A Study In Stockings

A year of marriage scarcely seemed credible, yet a year it had been. A year of Ashenivir being his in every way possible; a year of the phrase ‘my husband’ tripping near constantly from his tongue—and setting his heart afire when he heard it from Ashenivir’s. A whole year. Taking him to dinner was the absolute bare minimum of celebration he deserved, in Rizeth’s view.

“I have a surprise for you when we get home,” Ashenivir said, as they lingered over dessert.

“Oh?”

“It’s our anniversary,” he said, visibly pleased to utter the words. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”

“You do nice things for me every day.”

“I follow our rules every day. This is different.”

“Is that so?” Rizeth held another forkful of cake out to him. “And what manner of mischief have you concocted this time, apprentice?”

Ashenivir swallowed his bite and licked chocolate from his lips. “If I told you that, Master, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

---

Back in their bedroom, Ashenivir bid him sit on their bed and wait with his eyes closed—made him promise, rather sincerely, not to peek even the slightest bit. There was a tremble in his voice as he asked, nerves fluttering in the mark when Rizeth dipped into it, though he couldn’t tell if they were more excitement or anxiety. Neither was anything to worry about, so he kept his word and sat patiently for some minutes, listening to Ashenivir’s breathing, the drag of a drawer, the shuffle of clothing, and more than a handful of under-the-breath curses. Finally, after a brief period of silence, Ashenivir said,

“You can open your eyes now.”

A few idle thoughts had floated through Rizeth’s mind whilst he’d been waiting, but nothing particularly specific had presented itself as to what form Ashenivir’s surprise might take—which meant he was entirely unprepared for the sight that lay before him.

Stockings encased Ashenivir’s legs to almost the tops of his thighs, the sheer material darkening his deep violet skin to a near-midnight shade. Above the sliver of skin they left bare, a set of black silken shorts clung to his hips, attached by an array of ribbons to some sort of lace or embroidery that covered his chest. Rizeth couldn’t make out the details, for he had his arms hugged tightly over it, hiding himself.

“I was going to seduce you,” he said, hooking one ankle over the other, toes curling into the rug. “But then I saw myself in the mirror, and I…it…” He trailed off, gnawing at his lower lip. Rizeth opened his mouth to offer reassurance, but nothing came out. Low, dark hunger pooled in his stomach; a fast, hard burn of arousal whose suddenness left him unsteady.

“Lower your arms,” he said, an unexpected rasp in his voice he had to swallow away. Ashenivir’s eyes met his as he hesitated—lashes darkened, lids glittering with silver, somehow twice as beautiful as they’d been over dinner. “Do as you’re told, Ra’soltha.”

It was embroidery. Delicate whorls of intertwined patterns in black and silver over a material as sheer as the stockings, clinging to Ashenivir’s chest and stomach and arms—the long sleeves went all the way to his wrists, where clusters of pearls formed an encircling pattern that had more than a touch of the manacle about it. The whole thing was a work of art—the hours of labour that must have gone into it, the time Ashenivir must have spent having it fitted—yet it was his minimally adorned legs Rizeth’s gaze returned to. Quite how such a small amount of material could transform them so thoroughly into desire made flesh, he hadn’t the faintest idea. Whatever magic the seamstress had wrought in the creation of those stockings, it was a spell beyond his knowing.

“Master?”

He’d been silent a long while. Rizeth realised his fingers were digging painfully into the bedsheets and made them relax. “Turn.”

Ashenivir did. His legs—his long, lovely dancer’s legs—captivated Rizeth entirely. He wanted to touch them, to feel them wrap around him and have that enchanted material slide against his skin; wanted to put his mouth to it, taste Ashenivir through it, bring it to ruins with his teeth—

“Master, are you alright?”

“On the bed. Now.”

Ashenivir obeyed, yelping when Rizeth roughly manhandled him off of all fours and onto his back, laying him sprawled out atop the sheets. Violet and black and the stark white of his hair, the red of his eyes, the bright silver of his collar against the embroidery that surged up to the base of his throat—sometimes Rizeth wished he were a painter, that he might know how to capture all Ashenivir’s vibrancy and colour, to preserve it somewhere more permanent than within his head.

Heart thudding in his chest, he knelt between Ashenivir’s legs and ran a hand up the inside of one stockinged calf. It felt as good as he’d hoped. Better. Soft and smooth but with just that little catch of fabric against his skin. He bent to kiss the inside of Ashenivir’s knee, tasted stocking and the warmth of flesh beneath, and went dizzy for several exultant seconds. He ought to be giving more orders, but he couldn’t think of any—there was only impulse and need, ricocheting off of one another in his head.

Aware all the while of Ashenivir’s eyes on him—hungry, unsure, confused—Rizeth dragged his tongue up the inside of his thigh until it crossed from stocking to skin. Ashenivir sucked in a gasp.

“You like it then, Master?” he asked.

“I like you in whatever you wear,” Rizeth said. “In your robes or your breeches; naked or in my stolen shirts. But in this…” His mouth hovered above where Ashenivir’s half-hard cock strained against its silken prison. “In this, Ra’soltha, you look good enough to eat.”

The silk was thin enough that he could taste Ashenivir through it. He lapped at the head, where a damp spot had already formed, and the combination of silk and pre-cum startled a needful moan from his throat. As he sucked, dampening the fabric further, he stroked the length of Ashenivir’s legs, as far as he could reach without removing his mouth, the sensory pleasure of the stockings beneath his fingertips an all-consuming distraction.

Ashenivir was fully hard now, his cock straining against its confines, and Rizeth’s own cock ached between his legs, his pulse having transferred there from his chest. He wondered how the stockings would feel against it, how they and Ashenivir’s thighs would feel squeezed around him—then realised he didn’t have to wonder. He could have, right now, this very instant.

“On your stomach,” he ordered, and Ashenivir rolled over, casting an amused look over his shoulder as Rizeth fumbled with the fastening of his breeches.

“Please don’t ruin my stockings, Master,” he said. “They were sort of expensive.”

Rizeth managed to free his cock—hard as adamantine, good gods, he was married to a health risk—and delivered a sharp spank to Ashenivir’s silk-clad ass. Different sound to skin on skin, or skin on cloth. Subtle, but different. Deliciously so. “Mind your mouth, Ra’soltha.”

Obedient, or at least pretending to be, Ashenivir turned his face to the bed. “Yes, Master.”

Rizeth grabbed his hips and yanked him back, setting his knees outside Ashenivir’s calves, the better to keep his legs together. The fullness of his thighs enfolded Rizeth as he slid between them, and his eyes fell shut, his mouth open, a moan choked to silence as the stockings slid along his shaft. Again that subtle difference to cloth, to flesh, lighting a dozen fresh fuses within him. Rizeth drew a deliberate breath, fighting to control himself.

Naturally, that was the moment Ashenivir chose to squeeze his thighs together and wriggle against him.

Rizeth spanked him on instinct, thrusting forwards as he did so. “I do not care how much you spent on this pretty package you’ve presented yourself in,” he said, bending over Ashenivir’s back to bite at his ear. The moonstone earring seated in the lobe clicked between his teeth. “I am going to ruin it. And then I am going to buy you a set in every colour imaginable and ruin those as well.”

He dug his nails into Ashenivir’s hips, silk bunching beneath them as he fucked into the soft press of Ashenivir’s thighs. Already the stockings were wet, his arousal smeared across the dark fabric. Ashenivir moaned.

“Touch me, Master, please.”

Rizeth reached down to where his cock strained beneath the shorts, blazing hot and soaking wet. He pressed his palm hard against it, and Ashenivir groaned. “They’re so tight like this. I didn’t…I didn’t think you’d leave everything on when you fucked me.”

“Insufficient foresight on your part, apprentice.”

The feel of the dampened silk was delectable. Rizeth slid his thumb over the head of Ashenivir’s cock, massaging wet fabric across the slit until Ashenivir whimpered and bucked into his hand, clenching his thighs tight around Rizeth’s cock as if it would better stimulate his own. Gods, it felt good—not the way it felt to be inside him, but just as welcoming, just as perfect. Rizeth pushed him into the bed, the better to fuck into his sweet thighs. The act trapped his hand between the sheets and Ashenivir’s cock, and Ashenivir ground his hips into it, needy.

“Make a mess for me,” Rizeth whispered against his neck. He licked at Ashenivir’s shoulder, dragging his tongue over the delicate ridges of embroidery. “Make a mess, Ra’soltha.”

He squeezed Ashenivir’s silk-bound cock, and the moan that followed, the twitching and the hot rush of wetness through the fabric, over it, over his fingers, over the sheets, sent Rizeth racing to an ending edge. He bit into the top of Ashenivir’s shoulder as he thrust, all idea of control evaporating under the sensation of cum-damp stockings against his cock. He came in a shuddering, reeling rush, hips stuttering, the entire orgasm drawn-out and uneven, and half collapsed atop Ashenivir, mindlessly rutting into his parting thighs, still pawing at his softening cock.

“Happy anniversary, Master,” Ashenivir said, from some distant place.

Rizeth could only wordlessly concur.

---

“That had more of an effect than I thought it would,” Ashenivir said, as he ran the brush through Rizeth’s hair.

“It took me rather by surprise as well,” Rizeth admitted. He squeezed Ashenivir’s—now bare—ankle. They sat together on the bed, himself cross-legged between Ashenivir’s knees. Ashenivir had squirmed out from under him, when it became clear Rizeth’s limbs weren’t about to do much of anything he wanted with any expediency, and gotten them both cleaned up. If Rizeth had had the wherewithal, he would have instigated some sort of punishment for the teasing smiles and amused comments Ashenivir made throughout the process, but as it was, he endured, and empathised with Ashenivir’s post-scene collapses far more than usual.

“Well, I suppose now I know how you feel when you give me a new toy I like.” Ashenivir finished with the brush and bound Rizeth’s hair into its usual simple tie. Rizeth glanced at the dresser, where the half-ruined stockings lay in a rumpled pile with the rest of Ashenivir’s ‘surprise’. His skin heated just looking at them. He cleared his throat.

“I was not joking.”

“About what?”

“About getting you a set in every colour.” He turned, pulling Ashenivir into his arms. “I will get you a dozen—two dozen—and rip each and every one of them off you with my teeth.”

“How will you do that if you’re busy fucking my thighs?” Ashenivir teased. Rizeth bit his lip and he grinned, biting back playfully. “Besides, I think that many might kill you, Master. I don’t know if your heart can handle me in a dozen different sets of stockings.”

“If I expire with my face in your stocking-clad thighs, Ra’soltha, so be it.”

Ashenivir laughed. “Please don’t make me have to explain to a cleric why I need them to resurrect my husband.”

Husband. The word ran through Rizeth like a flame, though one of a wholly different temperature to the fire the stockings had stoked. “My husband,” he murmured, cupping his palm to Ashenivir’s jaw. Ashenivir relaxed into the touch.

“The first year went rather well, I think,” he said. “Shall we try for another, Master?”

“A sound proposition, apprentice,” Rizeth said, and kissed him. A year of marriage. What a milestone he never thought he’d meet.

Though if his husband presented him with a similarly affecting surprise on their next anniversary, Rizeth feared he might not live to see their third.