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When Rafayel smiles at you in the middle of a kiss, it's devious in the other direction.
Normally, his scheming is a warning. The glint in his eye, it’s a reminder that he’s got you under his thumb no matter how many hops, skips, and jumps you try to get ahead of them. It’s the telltale sign before he flips you onto your back, his words skewing condescending in your ear, before he slithers down your body and pleasantly reminds you who’s in charge. Sometimes, though, sometimes there’s a different spin to it. It’s the kind that’s less plotting and more surprising. The kind that reassures you that all he wants to do is make you happy, and he’s got just the thing to do it.
To be fair, he’s had that look on all day. You don’t think it left his face once. From the moment he picked you up from your apartment and kissed you over the central console of his car, to the museum visit, the bookstore, the meals at your favorite places—every step of the way, he knew what came next, knew your smile would grow that much wider each time.
You hadn’t exactly asked him to do any of it. Well. Not outright. Maybe you had, in the way that you mentioned that your birthday was coming up again, and to be honest you can’t remember the last time you got to make a day of it. There were always other things to worry about. School and work and other people’s priorities. You were lucky, you said, sort of laughing it off, if you could stick a candle in a cupcake before midnight struck. It would be nice, you said, a little soft, a little bittersweet, if your birthday actually felt like your birthday for once.
So he did. He made it that way. He didn’t have to go all-out, honest; you would have been perfectly fine relaxing at the studio with some movies or games, or even picnicking on the shores of Whitesand Bay despite the growing chill in the air. But of course he wouldn’t have any of it. So he compromised. Mixed the simplicity of your favorite things with the grandeur of his own gestures. Gave you the things you wanted, yes—a gallery tour, a first-edition hardback, a cup of coffee just the way you like it—but reminded you, so loudly, that you deserved them.
He had a couple more presents for you at home, he said after dinner. He even invited you to stay the night because he knew you didn’t need to work tomorrow, and perhaps the best gift of them all would be sleeping in and waking up beside him. (You couldn’t disagree. It would be a pretty nice gift.) So you huddled into the car together, took off on the road, headed back to the studio. He rested his hand on your thigh at the stop lights, just brushing the hem of the dress he’d bought you for the occasion, and whenever he squeezed you couldn’t decide if you should swat his hand away or guide it higher.
(“You didn’t have to do so much for me, you know,” you told him when he was parking.
He smiled when he killed the engine. “Yes, I did.”)
But that was moments ago. Before he took you by the hand and led you into the house. Before he let you open the box at the foot of his bed, left the room so you could change into the pajamas inside them. Before his hands found your waist, and his mouth found the back of your neck, and he murmured into your skin that he still had one more gift for you.
He’s spoiling you, you want to tell him now. You know it’s your birthday, but doesn’t it get to a point? You want to ask him if he really hasn’t had enough, but he’s too busy turning you to face him, lazily slanting his mouth against yours, humming in satisfaction as his hands glide over your skin.
“Do you like them?” He’s asking about the pajamas: dark purple satin, scalloped lace, a dainty ribbon on each hip. He toys with one of them; maybe he’d untie them if it meant your clothes would drop to the floor.
You sling your arms around his neck. “They’re comfortable,” you tell him, “but… the neckline’s a little low, no?”
His mouth curves up against the line of your jaw. “Maybe that was on purpose,” he says. “Did you ever think about that?”
“What are you getting at?”
Slowly, he trails his fingers up the dip in your spine; you shiver when they untangle from the fabric and finally reach your skin. “Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do? You know… here?”
You give him a stone stare. “Rafayel, the sex tape is your idea.”
“Not that.” He laughs, unfazed by the look on your face; he’s more than familiar with it by now. “The other thing.”
“I don’t know if you know this, but there are a lot of ‘other things.’”
Rafayel grins, eyes going dark with intention. “Trust me. I know.”
You squint. “Okay, so which other thing are you talking about?”
He hums in mock thought, inclining his head. His lips brush your neck, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. “You’re a clever girl, aren’t you?” he murmurs along your skin, among the trail. “Go on. Think about it.”
It clicks into place in moments. The neckline, the affection, the teasing. Maybe the conclusion you’re drawing is farfetched, but the only way to find out is to ask.
Gently, you nudge him back to study him—the flush on his cheeks and the ruffle in his hair and the love-drunk look in his eyes. He can never get enough of you, it seems. “Are you… serious?”
His gaze drifts over your face. “I’m serious. What do you say?”
Okay, it’s not like you’ve been begging and pleading to do this specific thing with him. You’ve just… hinted at wanting it more than you’ve hinted at wanting other things in the bedroom. But can’t he cut you some slack? There aren’t many things you’re so focused on as this, and now that he’s offering it, agreeing to it, well…
Just past him is the elegant armchair beside his bed. You glance at it, then back up at him, and you can feel your face settle into certainty, a scheme of its own. Like a switch, almost. Gingerly, you unravel yourself from his body, one finger prodding at his chest, coaxing him backwards. You meet him step for step, each one empowering a new part of you. A subtle sway in the hips, a lowering of the lashes, a curl at the corner of your mouth. He looks delightedly threatened, right up to the moment the back of his knees hit the chair and he collapses into it. Like it’s his turn to find out what it means to be eaten alive.
Little by little, you lean down to his height, your fingers curling around the wooden armrests. You tilt your head, just a breath away, and you can’t help smiling at how his lip catches between his teeth in anticipation.
“Sit,” you whisper. “That’s what I say.”
Perhaps Rafayel has never been happier to obey. “You just want to have all the fun, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” you assure him, fingers snagging on the buttons of his shirt just before you undo them, one by one. The first hints of a flush are spilling onto his torso, chest starting to stutter with the danger sinking in—or maybe that’s just because of your nails grazing over his skin. You part the fabric with your fingers, lean in close, drag your mouth over the inches of his body you can reach. You can’t just go in for the kill, after all; he has to want it, need it, as much as you do. That’s where the fun is. And he’s starting to get it, you think. He makes it clear with how he shifts underneath you, how a soft groan rumbles in his throat when your thumbs brush his chest.
His hair falls into his eyes when he looks up at you; you can’t quite tell if they’re doe or siren, not when the hunger blossoming in his face is too entrancing to ignore. “Tease,” he murmurs, so low it almost drags you to the floor of its own accord.
“I’m not teasing.” You swipe your tongue across the seam of his lips, leaning back just in time when he tries to kiss you. “I’m unwrapping my present. That’s what you do on your birthday, you know.”
“Is that so?” His stomach tenses under your touch; if you pay close enough attention, you might catch the beginnings of an outline in his pants. “Is that why you haven’t tied me up?”
“No…” You sink to your knees, pressing a kiss to his navel, and nudge one of his hands to grip your hair loosely. Just enough to give him the perfect view of you. “You can’t hold onto me if you’re all tied up.”
Rafayel studies you in the dim light, the deftness in your fingers as you unbuckle his belt, the ease in your frame as you get comfortable between his legs. The more he looks at you, the more he seems to want this just as much. “I guess I never noticed how pretty you look on your knees,” he admits. As though it’s the only thing he’ll notice.
“You spend a lot of time worshiping me,” you tell him, tugging down his pants just enough to free him. You’re hardly aware of how you wet your lips at the sight of him, flushed and hardening under your watchful eye. “Now it’s my turn.”
It’s not so new to you, taking him into your hands like this. He reacts so predictably, eyes fluttering as soon as your fingers curl around him. His chest sinks with a sigh, and he lets himself slump back in the armchair, and with what little decorum he has left he brushes the flyaway hairs out of your face. “You really want this, huh?”
He probably means to tease you, asking like that, but you’re smart enough to pick up the hints in his tone. The unspoken, are you sure? It’s sweet of him, to keep checking on you like this even as the want starts to flood his body. You glance up at him through your lashes, your cheek resting on his thigh, and you give him a couple of gentle strokes. It’s just to give him the answer he’s looking for: the honest truth.
“I want to,” you whisper into the fabric, almost embarrassed for how needy you sound. Almost. “Please?”
The sudden twitch in your palm gives you all the answer you need.
You grace him with a few more kisses to his stomach; maybe it’s to get him ready, maybe to keep reassuring him. Either way, he’s smiling when you meet his eyes. It’s soft, affectionate. Trusting. That’s the kick in the teeth, the jolt between your legs.
“Whatever you do,” you tell him, your mouth so dangerously close to him, “don’t push on my head.”
“Cutie.” His hands are tender, mindful, where they gather up your hair. “I wouldn’t dream of—”
He loses the rest of his sentence to a groan, as drawn-out as the stripe your tongue leaves along the underside of his cock. It leaves a heady taste in your mouth, unusual but far from displeasing, and you’re already shivering from the pulse under your tongue and the careful tug at your scalp. You hum against him, satisfied already, and his sounds melt into soft breaths with every kiss you leave behind.
Between the two of you, you’re hardly the only one worth devouring.
Rafayel curses under his breath, a soft, hazy fuck that has you squirming in place as you suck along the shaft. “Where did you learn how to do this?”
You press your lips to the head of him, reverent, delicate. “You know I like to read.”
“Show me,” he whispers. So precious, when permission breaks through and lets him teeter on his own desperation. “Show me what you read.”
The worshiping comes easy. It’s nowhere near a Herculean task to show Rafayel how much you love him. It’s ingrained in every touch, every little sound that escapes you. The way your palm skims up his thigh, flexes and clenches and revels in the wrinkles of fabric there. The way you spend what must feel like an eternity kissing him, riling him up with soft licks like lightning. The returns, though, they’re tenfold: the pleasant chill at the roots of your hair, the way his head tips back against the arm chair, the tremble in his hips for how hard he tries not to buck against your face. And the sounds. Oh, you could bottle them up, call upon them for your pleasure like the ocean in a years-old conch. He’s practically whimpering above you, his heels planted on either side of you, your name a shudder on his lips.
“What’s wrong?” you murmur. “Don’t you like it?”
One of his hands curls tight around the armrest; the give of the wood rings in your ear. “I do,” he says, a delectably pitchy noise escaping between his teeth. “Love it—”
He gasps when you hold him more firmly, pressing the flat of your tongue to the shaft. Even groans a little when you coax him to meet your eyes, when you let just a touch of spit spill from your lips and dribble over the head, mixing with the precum beading there. Just to make sure he really loves it.
“You do?” you ask him, heated in the face, the want almost certainly shimmering on your lips. “You love it?”
Rafayel’s laugh is all breath then. He’s such a pretty sight, boneless in his chair, chasing the sort of desire he only now realized he craved. “You’re filthy sometimes, you know that?”
You nearly hiccup on a moan, your nails digging faintly into his knee. Oh, you didn’t mean to do it, didn’t mean to give yourself away like that. You know his eye is far too keen not to pick up on it; the glint in it is so painfully obvious to you. Almost as obvious as the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You like that?” he asks, half-surprised. He’ll never let you live it down. You don’t think you want him to. “Cutie, you shouldn’t have hidden that from me. I’d have told you a long… long time ago.”
You’ll show him just how much you like it. Right down to how your thighs clench to fend off all the heat rushing between them. Right down to how you start to breathe through your nose—in and out, nice and slow—as you sink your mouth onto his cock with a soft moan.
True to your request, he doesn’t push down. Doesn’t even rock his hips up, no matter how badly you can feel he wants to do it. He only grips your hair tighter, some choked, guttural thing escaping him, and he briefly stiffens underneath you before he settles back. If you blink through the blur in your eyes, you think you can catch him watching you. No, not just watching. Leering.
“Go on,” he whispers, caressing your cheek with his knuckles, just for a moment. The rise and fall of his chest isn’t lost on you; he’s just as gone as you are. “You wanted it so bad. Take it.”
So you do. Your hands on his thighs, your hair falling into your face in wisps, you do. You have to take him a little at a time—it wouldn’t do to choke on him, especially on your birthday, especially when you’ve asked for this—but God, the payoff. You’ve never felt him like this, twitching and squirming and aching for relief, clutching at you so meanly in the throes of his own pleasure. Curses on his tongue and breaths rattling in his throat and the faintest, subtlest rock of his body, just to push himself a little further down your throat. You make the most unpleasant sound when he does, a spit-riddled heave of your breath, but it leaves you feeling a sort of dizziness you wouldn’t be opposed to chasing again. And more than that, it squeezes your throat enough that this time when Rafayel moans, it’s loud and unbridled.
“Look at you,” he sighs, his eyes darkening at the sight of you. You must look a mess to him like this, lips swollen and knees aching and nipples peeking through your pajama top, the weight of his cock so heavy on your tongue. “Are you happy, pretty girl? Do you like it?”
He must know you do from that pointed, patronizing edge to his voice. You nod, littering the head with a few more kisses as you catch your breath. It’s already glistening in your loose grip, leaking in the absence of your mouth. You’d grant it a little sympathy, a little more reverence, if you weren’t waiting for Rafayel’s next words.
He’s practically cooing at you from up there, running his fingers through your hair in a way that is at once doting and derisive. He wouldn’t degrade you, not outright, but oh, the thought of him bullying you just a little, preying on some shame you should have, teasing and toying with your body and mind until you ask for a crumb of mercy—you can’t say you haven’t thought about it. Can’t say the fantasy doesn’t empower you a little, to know he’d do it if you asked. He plays every part to perfection; the least you can do is complement him.
He leans forward now, tips your head up with a curled finger. “Show me how much you like it, would you?”
You show him the only way you know how: with two fingers dipping into your shorts, past your underwear, burying themselves in slick folds. Your breath hitches at how easily they fit inside, at the too-brief respite when you curl them into that spot so much, and when you pull them out again they’re shimmering, sticky, weighted with musk.
“I told you,” you whisper, trembling head to toe as your fingers rest on his lips. “I want it.”
Rafayel’s mouth buzzes around your fingers as he gently sucks them clean. Maybe you’ll be kind, grant him the honor of being your seat when this is all over. Or maybe you’ll swap spots, right here, and he’ll taste you until you can’t take it anymore. But all of that will come after. Right now, you’re nudging him back again, taking him in your hand, welcoming him into your mouth while you pulse and clench around nothing. You’re already soaking through your underwear, and perhaps the satin, too. All of this, just from his cock in your mouth. All this, just from the knowledge of his satisfaction.
He can only keep up the act for so long; the sharpness in his tongue melts away, and before long he’s little more than a mess in the armchair, gripping your hair and choking on breaths and moans alike. He’s throbbing in your mouth, salt and musk mingling on your tongue, and in the brief moments that you glance up at him you swear you jolt with your own pleasure. Because God, he looks so pathetic, his head tipped back and his Adam’s apple bobbing and his clothes wrinkled to hell and back. He wants this as much as you do. Needs this just as badly.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, soft and honeyed, tapping his cock on your tongue the moment he locks eyes with you. It’s just for good measure, but it’s so, so worth it to watch him spasm and groan. “You look like you’re trying not to come. Is that it?” You give him a few languid strokes with your fist; you can’t leave him hanging for too long. “Do you want to come already?”
“You’re so—” He must want to call you something so pleasantly chilling, foul or raunchy or rude, but he gasps before he can get the word out. Seizes up with one of those full-body shivers and everything, and you give it back to him in spades when you take him in your mouth and let him brush the back of your throat. You nearly gag, breathe in sharply through your nose, moan deep to offset the reflex, and in one swift motion he pulls you off of him, both of you panting.
“If you do that again,” he says, flushed in the face, his hand still in your hair, “I will come in your mouth.”
You can’t help the low-pitched giggle that spills out, the roguish grin that splits your lips. “Oops.”
Everything falls together so naturally then. You soothe him with kisses that toe the line of hunger, purposeful strokes of the hand that leave him shivering and swearing. He tries, to his credit, to let a few more foul things roll off his tongue, promises of payback, a straight shot to the mess between your legs. And then, thank God, a warning, your lips closed around the head of him all the while.
“I’m close,” he whispers, hissing through his teeth as your thumb glides over the vein running the length of him. “Tell me. Tell me you want it.”
“I want it,” you whisper back, gracing him with one more kiss, one last ripple of the tongue. You have to rub your thighs together to hold off the anticipation. Your patience will pay off, you know it; you’ll know he’ll find some pleasure in the damp spot on your shorts, know he’ll spend the rest of the night ravaging you if only you’ll let him. If only you tell him— “I want it.”
It’s all he needs to hear before his head tips back, and his stomach tenses with every strangled moan, and through it all he still holds your hair back. He does you this courtesy even as he comes, white streaks decorating your neck and your collarbone and the tops of your breasts. And all the while you ease him through it, thank him sweetly, soothe him with the gentlest kisses as he stills and goes soft, sticky warmth trickling down your chest all the while.
Soon enough he comes to his senses, graces you with the most debauched look you’ve ever seen on him. Like you actually sucked the life out of him or something. He brushes his thumb under your eyelids, lets out a breathless laugh as you nuzzle your cheek against his palm.
“Well?” you ask; you can practically feel how dazed your smile is. “How do I look?”
His gaze lowers in affection, surveys you with all the love in the world. “Ruined,” he says, just above a whisper. And then, with another laugh, “I can’t believe that’s what you meant when you said you wanted a ‘pearl necklace.’”
You laugh with him, your shoulders sinking with a sigh. “At least you don’t have to go diving for this one… hey, what are you doing?”
“Giving you a break,” he says, already halfway through easing you into the armchair. “And getting your other present.”
“I thought this was the other present.”
“Come on,” he teases. “You really didn’t think I had something else for you?”
He disappears into the next room for a moment, returns with a handful of things: a small basin of water, a soft washcloth, and a velvet box. He lets you open the box while he cleans off your neck and chest—and maybe it’s a good thing he does, because it’s starting to take a turn for the cold and disagreeable—and inside is a thin silver bracelet with an anchor-shaped charm.
Aquamarine. You’d know his birthstone anywhere. “What’s this for?”
He looks at the bracelet with as much love as he holds for you. Extends a hand to fasten it himself. “You’re mine,” he says simply, pressing a kiss to the inside of your wrist once he’s closed up the latch. “My anchor, I mean.”
You smile, almost certain you’re glowing. “You made it?”
“Of course I made it.”
“It’s perfect.”
Everything he makes is perfect.
“I knew you’d like it,” he says, setting the box aside. He never once moves from the floor, from his knees, and in moments he’s hooking your leg over his shoulder, tugging at the waistband of your shorts. Encouraging you to lift your hips so you can take them off.
You comply, all too easily; you can’t resist the look on his face, the adoration with top notes of lingering hunger. “What?” you murmur among the kisses he litters down your thigh. “What are you doing?”
His mouth hovers over you, warm, still wanting. “What’s it look like?” His lips brush yours, kiss the dampness still begging to be indulged. “I’m anchoring myself.”
One broad stroke of the tongue. That’s all it takes to quiet you. To anchor you to him, too.