the plug deep, where it stayed, just Ashenivir had assumed it would, then grabbed the chain and pulled it short. Ashenivir was hauled upright, and Rizeth wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.
“You will not be wearing it to dinner,” he whispered, “because the only time I want to see it in you is when you are like this for me. I want to see you squirm and beg and plead for your Master to take out his toy and fuck you.” Ashenivir writhed in his grip. Rizeth bit his ear. “Be still. I am going to make you come now, and I am not going to stop touching you until you beg enough to satisfy me. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Master,” Ashenivir gasped. Rizeth sped his strokes, and quickly called a mage hand to press against the plug, rocking it in place to hit the bundle of nerves within that stole all Ashenivir’s sense and then some. Pleas turned to breathless whining and nonsense sounds; his hands gripped each other tight in their bind, hips bucking uncontrollably.
Rizeth sucked a mark into his neck, right below his jaw. “Come for me, Ra’soltha.”
He kept up his motions until all speech fled, and when Rizeth finally released him, Ashenivir sagged on trembling legs, incapable of anything but hanging there limply, letting the binds and the chain take his weight. Rizeth gently withdrew the plug, conjuring a weak whimper, and set it aside. He stepped to Ashenivir’s front and stroked his hair back from his sweat-damp forehead. His eyes were glassy, shiny with tears of overstimulation.
“Well done, xi’hum,” Rizeth murmured. “Good boy. So good for me.”
As soon as he was freed, Ashenivir collapsed into his arms, a bundle of kisses and thanks and clinging hands. Rizeth settled with him on the floor and held him close, indulging one last time in a touch of the mark. No anger. No hurt. Just a warm tangle of desire and trust—and love.
Show him you love him. He had, and for his reward he had this precious boy in his lap, all argument forgotten. Rizeth kissed him, and banished all the whispering doubts into as deep a pit as his mind could conjure. They had no place here, and—if he worked hard enough—they never would again.
Ashenivir rolled his shoulders. The ache of that position would linger, but Rizeth had promised balms and massage a-plenty when they got back to the apartment—and besides, bearing such discomfort was as much a point of pride as any bruise. He couldn’t keep from smiling as he dressed, and the moment Rizeth finished tidying away the arm-binds, Ashenivir wrapped him in a tight hug. His head was still fuck-drunk fuzzy, all of him craving the attention of the person who’d made him that way.
“Ra’soltha, we will never make it out of this room if you keep this up,” Rizeth said. His arms came around Ashenivir anyway.
“Don’t care,” Ashenivir mumbled. “I liked that. I like you. I love you.”
Rizeth stroked his hair. “Do you want a set?”
“Hm?”
“Of those binds,” Rizeth said. “Would you like your own?”
Yes shot through him so hard he had to bite his cheek to keep it in. Rizeth had given him so much—a new toy today, the bed, all the other presents since they’d arrived in Waterdeep; not to mention how overwhelmingly nice he’d been the past few days. Making up for snapping, like he had before, and never had any bedmate’s extravagant gifts carried the weight a handful of fresh flowers from Rizeth did. And what did Ashenivir give in return? Absolutely nothing, and it wasn’t as though he deserved any of this—
“Xi’hum.” Rizeth kissed him, short and sweet and breath-stealing. “Anything you want, you can have.”
Not anything, came the thought, quickly shoved away in a flash of guilt. “Yes, then. I would.”
Rizeth’s small, soft smile set his heart tumbling over. He claimed another kiss, and then several more, but by degrees was eventually persuaded to release his Master long enough for them to leave the playroom. Their hands remained clasped all the way to the ballroom and though he wasn’t wearing his leash today, with Rizeth’s fingers laced in his, Ashenivir felt as owned as if he was.
At the bottom of the stairs, they found River pacing back and forth, one hand beating a rapid tattoo against his leg.
“You didn’t run into Cain up there, did you?” he asked, and the fact that he neglected Cain’s title, here of all places, immediately set a knot of worry in Ashenivir’s stomach. “He was meant to be here almost two hours ago. He’s never this late.”
Ashenivir shook his head. “Do you want me to cast a sending? I know him well enough to reach him.”
A look of almost pained relief crossed River’s face. “Please. Aghairon’s balls, if he’s not dead I’m going to kill him myself.”
Ashenivir had just gotten his—embarrassingly tarnished, he noticed—copper out, when the doors to the ballroom thunked open and through them, face red and shiny with sweat, hair half out of its tie, strode Cain. River shot towards him and for a moment Ashenivir thought he’d smack him.
“You ass!” River flung his arms around Cain’s neck. “Why didn’t you send a messenger? I was worried stupid!”
“Down, puppy, let me get my breath,” Cain said, flapping a hand at his face. “There was a carriage tangle by the market. Bloody Gralhunds were involved, kicking up a fuss; the Watch made everyone stand around giving statements.”
“But you’re alright?”
“Perfectly fine—just sweatier than I wanted to be for this.” He extricated himself from River’s arms and took out his leash. Ashenivir hooked a finger into his collar—really, he had Cain to thank for all the enjoyment his own had given him. But it wasn’t River’s collar Cain clipped it to. Instead, he looped it around his own neck, fastened it to itself, and pressed the end-loop into River’s hand.
“What—” River started, only to fall silent as Cain knelt at his feet.
“I had this whole elaborate thing planned,” he said. “Fancy dinner, musicians, new outfit, the works. Then I got up this morning and realised you’d hate every second of it. You can be a melodramatic pup at times, but you’re a simple boy at heart.” He clasped River’s hands in his.
“River Blackwind, you are the most wonderful thing in my life and you’ve been pestering me about it for months, so if I ask nicely: will you marry me?”
The ballroom rang with expectant silence. Ashenivir gripped Rizeth’s hand tight, even though he knew with certainty that River was going to say—
“Yes, you ridiculous man! Yes, Sir, absolutely yes!”
River tackled him to the floor, where they landed in a tangle of leash and hands and kisses. A surge of moths fluttered through Ashenivir’s chest—he wrapped his arms around Rizeth, as tightly as he had in the playroom. Rizeth’s indulgent sigh brushed the top of his head. “I suppose you are going to involve yourself in this, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Very well, then. Come along now, let us give them some privacy.”
It was sweltering outside, but Ashenivir refused to release Rizeth’s arm. Cain leashing himself—oh, if that wasn’t a move straight out of a Tethras novella! If Tethras were ever to write a tale set somewhere like the House, that was.
“I never took you for such a romantic, apprentice,” Rizeth remarked as they headed south.
“You tease me for my choice of serials often enough.”
“Yes, but what one enjoys in books and what one finds pleasant in reality are not always the same thing.”
“True—I read quite a lot of men falling in love with women, and I’d never do that.”
Rizeth chuckled, the sound a great balm. He hadn’t recently—despite his affections, how calm things had been, he’d not seemed relaxed. Now he did. All, it appeared, was entirely forgiven and forgotten. Ashenivir clung tighter to him, then winced at the twinge in his shoulder. “The romance novels never have quite this many aches after the erotic bits.”
“Perhaps you ought to write one, then,” Rizeth said. “With all the accuracy of your experience.”
“Maybe I will, Master, if you’ll promise to read it.”
“Shall I keep a count of your spelling errors as I do?”
It was the first comment like that Rizeth had made outside of the apartment in days, and it sparked a bright flicker of delight. Flowers were all well and good, but he’d missed his Master’s sharper edges. Rizeth’s arm slipped from his as they joined the busier High Road, but his hand linked with Ashenivir’s a moment later and out here, such connection felt a blazon of ownership.
In public and in private, that was how he wanted his Master. And maybe it was the lingering brain-fog of the scene, but perhaps just this could be enough.
Exactly as Rizeth had predicted, Ashenivir was immediately roped into preparations for River’s wedding. Mara was too, or rather roped herself in the second she found out about it, with a shriek loud enough to have River’s neighbour banging on the door threatening to call the Watch. The three of them had been given a list, courtesy of Cain’s ability to actually organise things, and so had set out in defiance of the ever-increasing heatwave to gather prices and promises from wine-sellers, confectioners, and clothiers.
Today’s efforts, however, had been taken over by Mara’s urgent need to have a new dress. Much to her despair, her ‘usual miracle-worker’ was thoroughly booked up for the rest of the season, and so she was forced to resort to dragging the two of them to every Mara-approved store in the Trades Ward in search of the perfect piece. Three hours and six shops in, Ashenivir was more sweat-ooze than drow, and River wasn’t faring much better.
The current store was rather small, and Ashenivir took the opportunity the lack of space afforded to sit out the next forty or so minutes of Mara not choosing anything. He sagged against the display window, flapping gust cantrips at his face and wishing his brain would solidify long enough to figure out how to combine one with a frostbite spell.
“A fine day for dress shopping. I didn’t take you for having such preference.”
Catriona stepped past him to peer at the mannequins in the window. All in white today, her dark hair a loose midnight waterfall over one shoulder. He bit his lip. He wasn’t supposed to talk to her. He didn’t want to talk to her; all she did was toy with him.
“Mara’s shopping,” he said tightly. “For River’s wedding.”
“Ah, yes, I’d heard. Give them my congratulations, won’t you?”
He made a non-committal noise. Catriona bent to better examine something in the lower portion of the display. “So, little Ra’soltha, did you ask your Master where he learned that word? Did you like the answer?”
He tensed. “Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your title, isn’t it?”
“And you don’t have permission to use it.”
She laughed behind closed lips, and straightened. “So prickly you are today! Has your Master been telling nasty stories about me? Or wait, let me guess; you’re not supposed to talk to me?”
An acidic churn rolled through his gut. It made him uneasy that she’d worked that out—and, if he were honest, it made him uneasy that Rizeth had given such an order in the first place. He tried not to dwell on it, for the fact that she was aggravating, and seemed intent only on spinning him in circles.
“We don’t talk about you at all.”
“Or about Elian’la, I expect. Hardly surprising, given the way things ended.”
“Why don’t you like him?” Ashenivir asked. “I don’t know what game you’re trying to play with me, but he’s done nothing wrong apart from break up with your friend.”
“He’s Menzoberranyr,” Catriona’s voice went cold. “You’re a drow. You know what they are.”
“Rizeth isn’t—”
“Rizeth Velkon’yss was raised by spider-worshipping slavers in a cult where males are so oppressed they leap at the chance to turn the tables.” Her voice remained smooth, the only sign of anger on her face the slightest downturn of her perfectly painted lips. She had as much control over her expressions as Rizeth did, and Ashenivir wasn’t nearly practised enough to read what lay beneath the surface.
“He isn’t like that. I’m not his slave—he wouldn’t let me be even if I wanted to.” The last part came out too openly bitter. Catriona arched an eyebrow, and he wished he’d kept the thought to himself.
“My Sir mentioned you might want my advice on such matters.”
“I don’t,” Ashenivir said quickly. Then, just as quickly; “Why does he decide what you can buy?”
“He doesn’t want to talk to me, but he does like to spy on me. Do you like blue rooms too?” Her tone was a barbed tease, her smile all too coy. “I’ve proven myself very bad with money in the past. Left to my own devices, I would drive myself to destitution chasing my every whim and indulgence. Therefore, I am not left to my own devices.”
He keeps you safe, even from yourself. A tangled spell, and Rizeth pulling him free of his stupid, self-destructive spiral. The security of kneeling at his Master’s feet. Frustration he thought he’d moved on from bubbled to the surface—half of what he wanted he already had! As a good Ra’soltha, he should respect his Master’s limits, but as a good Master, Rizeth should be listening to him, not telling him he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“What’s it like?” he blurted out. “In real life, not in books. Having protocols, always obeying rules, knowing when not to, keeping everyone who shouldn’t know from knowing—your Sir said you’ve been doing it for years, so what’s it like?”
“That is not a conversation I care to have on a public street corner,” Catriona said, and made as if to leave. A step and a half and Ashenivir broke.
“Then where would you care to have it?”
Catriona tapped her chin as if in thought. “Come for a drink with me at the end of the tenday,” she said, “and I’ll give you all the answers you want. The Tears should be quiet enough.”
“The Tears?”
“My apologies, I forget you aren’t local.” She didn’t. Hadn’t. She was toying with him again, keeping him off-balance. “There’s a tavern, A Maiden’s Tears, by the north-east wall. Ask Mara, she’ll be able to direct you.”
Running into her was one thing—deliberate drinks and discussion was another entirely. But if he could just know what it was like, really like, then Rizeth couldn’t accuse him of reading one book and taking it too lightly. He could explain better. Make Rizeth understand.
“We don’t talk about my Master,” he said. “I’ll come on that condition. You bring him up again, his past with you…with Elian’la…and I’ll leave.”
“As you wish.” He didn’t trust her assertion, but he’d stick to his demand. He’d walk out the moment she started playing games again. “I shall see you at eight then, Ashenivir. I do look forward to it.”
The shop bell tinkled behind him, and Mara stepped out, blinking into the sunlight at Catriona’s vanishing back. “What did she want?”
“Nothing,” Ashenivir said. “Just window shopping. Did you find a dress?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” River appeared behind her, looking thoroughly exhausted. “There’s at least four shops we haven’t tried. She can’t possibly find one until all resources have been strip-mined.”
Mara caught each of them by the hand and, with more energy than Ashenivir felt capable of possessing after the day so far, dragged them forwards. “He’s right! So let’s get moving!”
Ashenivir let himself be carried away, pushing down the twinge of guilt threatening to give him a stomachache. It was one drink. How bad could it be?
A faint breeze curled in through the balcony doors, caught itself in a cooling charm, and swept, chill and pleasant, over where Rizeth lay on the couch with Ashenivir in his lap. He’d finally taken the time to enhance them, and the effort was more than paying off; each day he thought it couldn’t get any hotter, and each day he was proven wrong.
Soft breath brushed his knee. Ashenivir was more than half in reverie already, River and Mara having exhausted him so thoroughly that the moment he’d arrived at the House, where Rizeth was waiting, he’d begged to go home instead. He’d looked so shattered, his hair in limp tangles and his shirt dark with sweat, that Rizeth had sent for a hire-coach at once.
He stroked the back of Ashenivir’s neck, tracing the lines of the mark. In truth, he’d been glad for the excuse not to go to a scene. Cain had arrived whilst he’d been waiting, and Rizeth, recalling Kelran’s admonishment, had swallowed his pride and asked his advice.
“Oh, I don’t know what I can tell you that you don’t already know—you and Lord Stillgleam have been doing this two, three times longer than I’ve been alive,” Cain had said.
“It has been some time since I have done more than merely play at the House,” Rizeth told him. Already he regretted starting the conversation, but the only way out was through, and he preferred dialogue to an undignified self-defenestration. “And recently we had…something of a disagreement.”
“Well, dinner’s always good for an apology, if your boy’s anything like mine,” Cain said with a laugh. “But if it’s really bad, you could always take a break.”
A few years back, he explained, River’s cousin had fallen deeply ill, and River had worked himself into a state about it. Cain’s employment situation had taken a turn for the unsteady around the same time, and the combined stress had not been conducive to civil conduct.
“We were fighting every other day about stupid bullshit, and he wasn’t bratting so much as outright trying to antagonise me, so we stopped. No roles, no scenes, no House. Plain old boring normal sex. It sort of…reset things. Reminded us that we were partners first, play-partners second. We love what we do, but sometimes you just need space to let things breathe.”
Rizeth let his fingers dance over Ashenivir’s collar, and his eyes flicked up to the entryway, where the leash hung alongside their cloaks. He flexed his hand. Holding it meant Ashenivir couldn’t go anywhere. Couldn’t be anything but his.
“Maiden’s sake, can’t you stop for five minutes? I don’t need a Master all the damn time!”
His nails dug into his palm. He could stop. He had stopped. He had. In his lap, Ashenivir stirred with a sleepy half-groan. “Mn, did I fall asleep?”
“A little,” Rizeth said. He forced his hand to relax. “If you’re awake now, I have something to ask you.”
Ashenivir sat up, shoving his hair back from his face. The softness that caught in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth when he was tired like this tugged at Rizeth’s heart. He tucked a missed strand behind Ashenivir’s ear, letting his hand linger. Ashenivir leaned into the touch. “I’m awake. What is it?”
“Would you like to come to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
Was there anything in all the world as wonderful as the way Ashenivir’s smile broke across his face? “Of course I would. Will you dress me?”
There was no guile in the question, no subtle push, so Rizeth swallowed the flicker of worry. “There is no need. It will be the same place I took you when we arrived, I am certain you can find something appropriate.”
“Oh.” The smile faded. Don’t ask, xi’hum, please don’t ask me again. I don’t want to argue with you. Ashenivir yawned widely, and the smile returned with a flirtatious curve. “Then will you tease me like last time?”
“I do not recall teasing you.”
“You ordered for me.” Ashenivir shifted up to straddle him, the rasp of reverie adding a delectable depth to his voice. “And you looked at me.”
“I hardly think that qualifies.”
“It does when you look at me so hard I get hard.” Ashenivir leaned down to capture his mouth. Rizeth’s hands slid to the small of his back, pulling him close—Ashenivir reached back and pushed one further down, to cup his ass.
“I thought you were exhausted,” Rizeth murmured. He squeezed anyway, pulling Ashenivir closer with the motion. A low, comfortable moan slid into his mouth, followed swiftly by Ashenivir’s tongue.
“I’m not asking you to tie me up, Master,” Ashenivir said, sliding his hands into Rizeth’s hair. “You can if you want, but you could just make me come right here.”
“You won’t be doing any such thing if you do what I think you are about to with those careless hands, Ra’soltha.”
Can’t you stop for five minutes? Gods damn it.
Ashenivir’s fingers tightened in his hair and the sharp look came on instinct, followed by an unstoppable swell of pure satisfaction when Ashenivir’s hands obediently slipped away. Rizeth kissed him, lest he notice his Master’s annoyance and think it aimed at him.
The kiss deepened, and he slipped a hand between Ashenivir’s legs to find him hot and half-hard. He gave a slow squeeze, drawing a moan and an encouraging rock of hips. If he wanted to come, then come he would—it was the least a loving partner could do. Ashenivir bit at his lip, which gave Rizeth leave to bite him back. He gasped, and then had to pull away, covering his yawn with a hand. “Sorry, Master.”
Rizeth kissed the corner of his mouth. “I think you are for true reverie.”
“No, I want you,” Ashenivir complained, his point undercut by yet another yawn. Rizeth withdrew his hand, and pushed up from the couch, scooping Ashenivir into his arms as he did so. The startled little cry sparked a starburst point of warmth behind his ribs.
“You can have me tomorrow, xi’hum.”
Ashenivir kicked a foot, playing the brat, which turned the starburst into a small galaxy. “Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Ashenivir smiled sleepily as Rizeth laid him upon the bed, catching his hand and drawing it to his lips. “I love you,” he sighed, closing his eyes.
He was asleep before Rizeth could even try to reply.