Chapter Thirteen #3
Robin’s hand tightened, and he gave a tug in turn. He kept still otherwise, watching Zyr with all the sharp-eyed staring he had in his scrawny ass self, lips parted and curled into a faint smile.
Bright. Watching. And, yes, pleased.
“The challenge,” he prompted, an edge to his words. Zyr shuddered, eyes darkening.
“Yes. As now. I’m not touching you, which is difficult. Heightening. And I’m telling you that it’s difficult because knowing you’re aware of that, may take pleasure from it, is more heightening still.”
“You’re keeping your hands to yourself. Not even breaking the table or chair yet,” he said, then held out his free hand, palm up. “I’m pleased by you, Zyr. Give me your hand. Figuratively speaking.”
Zyr murmured, “pushy raven,” and reached over his lap to offer Robin his hand, settled it on Robin’s open palm, warm and heavy.
“The pushiest. Do you like being told you pleased me? That I was pleased by you. Or do actions speak louder than words?”
A pause, save for a flick of a tail.
“I’m not sure.” And there was a tightness in Zyr’s words that wasn’t desire. “It’s too new. And I like your voice, always, which muddies things.”
If Zyr were a human, Robin would put money on him being one of those former gifted kids who never learned how to not know something. The kind that ended up anxious, jaded, burnt out, and queer.
As a jaded, anxious, frequently burnt out queer whose aunt refused to let him go into the advanced-only classes, Robin sympathized.
Because, yeah, he heard that strained thread, same as he’d seen the tight smile the day before. I dislike being incorrect.
Robin curled his fingers around the back of Zyr's hand, thumb rubbing slow over his palm. Warm. Smooth. Strong.
“I like ‘I'm not sure,’” Robin said, lifting Zyr's hand so he could press a kiss to bottom of his palm, just above his pulse.
“‘I don't know.’ It means someone isn't talking around a point.
It's uncomfortable to say and it's being said anyway. And,” teeth, now, same point of contact, “I like figuring things out. Research. Learning things. There are no wrong answers.” And another. “Only answers.”
Zyr’s breath left him in a long, shaking exhale. Robin let himself linger in that unsteady breath, the way Zyr didn’t pull away. Letting Robin touch him, while both of them now knew it was difficult for him to not touch back.
“Is this research, then?” Zyr asked, not entirely teasingly. “Are you studying dragons?”
Like Zyr was a thing under a microscope.
(Lines. Robin was crossing lines and—)
(Not the time for fucking intrusive thoughts.)
Zyr had said he wanted to study Robin. He didn’t sound upset. Zyr liked research. It didn’t mean the same thing to him as it might from a human. Personal, for Zyr. Not clinical.
And Zyr wouldn’t mind if Robin just said everything. Or he would, and they’d stop, so it wouldn’t matter anyway. Side stepping and playing coy when blunt felt better was stupid.
(But—)
(Not the time.)
“Maybe the series of Raven-Robin includes a primer on dragon seduction,” he said, and pressed his teeth against smooth skin again.
“The primer would be exceptionally accurate, I think,” Zyr finished the statement with a hiss, tail twitching.
“Oh, good. Because this is me failing the self-control test. Being pushy and grabbing the man I’ve thought about for the last few days whenever I wasn’t reading about murder magic. I like you, Zyr. I like being around you. I want to fuck you. This is what all of those combined look like. ”
Teeth, teeth, teeth, punctuating the end of every sentence. Because he was fine.
The couch’s upholstery split beneath Zyr’s claws with a satisfying tearing sound, a lovely harmony with Zyr’s swallowed groan, those lightning-touched eyes riveted on Robin’s lips, and eyes, and every inch of skin visible.
Score one for not listening to the intrusive thoughts.
The poor couch cushion, sacrificed to claws and Robin putting his cards on the table, face up for anyone present to see. Worth it, that pretty backdrop to Zyr’s approval.
“Raven-Robin…” almost pleading, and perfect for it. “Self control is no virtue when it serves no one’s desires. I don’t want you to stop.”
Blindfolded, taped, and tied. Silver-blue cord, if he could find it, and the blindfold to match Zyr’s scales. Plans Robin cooked up in those few beats between Zyr’s not quite begging and not quite request.
Zyr would be so, so pretty like that.
“It serves me,” Robin said, hungry and low. He pressed another kiss to Zyr’s palm. Robin, pleased by Zyr, cock hard and, hell, yes, he wanted this. He’d already failed the self-control aspect of it all. And they both wanted this.
It served him.
So did putting Zyr’s hand on his waist, the beithir’s fingers just under the hem of his shirt.
“You want a hard stop, say ‘Dinam’ or wrap your tail around my knee,” Robin stated, reaching for Zyr’s other horn and tugging him down. “Need to slow down or pause, tap my arm three times or say ‘aster.’ Start wandering away, grab my arm like last time. Repeat that back to me.”
Said it with the scrape of thumbs along the base of horns, gentle nails and hands holding firm, rewarded with another drawn out hiss from the needy beithir.
“I’m to recite lessons, am I?” Zyr asked, and he didn’t move his hand, because he was perfect, but his thumb explored what it could reach, a quarter-circle of skin, because he was a little shit.
“Yes.” The word kissed against his cheekbone, fierce. “You’re to recite lessons.”
That was what served Robin. Hearing his rules back, setting the lines, being shown he’d been heard and listened to.
The struggle fucking lit him up. Like being asked. It made a part of him click, fingers flex, and set ‘I want to see if he’ll cry if I do well enough’ running through his mind.
“My instructors would tell you I was a poor student. Unmotivated. Defiant. Ill-mannered.” Hitched, unsteady words. “Unseelie, without saying as much.”
“Your instructors aren’t here,” teeth, just there, under the curve of his jaw to draw out another shuddering hiss, “and I don’t give a shit what they’d tell me.”
There it was, what he’d wanted to hear. A quiet, broken sound from Zyr, just short of a groan. Perfect.
“To stop, Dinam, the fucking cat, or my tail around your knee,” the beithir said, breathing ragged. “Slow is aster, for patience, or I tap your arm. Three times. A sacred number. And if I get lost in my head, I grab your arm, so you can pull me back.”
Yeah, that was the whole of Robin’s self control being frayed, right the fuck there.
Zyr, doing what Robin wanted him to, and doing it properly, with the kind of associations Robin might’ve made back when memorizing things in school.
(Hot.) The bit about aster pulled him up short, some, the meaning of what was once his name in his ear.
“I didn’t know that’s what aster flowers were for.
I’d say it’s ironic, but it fits for this.
” And Robin, he wasn’t patient. There was just so much he wanted that maybe, possibly, it felt like self control.
Spoiled-for-choice control. May as well be honest about it, tugging Zyr’s horns, his face, up.
Mouth under Robin’s, the scrape of beard distant, less immediate than hunger and lips and the nip of teeth. “Free hand to my knee. Either knee.”
He angled Zyr’s head just so, then kissed him with intention, with insistence, since Zyr had made it clear he had the right to.
Could pull Zyr closer, drag his head back by his horns, kiss and nip and leave him breathless.
Leave him desperate, and Zyr still so fucking careful, his fingertips grazing Robin’s stomach, the other hand finding his knee, mouth open to be taken and take in turn.
But no drag of sharp teeth over Robin’s lips. No curl of his fingers, no claws to soft skin. He traced a line up the seam of Robin’s jeans, as far as possible without moving his hand from Robin’s knee.
That, and the spread of his fingers, apart and then together again, just there under Robin’s shirt.
What a little bastard.
Robin meant that in the best way possible. What else could he think, with Zyr still and acquiescing under him while also taking the inch given at waist and knee, stroking slow without moving his goddamn palm?
“You’re incredibly enticing, handsome bird,” Zyr murmured, as he traced that line up the inside of Robin’s thigh again. “Must my hands remain where they are? They would be of more use to you if I moved them.”
Asking without asking. Making it Robin’s choice to order, instead of grant.
“I don’t know. Must they?” Robin didn’t lean into the touches, for all he shivered, skin alight under the strokes.
Zyr snarled at the baiting response, shuddering when Robin scraped his nails against his scalp.
“You want something specific, you ask. Ask for what you want to do with those hands, Zyr. With a question mark at the end. That’s what I want. ”
A kiss, then, the graze of lips, slight pressure, and Robin’s sharp smile.
Another snarling hiss, cut sharp at the end, almost a whine. Beautiful.
“May I slide my hand up your thigh, Raven-Robin?” Zyr asked, harsh and hungry, with a distinct note of pleading threaded in. “May I run my fingers over your stomach while you shiver? May I feel for your heartbeat and stroke your cock?”
If Robin were a beithir, he would have purred. Rumbled. Pleased with that begging ring of Zyr’s voice. A man who could crush Robin in an instant, but offered gentle touch and ached for the privilege to stroking Robin’s cock.
“Well done,” Robin praised, rewarded him with another drag of nails, and a quick, firm kiss. “Very well done. You may slide your hand up my thigh, and the other over my stomach and chest. Not my sides. Not my cock.”
Zyr’s hands shook as he ran his hand up the inside of Robin’s thigh, over the planes of his stomach, beneath his shirt. Zyr himself shivered, his breath hitching, with the scrape of Robin’s nails.