And Mercer was going to trust that, despite the fear that came with it.
Slipping Rahil out of his pants was easy when he was held so aloft by the cords, and Mercer took a step back after, giving himself thirty seconds to admire Rahil, if only for the way Rahil preened and flushed beneath the attention.
He was beautiful like this—his arms bound behind his head and pieces of hair around his face escaping his braid, his unbuttoned shirt hanging off his shoulders, the long edges framing his dick. In so many ways, he was different from Leah, and yet there was something similar too, in the lean, knobby build of his frame and the way he held himself between so many different emotions at once, both confident and insecure, passionate and restrained, genius and ignorant. Mercer wanted to see more of him, know more of him, to mark every similarity and difference, not because Rahil and Leah needed to be compared, but because they both deserved an eternity in Mercer’s heart.
Mercer took another step back, before turning toward his box of toys. “What should we try first, then?”
“You could just fuck me,” Rahil suggested.
“Oh no.” Mercer clicked his tongue against the front of his teeth. “You’d like thatfartoo much.” Meticulously, he lifted out a pair of small nipple clips, their polished strings of weights sparkling with a glitter coating and interspersed gemstones.
Rahil fidgeted and his fang tips gleamed as he bit into his lower lip.
Mercer lifted a brow and tucked the clips conspicuously into his front pocket. He withdrew a leather blindfold next, swirls of metal and delicate lace ornamenting its black surface, turning it from a functional piece to a work of art, then a few different cock rings that seemed about Rahil’s size, cautious to choose ones that wouldn’t hurttoo muchto be applied while Rahil was already hard. Dangling the blindfold around his own neck by the loose straps, he returned to stand in front of Rahil.
“What, no more terrible flirting?” he asked. “Have I finally gagged the great seducer?”
Rahil met his gaze with such soft longing that it took Mercer’s breath away. “Perhaps I was asking for something I never expected I’d actually receive.” One side of his mouth quirked into a lopsided grin, and the hair dangling around his face slid against the metal of his fang-muzzle. “It seems your touch leaves me speechless, torturer.”
With the backs of his fingers and the side of his thumb, Mercer pushed Rahil’s fallen locks to the side, and gently, his heart thudding against his rib cage at a thousand miles a minute, he whispered, “Youleave me speechless, babe.”
“Ah, fuck.” Rahil looked like he was going to melt right out of his bindings. “Do your worst,” he pleaded. “Please. Goddammit, whatever you’ve got for me, I want it, Merc.”
“Very well, then.” And he had never been more glad that he’d waited this long, nor that he’d finally let himself cave. “I have you, Rahil. And I’m going to make you feel like you never have before.”
29
RAHIL
Rahil Zaman had worn nipple clips before, and he’d had so manydifferentcock rings slid and shoved and twisted onto him that he’d lost count, and he’d been bound and gagged and on a couple occasions, worse. But this was something he swore he’d never felt before. This was everything. It was his whole body yearning both physically and emotionally, wanting for not merely touch and pressure and a pretty form to watch as it happened, but for this specific man, this perfect, wonderful man, to take him, skin, bone, and soul.
It was, in ways, how he’d felt with Shefali, and yet it wasn’t—because Shefali had taken his heart long before his body had thought to want her. With Mercer, the attention he’d initially stolen from Rahil’s cock had been the thing to shift to a deep, overwhelming love. And back when he’d been with Shefali, he hadn’t evenknownhe could ask for something likethisfrom her. Goddamn, was itgood.
Rahil stared down through the open lines of his shirt, past the weights that tugged and pinched at his tender nipples, to Mercer’s hands as he slowly tightened the cock ring into place, and from the center of his being, Rahilached. He’d never been a particular fan of his own dick—it wasn’t large, or thick, just a piece of him that served a purpose—but as the meld of twisting metal and silicone slowly tightened into place around it, Mercer’s fingers so gentle in their support, Rahil wasn’t sure he’d seen a more lovely part of himself. Every brush of skin on skin there made him sway under his bondage, and every slow but sure tightening drew a whimper out of him. Mercer’s warm breath made him shudder and when Merc finally let go, shifting back to admire his handiwork, Rahil’s desperation felt like a wild beast.
“How is this?” Mercer asked, looking up at Rahil with the slightest smirk on his otherwise stoic expression. “Be honest.”
“Vile,” Rahil replied. “And perfect.”
“That’s not very descriptive for one of so many words.” Mercer stood, fiddling with the blindfold still loosely necklacing his collarbones. “Perhaps this will help.”
Rahil’s heart skipped a beat as the silky fabric was pressed over his eyes and his world narrowed to the sensations of his skin and the flutters of indistinct movement. He flinched instinctively as Mercer glided a single finger down his navel, the touch so sudden that the soft tingle of it was multiplied into something delirious and overwhelming. The moan that slipped out of him felt like it came from nowhere and everywhere.
“Better?” Mercer asked.
“Maybe foryou,” Rahil grumbled, and waited for another touch, a prod, a pinch even.
What he was not expecting was the cold glide of a new pair of cords wrapping around his shoulders and chest in elaborate loops and twists. For a moment, he couldn’t figure out what Mercer was going for, until the cords slid between his thighs to cup them, looping down his legs. Slowly, the whole trap lifted him. He could feel the touch of air on his hole as his ass was guided up, his legs spread and knees bent, until he was suspended on his belly with his bare feet tucked toward the ceiling.
He’d lost all sense of direction, all knowledge of where Mercer was in relation to himself, so when two slick fingers dragged up his entrance, his head went light and a shuddering rush ran through him. Rahil bit into his own lip with a gasped, “Ah,fuck.”
“Describe it for me,” Mercer hummed, as calm as ever. “As a baseline.”
Thatwas doing things to him too—things he didn’t realize were possible—like the contained, casual way Mercer was approaching this was making Rahil’s body fall apart all the faster and harder. As Mercer rubbed a fresh spot of lube across Rahil’s opening, pressing his fingertips inside, Rahil gasped. “Like you’re fucking with me. I can feel the wet of your fingertips with my whole goddamned body, and when you press me open—” He hissed as Mercer did it again, this time with more force. “It’s like—like you’re threatening to take me apart.”
“Good.” Mercer withdrew his touch, and it felt like a void, like Rahil’s body was tingling against a great nothingness, until out of the darkness, a palm smacked vibrantly into his right ass cheek, sending a cascade of sensation through him.
“That stings,” Rahil grunted.
