Chapter Thirteen #2
It was a pulp novel, a nightgown clad woman fleeing a castle into the rain.
The title was splashed on in dramatic prints, and the soft, stylized art did little to hide the fact the artist went through great pains to keep a monster fucker story as realistic as possible when it came to portraying how rain and sheer nightgowns worked together.
Beithir didn’t part with their treasures easily. Zyr had said as much. His collection was his. And, pulp fluff from the 50s or not, the woman in the nightgown, fleeing into a storm, was very much a part of that collection.
Maybe that was why Robin’s thumb ghosted over the old price stamp. Could be why he kept smiling down at his new book, trying to keep that soft, settling warmth from his face.
“I’m going to bring you back more recent lurid tales,” he said, still stroking the cover. “Though the beastly main character usually keeps the same shape these days. Especially in the campier ones.”
“Tails and all?” Zyr asked. “I’ll try not to be scandalized.”
“Tails, scales, horns, and claws would put you squarely into the non-human fucker section, not the front-and-center monster section,” Robin replied, finally looking up properly.
“But if you toss in some tentacles, maybe a cock that’s in a pouch or something, then you’re talking.
Or if those scales went everywhere. Definitely if you had one or more cocks with non-humanoid appearances or additions.
I promise to go easy on your sensibilities unless otherwise asked. ”
“Most of that would be difficult to achieve even with glamour,” Zyr commented absently, watching Robin’s thumb trace over the cover.
“Simplifying a form is easy. Adding to it less so. At least, functionally. I do appreciate the consideration.” A smile ghosted across Zyr's lips.
“I am, after all, considerably your elder. Easily scandalized by the new.”
(Robin made a mental note to think about if he should be weirded out about the age difference at some other time.
Like, logically, sure. He should. But the difference between an eighteen-year-old banging a forty-year-old felt a hell of a lot different than Ye Aged Olde Fae of Tyme Past and a guy in his late twenties.
For one, Robin’s brain was completely developed.)
“No tentacle creatures with a cock each for sex and egg implantation, got it.” Robin reached out with his free hand to hook a finger over one of Zyr’s horns. Just for a tiny, gentle tug when he spoke next. “Good to hear the horns are real. I like them.”
Like was a gross understatement. He wanted to crawl on Zyr’s lap as that tug, light as it was, was answered with a slight tilt of the man’s head and a sharp inhale, drawn between parted lips.
They were close. Robin could drag Zyr over, lean in, drink those soft sounds before they had a chance to be heard, and take everything he could, taste Zyr’s pleasure in any way he liked.
Remind himself of what the beithir tasted like, how those scales felt under his tongue as Zyr moaned and shook under him.
Zyr stared openly, both wanting and wary. Robin held his gaze, all that connecting them a finger hooked around a horn and one foot each pressed to the other.
That was all. And still, the charge that lit in his veins with Zyr’s searching eyes on him dwarfed any other fire Robin felt previously, even with people trussed up and naked inches away from him.
“I’m aware you favor them, magpie,” Zyr said, attention unwavering. “Were I in the habit of glamour, I’d make more of me glitter.”
“You think I like them ‘cause they sparkle?” Robin asked. “I’m pretty sure your mouth and scales don’t glitter. Or your neck.”
Want me.
Robin tugged again, rewarded with another tight breath and a storm in Zyr’s eyes.
“I think it would be a trap to guess at the why of you. You’d tell me if you wished me to know.”
Pressure, Zyr pulling back against Robin, where he held fast to glittering silver. It took everything in him not to drag Zyr in closer the way he wanted to, get both hands on him, put him right where Robin wanted him to be.
Kneeling over Robin, maybe, the couch cushions low with the weight of his leg on either side of Robin’s thighs, his hands on the back of the couch, or Robin’s shoulders, or wherever Robin told him to put them.
“Tell me your reasoning, then. Why you think that I like sparkle.”
Zyr licked his lips, that heated gaze electric in more ways than one. “You’ve made a habit of reaching for my horns, not my neck. It seems safe to assume that something draws you to them.”
Zyr drew him. That was the thing. It was Zyr, all Zyr, with his measured, raw honesty and blunt intensity.
Broad and tall and smart. He’d let Robin look under his skin and run his fingers through his heart, hear the beat of that counter-argument, and breathed, sharp, when Robin got grabby. Pushy. Pedantic.
“I like bondage,” Robin said, watching the curve of horn and the tan line of his fingers. “Rope. Cord. Specialized tape. Pretty and contained. And handholds, if you work it in a certain way. It’s important to know how to handle them; dangerous to do it wrong.”
Two fingers, then, to the horn, as he illustrated his points with another light pull, watching Zyr with eager hunger he didn’t bother to try and hide.
“Handholds,” Zyr echoed, shivering. “Will you explain the danger behind them, Raven-Robin?”
“Of course. You asked so nicely. If you have someone already tied up, maybe suspended, if you grab them by the neck, it could end badly. So I don’t.
Your horns don’t have that complication.
Besides,” a third finger, more weight, and Zyr bent his head without protest, so fucking hot, “they’re right there.
Pretty sure I can get a lot more specific about angles and intent.
Way more than by grabbing your neck, especially since I can fit my whole hand around parts of them. ”
“As I said, better to be told than to guess.” And, hell yes, Zyr’s breathing stayed sharp, words just on this side of steady. “Clearly told, and ropes and cords are much simpler to glamour into being than additional appendages. One can even make them shine.”
“I like shine, but not sparkle. Like sunlight on beaten metal, not gems. Utility and beauty, instead of just a show.” Robin turned to face Zyr properly, gave himself the angle he needed to wrap the whole of his hand around Zyr’s horn at the base, pinkie and thumb brushing where skin became silver.
“I’m going to ask you some questions about this. ”
This, and the slow, firm drag of his hand down, enough to show what he meant and draw a quiet hiss from the man, those storm-filled eyes closing for a breath as Robin took the time he needed to screw up his courage and keep talking.
“I’m listening.” Zyr was always listening.
“Good. Just as a disclaimer, there’s no wrong answers, no ‘incorrect’ to worry about. I just need you to stay with me and answer honestly.”
Zyr’s tail, draped over the arm of the couch, lashed, but the rest of him was still. His eyes lifted even with his head lowered. As searching, waiting, and curious as Robin had ever seen him.
“Understood, Raven-Robin. Am I to close my eyes?”
Robin grinned, slow, shaking his head. There was a horn in his hand and a very intense beithir watching him, still calling him Raven-Robin. And that, too, made it a hell of a lot easier to say what he needed to. For himself, maybe even more than Zyr.
“We can if you feel like you need to, but otherwise, I want to see your eyes.”
“I don’t feel the need.”
“If that changes, you tell me. As for this.” Robin squeezed, scraped a nail along the seam of silver and pale skin.
“These. Your reactions. Why you let me. You said you weren’t against asking me for things, last time, and don’t seem to mind me pulling you around.
Is it because you like it? Because I like it?
Or is it a new chapter in a book, and you’re just curious how it ends? ”
They weren’t simple questions. Robin knew that, just like he knew that the shiver under the edge of his nail wasn’t fake. And, that Zyr, who took his time to answer, wouldn’t try to appease him with sideways fae talk.
“I’m not sure,” Zyr said. Eyes on Robin, words thoughtful.
No self-recrimination at not knowing. “On the surface, it’s simple: I enjoy your touch because I desire you.
But the context is heightening. The challenge of being present, of compliance.
Submission doesn’t come naturally for me.
And that makes the experience more acute. ”
It felt incomplete, with the pause that followed. Prompted Robin’s “But?”
“But, also, yes. Because you like it. Because there is only us, in these moments. Only me. Not merely to please you, but to bring you pleasure, beyond that desire for you.”
Sometimes Zyr didn’t need to remind Robin he was way older than Robin. He showed it well enough with things like ‘I desire you’, said with an expression that screamed it as much as his low voice didn’t.
And still, it twisted up a corner of Robin’s mouth, amused and intense both. I desire you. Jesus.
(Hot.)
Robin threw—artfully draped?—his legs over Zyr’s thicker ones, adding that one more point of contact to set his skin to tingling. Horns. Thighs. Knees. All with Zyr’s appreciative, hungry gaze slowly taking in the length of Robin’s body.
“That answered my next question, whether you’ve done anything like this before, willing submission. Explain the distinction you’re making, beithir. Pleasing and bringing pleasure.”
“Better said, perhaps, validation is a dangerous drug. I’ve learned not to need it.
I don’t acquiesce in hopes of your being pleased with me.
I do so because I wish you to be pleased by me.
That, and the joy of the challenge.” Zyr glanced up at Robin’s face, and he pulled back, just enough to be felt.