Bonus Story Teasing the Tarantula
BONUS STORY:
TEASING THE TARANTULA
A Kinky Kritters Story
Damien felt the first brush of hairy legs on the back of his neck and smiled without looking up from his textbook.
Trey was subtle for a tarantula. As subtle as a creature with eight legs and a body the size of a dinner plate could be, anyway. He crept along the back of the couch with the exaggerated care of a man who believed he was being stealthy and was, in fact, about as stealthy as a marching band.
Damien turned a page. Pretended to read.
Pretended not to notice as Trey's fine leg-hairs tickled the side of his neck, as the small, warm weight of his boyfriend's spider form made its way around to his chest with the patient determination of someone who had decided that biology textbooks were the enemy and he was going to win.
He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped him when Trey reached his collarbone. "I can feel you, you know."
Trey paused. His fangs wiggled, the tarantula equivalent of a grin.
Damien laid his hand flat, palm up, and Trey crawled onto it.
He lifted the spider to eye level. Trey was beautiful in this form, in the way that only someone who loved him could appreciate, dark brown fur, delicate legs, eight shiny black eyes that all managed to communicate the same expression: pay attention to me.
"Hey," Damien said. "I thought you had to work tonight."
Trey grew heavier in his hand, the first sign of a shift coming, and Damien set him quickly on the couch cushion before the transformation could dump a full-sized human onto his palm. Even an elephant shifter had his limits.
The shift was quick. Spider to man in the span of a breath, the fur receding into warm brown skin, the legs consolidating into arms and legs that were, admittedly, still slightly too long for the body they were attached to.
Trey stretched out on the couch like he owned it, which he did, technically, since he'd been the one to find it on the sidewalk and insist they carry it four blocks home, and put his feet in Damien's lap where the textbook had been.
"You looked bored," Trey said.
"I was studying."
"You were staring at the same page for six minutes. I counted." Trey wiggled his toes against Damien's thigh. "Come out with me tonight. Kinky Kritters. It's been two weeks and I'm getting edgy."
"You're getting horny."
"Those are the same thing and you know it.
" Trey sat up on his knees, his hand landing high on Damien's thigh with the targeted precision of someone who'd been deploying that particular weapon for the entirety of their relationship.
"Come on. We can use the suspension room.
You can tie me up and I'll be very, very good. "
Damien swallowed. The suspension room. Where Trey hung in a harness and couldn't get away and was entirely at Damien's mercy, and the sounds he made…
"We've got stuff here," Damien said, making a token effort at resistance. "You wouldn't even have to get dressed."
Trey pouted. It was devastatingly effective. The pout on a face that still carried a hint of spider, the slightly too-many freckles, the dark eyes, the way his hair stood up in directions that defied physics, was a weapon of mass destruction, and Trey knew it.
"I want the harness," Trey said. "The one in the middle of the room, the one that holds me just right. And I want you to take your time. And then I want one of Amani's bourbon things."
Damien closed the textbook. Biology could wait. Trey could not. "Fine. Get dressed."
Trey grinned, wide and triumphant and entirely too pleased with himself, and bounced off the couch toward the bedroom. "Wear the black shirt!" he called over his shoulder. "It makes your arms look amazing!"
"All my shirts make my arms look amazing. I'm an elephant."
"The black one makes them look extra amazing."
Damien put on the black shirt.
***
Kinky Kritters was a five-minute walk from their apartment, which was one of the better accidents of Damien's life.
They'd rented the place for the price and the quiet, Trey liked dark, still spaces, a holdover from his spider nature, and hadn't realized until week three that the unassuming office building two blocks over housed the most exclusive shifter kink club in Vegas.
They'd gone on a whim the first time. Damien had expected to feel out of place, he was an elephant, for god's sake, not exactly the sleek, dangerous archetype that BDSM advertising favored, but the club had surprised him.
Everyone was welcome at Kinky Kritters. Panthers, pandas, parrots and, yes, elephants and tarantulas.
Lady Leo's operation was built on a foundation of radical inclusion: if you followed the rules and treated people with respect, you could walk through the door regardless of species, size, or the specific flavor of your kink.
Bethany nodded them through. "Amani's got a new bourbon special tonight," she said, not looking up from her crossword.
"Thanks," Damien said.
In the elevator, Trey pressed himself against Damien's side, not sexually, just close, the way he always did in small spaces.
Spiders didn't love elevators. Damien put his arm around him and held him until the doors opened on music and low lighting and the energy of a room full of people who'd come to be exactly who they were.
Amani appeared within seconds, materializing out of the crowd with the supernatural cheerfulness that seemed to be his default state. "You two again. Thought we'd scared you off."
"Takes more than that." Trey threaded his fingers in Damien's.
"Drinks or play?" Amani asked.
Damien looked at Trey. Trey looked at Damien. The look contained an entire conversation that had been had a hundred times and always ended the same way.
"Both," Damien said. "Is the suspension room free?"
Amani checked his phone, pulling it from the waistband of his tiny shorts with the casual dexterity of someone who'd been hiding phones in minimal clothing since puberty.
"You've got three hours. Someone's booked at one-thirty.
And you know the rule, soda or juice only until you're done playing.
No bourbon until the harness comes off."
"Understood."
"Then follow me." Amani led them through the crowd to the playroom, a large, dedicated space with high ceilings and anchor points and the suspension harness that Trey had been dreaming about for two weeks. He keyed the code into the panel, and the door clicked open.
"Have fun," Amani said. "Text me if you need anything."
The door closed behind them, and Trey launched himself at Damien with the full-body enthusiasm of a man who'd been waiting for this all week and had run out of patience somewhere around the elevator.
"Easy," Damien laughed, catching him. "We've got three hours."
"Then stop wasting them." Trey was already pulling off his hoodie, then his jeans, shedding clothes with the urgency of someone escaping a fire.
Naked, he was lean and angular, all sharp lines and warm brown skin and a confidence that had taken months to build but was, in that room, absolute.
He wasn't self-conscious. Not there. There, with Damien, in a harness that held him exactly where he wanted to be, Trey was the most certain version of himself.
Damien stripped too. They'd been doing this long enough that the logistics were second nature, check the harness…
sturdy, weight-rated, well-maintained, check the anchor points…
secure, check the quick-releases…functional.
Safety wasn't sexy, but it was necessary, and Damien had learned early that Trey's trust was contingent on his thoroughness.
"Arms," Damien said, and Trey extended them behind his back.
The straps went on easily, wrists first, then the chest harness, then the thigh loops.
Each buckle was snug but not tight, each point of contact padded and adjustable.
When Damien lifted Trey into the harness and clipped the final carabiner, Trey hung suspended three feet off the ground, arms bound, legs free, his body swaying slightly with the residual momentum of being placed.
He was, Damien thought, the most beautiful thing in the world. Lean and fierce and trusting, hanging in a harness with his dark eyes fixed on Damien's face and his breathing already starting to quicken with anticipation.
"Comfortable?" Damien asked.
"You know I hate heights."
"You're three feet up."
"For a tarantula, that's a skyscraper." But he was smiling.
The fear was there, Trey never fully lost it, the instinctive spider-panic at being off the ground, but it was contained, managed, transformed into something else by the trust he placed in the man standing below him.
This was what they'd built. Not the absence of fear, but the willingness to feel it in the presence of someone who wouldn't let you fall.
"I've got you," Damien said.
"I know." Trey wrapped his legs around Damien's waist, pulling him close. "Now stop talking and touch me."
Damien touched him. One hand wrapped around Trey's cock, already hard. The other slid between his legs, teasing, circling. Trey's head fell back, and the sound he made, a low, desperate whine that was half human and half something older, hit Damien like a fist to the sternum.
He took his time. That was the point of this, the reason they came back, the luxury of time and space and privacy to be exactly as slow as Damien wanted to be, which was always slower than Trey wanted him to be.
He worked Trey with his hand, bringing him to the edge and then backing off, again and again, until Trey was shaking in the harness and making threats that ranged from creative to anatomically improbable.
"Damien, I swear to god, if you don't—"
"You'll do what?" Damien grinned. "You're tied up."
"I will bite you. I still have fangs."
"You won't use them."
"I absolutely will."
"You didn't last time."
Trey made a noise of pure, exasperated frustration that dissolved into a moan when Damien finally, finally stopped teasing and entered him.
Slow. Deliberate. Feeling every inch, every shudder, every sound that Trey made as his body adjusted and then opened and then demanded more with the wordless urgency of someone who'd been patient long enough.
Damien controlled everything. The pace, the angle, the depth.
Trey could beg, and did, eloquently, but Damien decided when and how and how much.
And he wanted slow. Wanted to feel Trey trembling around him, wanted to hear the sounds he made when he was right at the edge and couldn't get himself over without Damien's permission.
"Please," Trey whispered. His legs tightened around Damien's waist. His whole body was taut, vibrating, held at the crest by nothing but Damien's pace and Damien's hand and Damien's refusal to give him what he wanted until the moment was right.
The moment was right.
Damien stroked him, once, root to tip, firm and decisive. "Now."
Trey came with a shout that the soundproofed walls barely contained, his body clenching around Damien, his release spilling over Damien's fist. The sight and the sound and the feeling of Trey's orgasm were enough to push Damien over his own edge.
He buried himself deep and let go, his arms tight around Trey's suspended body, holding him through the aftershocks.
For a long moment, they stayed connected. Trey hanging in the harness, Damien standing below him, both breathing hard, both smiling.
"You're such a bastard when you do that to me," Trey mumbled against Damien's shoulder.
"You love it."
"I do. For sure I do."
Damien unclipped the harness carefully, bringing Trey down into his arms and then onto the floor, where they lay tangled together on the padded surface.
Trey curled against him, small and warm and boneless with satisfaction, and Damien held him the way he always did.
Gently. Completely. Like the most precious thing in the world, which he was.
"Ten minutes," Trey said sleepily. "Then bourbon."
"Deal."
"And you're buying."
"I always buy."
"Because you love me."
Damien kissed the top of his head. "Because I love you, my little spider."
"Love you too, my big hairy elephant." Trey yawned. "Don't let me fall asleep. Amani's bourbon things have tiny umbrellas."
"I won't let you fall asleep."
"And don't let me fall."
"Never."
Trey's breathing slowed. Evened. Within thirty seconds, he was asleep, because trusting someone with your safety meant trusting them enough to let go, and Trey let go of everything when Damien was holding him.
Damien stayed awake. He held his sleeping tarantula in the middle of a kink club on a Thursday night, and he thought about how strange and wonderful it was that a spider and an elephant had found each other in a city full of predators and prey, and that the place they fit best was exactly here.
He closed his eyes.
Just for a minute.
The End
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