Chapter 24 #2
Oh. Oh. Zavier swallowed, and the world did one of those standing still things that sometimes happened in his life.
Turning points. Precipices. Moments when everything going forward would be different.
Had happened when he’d opened that letter from Juilliard, when he’d first seen a man tied up and flogged, and when he’d walked into HR in Silverton to tender his resignation.
He’d asked Ray to marry him. In return Ray asked for a collar. No, they weren’t playing anymore. Maybe they never had been. He’d wanted to help Ray from the moment he’d read that apology of his, wanted to see how Ray had grown and changed. Now? He was twined into Ray. Planted in his life.
“How long have you needed me?”
“Since high school. But I don’t think that’s the question you’re asking.” Ray suddenly didn’t look at all submissive, despite kneeling at Zavier’s feet. “Need means so many things. Want, too. All words have layers.”
Yeah, he shouldn’t underestimate a songwriter. Zavier tucked that away. “What am I asking?”
Ray chuckled. “There’s how I’d phrase the question, and how you’d phrase the question. What you’re asking, and how you’d say it, is ‘How long have you trusted me?’”
Okay, that did sound a little like him. “And?” He raised an eyebrow.
Ray raised his in return. “I love it when you’re imperious.”
“I am holding a collar in my hand. I’m assuming you want it around your neck.”
“I do, yeah. Because I want to belong to you and you want me to belong to you.”
Lightning in his veins. Ray knew him perhaps better than he knew himself, at least in some things. “Not all the time.”
“No. Not all the time in the whole Dominant and submissive way.” Ray’s smile was crooked and charming. “We’d both hate that.”
Zavier slipped the leather collar around Ray’s neck, and Ray’s eyes fluttered shut. He seemed to melt as Zavier buckled it on, tight enough. But not too much. “Now...how long have you trusted me?”
“Got two answers for that,” Ray murmured. His voice, like his body was soft. Ah, subspace. “My head—the one on top of my neck—has trusted you since the night on the bus.”
Zavier didn’t need to be told which one.
“But my soul?” Ray opened his eyes and stared up at Zavier. “Since the audition, when you played ‘White Hot Midnight.’”
Zavier yanked on the collar, pulling Ray up, even as he bent down. Their mouths met and Zavier devoured Ray and his moans. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Ray’s fingers were caught in Zavier’s shirt, holding, tugging, grounding them both in this moment.
Partner. Yes. That was the best word. At least until it could be husband.
Zavier broke the kiss. “We’re going to need the bed you so neatly covered in toys cleaned off.”
Ray laughed and slid back to kneeling. “Pick what you want to use on me, and I’ll put the rest away.”
There was that incredible flare of desire—Zavier wanted Ray in every possible manner right now. But that wasn’t feasible, let alone practical. Someday soon, he’d make a list of his fantasies, check them with Ray, then begin to cross them all off, one by one. But tonight?
He took the rope, the flogger, and the crop. They’d played a bit with them before, but now there wasn’t a need to be careful about how much skin he could or couldn’t mark. He grabbed the bottle of lube and eyed the condoms. A notion, a heat flared in him. Yes, he wanted to possess Ray. Own him.
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t fuck you bareback?”
Ray’s breathing hitched, and then he was silent.
Zavier didn’t turn, just kept staring at the condoms. Finally, Ray spoke.
“No. I was tested for pretty much everything under the sun at the hospital. I’m good.
Even my cholesterol.” He let out a sigh that Zavier matched mentally with one of Ray’s little shoulder shrugs.
“Plus I’ve been on PrEP for a while now. ”
“Pretty much the same for me, sans hospital.”
“Your cholesterol’s good?”
Zavier laughed and turned. “I’m a tiny bit close to high, but it’s all the good type of cholesterol.”
Ray was smirking. His arrogant, lovely man.
“Clean off the bed, Ray.” Zavier settled back into his chair, setting down his supplies on the table next to it, and enjoyed the view of Ray carefully laying all their toys back into Zavier’s duffle. Including the condoms.
It was symbolic, of course. But also not at all. His fingertips itched and he wanted to touch every part of Ray. Bite him. Make him cry.
Ray? Ray wouldn’t be naked and wearing a leather collar if he had any objections. Still, Zavier tilted his head and asked, “Safewords?”
“Traffic lights, Zav. I know. You’ve never done anything I haven’t liked.”
True. “Someday, though, I’ll hit a limit.”
Ray stilled and nodded. “Yeah, probably.” He zipped up the bag. “You got one? A safeword?”
He did. He’d only ever needed it once in his life, when Nadia had tied him up. But he’d not spoken it then. Never said it to stop a scene. “It’s baroque.”
Ray blinked a few times. “Please don’t tell me you chose it because of the whole ‘if it’s not baroque’ joke.”
Zavier laughed. Because yes, yes he had. For the sheer artistic fuckery. Because he was an asshole.
Ray shook his head, put the bag in the closet, crossed the room, and knelt before Zavier again. He put his hands at the small of his back and tipped his chin up. “Please fuck me already. Or flog me. Or both. I need to feel you. Need to know this is real.”
As if Zavier needed a reason for his dick to be harder. “Oh, you will. And it is.” He picked up one of the smaller cuffs. “Give me your wrist.”
He did, and Zavier kissed the pulse point before buckling the cuff on. Did the same with the other, and by the time he was done, Ray was flushed from the chest up. Practically panting. “Turn around, Ray.”
He used the tiny clip dangling from one cuff and secured the two together, locking Ray’s hands firmly behind his back. Zavier spoke. “Face me.”
The softness was back. That sweet touch of Ray giving everything over. All his trust. His body. Everything. Zavier stood and stepped in close, and there was the spark of recognition, the drop in Ray’s shoulders.
“Oh god yes, please.” Ray moaned the words.
Someone wanted a dick in his mouth. “Since you’re not singing in the near future...” Zavier unzipped, pushed everything aside, grasped Ray’s collar, and slipped his cock into Ray’s very willing mouth.
They both groaned, and the vibrations around Zavier’s shaft were something else. Yes, he’d let Ray suck him before, but this time? Ray was all in. Licking, sucking, taking him deep. Over and over, with an enthusiasm he rarely saw from guys who mostly topped.
“Fuck, Ray.” Zavier tightened his fingers around the leather collar and slid his other hand into Ray’s hair. “Where the hell did you learn to suck cock?”
Ray pulled off and licked the tip. So fucking good, that. “Glory holes.” A flash of a smile, then Ray’s hot mouth was back around Zavier’s dick, and it took everything Zavier had not to empty his balls down Ray’s throat.
Fucking Ray had been holding out on him, depraved soul that he was.
Zavier tightened both his grips, holding Ray’s head still, and thrust in.
And again. And again, until he was fucking Ray’s mouth and throat with abandon.
Ray didn’t flinch. He did moan and shake and make sounds that were so damn obscene they should be in a high-quality porno.
So was Ray’s stare, full of blinking and watery eyes and a look that seemed to say I can damn well take anything you give.
It was almost a pity to stop, but if he wanted to fuck Ray’s ass like he intended, he needed to, or the evening would be over before he’d even started. He pulled out.
Zavier wasn’t sure which of them was breathing more heavily, him or Ray. “Glory holes, huh?”
Ray’s voice was jacked and rough, but still so beautiful. “Yeah. I—uh—may have gotten some of my seed money for the band from swallowing other guys’...well. Yeah.” A little furrow between his brows. “That doesn’t bother you, does it?”
He smoothed his thumbs over Ray’s cheeks and those plump, ruddy, well-fucked lips. “Not in the least. Remember, I learned much of what I know about BDSM from a rather infamous madam.” He paused. “And I may have made some money as an escort.”
“May? Like you don’t know?” A quirky little smile.
“Did make. Enjoyed it, too.”
Ray’s sigh was a happy thing. “Yeah. Ditto.”
So much he knew about Ray. So much he didn’t. This would be a grand adventure. One to last a lifetime. “Up, Ray. I’m tying you to the bed.”
He wouldn’t tire of that little happy moan in the back of Ray’s throat.
Ray rose with grace and moved like he hadn’t just spent quite a bit of time kneeling on the carpet.
Zavier took a moment to tuck his dick back into his pants—as much as he could, given its state—and to grab the lengths of rope he’d pulled from the bed.
Arranging Ray was easy enough; Zavier bent him over the bed.
He had to unclip the wrist cuffs to have Ray stretch his arms overhead, then reclip them.
Ray was both squirmy and relaxed, his sinuous body moving just so.
“You better not be humping the bedspread.”
Ray huffed a laugh. “I won’t come until you say.”
“You’d better not.” Zavier could wield a crop for pain as equally as for pleasure. “And stop moving.”
Ray did, though his muscles flexed a little before he gave in.
It took Zavier longer than he’d like to anchor the ropes to the bed. Once he’d managed, though, he tied Ray’s arms overhead and each ankle—once he’d cuffed them, pulled toward the sides of the bed. Ray open and exposed for him. “Comfortable?”
“You have no idea,” Ray murmured, and it was that faraway voice Zavier loved to hear.
“You’re still wearing my bracelet.” The leather band rode low on Ray’s ankle.
“Reminds me of you.”