“Come and see this,” Kit invited, opening the top drawer.
Henry joined him, staring down in silence at the leather straps and crops laid out carefully inside.
“We cater to all of our patrons’ needs,” Kit said, smiling. He could not help but enjoy the shocked expression on Henry’s face. He closed the drawer and opened the second one, revealing three dildos in varying sizes, and some wrist and ankle cuffs.
Kit pointed at the rings on the cuffs. “These can be fastened to the bedframe.”
He glanced at Henry, whose gaze was fixed on the contents of the drawer. Henry swallowed hard, his throat bobbing.
Kit’s heart was racing. Without thinking it through he said, “Do you want to make use of any of them, Henry?”
Henry was quiet for a moment, then he turned to look at Kit, his grey eyes glittering faintly. “I just want to serve you. It’s up to you whether to use any of them.”
Kit stared at him, unsure what to say. He hadn’t really let himself think about this, since the week before. Henry’s willingness—no, eagerness—to serve Kit had astonished him but he had not imagined that it would continue.
Kit looked Henry up and down, remembering how he had looked unclothed. Broad-shouldered and rough with hair, his limbs strong and well-formed. A big, beautiful male body, the kind that Kit liked best. It always surprised him, how many men seemed to like his shorter, slender body when his own preferences ran in such a different direction.
Kit thought of Henry’s large and powerful body brought to perfect obedience under his hand, and his mouth went suddenly dry.
It was strangest thing. He had never craved such play before, though perhaps that was because, in his days as a whore, he’d generally been assigned the more submissive role, on account of his physical appearance. But it wasn’t as though he hadn’t had plenty of opportunity to explore such possibilities since he’d retired his old profession. Yet it was only now, as he considered the possibilities this offered in relation to Henry in particular, that the idea seemed to take hold of his imagination,
He realised that he had picked up one of the wrist cuffs and was idly stroking the soft leather. And that Henry’s gaze was on his hands, a stripe of pink scalding his cheekbones.
“Do you know, I think I rather would like to fasten you to the bed,” Kit said softly, watching with fascination as Henry’s flush deepened. “If you really would not mind.”
Henry shook his head stiffly and when he met Kit’s gaze, his own was glossy with lust. When Kit glanced down at Henry's crotch, the bulge in the man’s breeches told its own story.
“Will you fuck me?” Henry whispered harshly.
Kit blinked. After a pause, he asked carefully, watching Henry, “Do you want me to?”
Henry swallowed and nodded.
“You like that, then?” Kit asked, surprised. In all their time together, Henry had only ever seemed to want to fuck Kit. He’d never voiced to Kit any wish to explore the alternative. Or indeed asked Kit what he thought.
But now… now Henry was looking away, unable to hold Kit’s questioning gaze.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“You don’t know?” Kit echoed. Was Henry really asking him for something he’d never experienced before? Kit tossed the cuff back in the open drawer and stepped towards Henry, reaching for his jaw and gently turning his face to meet Kit’s gaze again. “Let me understand—are you telling me you’ve never been fucked before?”
Henry’s face was burning now, but this time he did not look away. He shook his head minutely and whispered, “But I want to—that is, I want you to. Fuck me, I mean.”
Kit frowned, thinking back to the previous Friday. All those apologies and that desire for service. Henry’s horror that Kit would not allow him to gift the house at Paddington Green to him, or pay him money. His apologies. Despite Henry’s assurances otherwise, he had a horrible crawling feeling this really was about making amends for Henry.
“Perhaps you should earn the money you owe me the way I had to earn it? On your knees, and on your back, taking my cock like a whore.”
Kit dropped his hand from Henry’s face as though his skin burned and stepped back.
“You don’t need to do that,” he muttered, horrified at the thought that Henry was trying to regain his honour in this way. “I don’t want you to submit to me as some kind of penance.” He swallowed against nausea and turned away.
“That’s not—I’m not doing that,” Henry protested.
“Then why are you—”
“I don’t know.”
Kit whirled around to find Henry’s desperate gaze fixed on him.
Henry said, his voice cracking, “Last week, I—it was different from anything I’ve experienced before. I just want more. If you do, that is.”
He held his hand out to Kit. The leather wrist cuffs dangled from his fingers.
Kit fastened the cuffs to the bed posts carefully.
“Can you move?” he asked softly, and Henry demonstrated that he could.
Henry was naked, wearing only the leather cuffs on his wrists and ankles, and his big body was held fast. Being so tall, he wasn’t overly stretched, able to maintain a slight bend at both knees and elbows, but my, he was a sight to see. A harnessed beast, tamed and ready for Kit’s pleasure. His breath sawed in and out of chest as he stared at Kit with bright, burning eyes.
Kit laid his hand on Henry’s thigh. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he reassured him.
“I know,” Henry muttered, but he did not relax, his muscles bunched with tension, the cords on his throat standing out.
“Try to find some ease,” Kit said gently, “while I get undressed.”
He smiled at the sudden interest in Henry’s grey gaze, and his hands went to the buttons of his coat.
And suddenly everything was familiar—familiar but different. He was Kit, taking off his clothes for Henry, only he didn’t have to do it this time, if he didn’t want to. This undressing was no act of submission.
He took his time, signalling his power over Henry with the patience of his slow disrobing and the unhurried setting aside of his clothing. He stripped everything away, item by item, till he was—like Henry—fully naked, and Henry was trembling in his bonds, the wet tip of his hefty cock smearing his belly with silvery trails.
Kit rubbed the pad of his forefinger through a sticky patch.
“Hmmm,” he hummed, a note of disapproval in his voice. “Messy.”
Henry’s chest heaved, and his eyes glittered, his gaze fixed on Kit.
“What shall I do with such a messy boy?” Kit wondered aloud. He smiled at Henry, letting his gaze travel all the way down his body.
“Are you going to fuck me?” Henry gasped.
Kit’s smile widened. “You do seem quite fixed on that idea,” he said. “Will you be terribly disappointed if I don’t? I’m not sure you’re really ready for that.”
Henry swallowed. “I can take it,” he said.
Kit laughed softly, and he sat on the mattress beside Henry. “Oh, I’m quite sure you can,” he said. “But you see, I’d prefer to have you begging mindlessly for my cock rather than bravely withstanding it.” He leaned over then, till their faces were very close together, and whispered in a confidential tone, “A fellow likes to think he’s wanted, you know.”