Chapter Text
Ray was napping upstairs, drowsing across the bed just outside the reach of the early afternoon sun and lulled by the sound of birds and passing cars. Sometimes he imagined he could hear the ocean, if he tried to listen hard enough.
He had nothing to do and nowhere to be, at least not so early in the day. Relatively early. It was barely past noon.
Brad should have been at work, so Ray had a moment of temporal vertigo when he heard Brad’s bike coming down the road and slowing before it slid into the driveway.
It wasn’t unheard of for Brad to leave work early sometimes if he didn’t have much work booked in and had finished all the end of the month account stuff and shit like that.
Ray usually went down to meet Brad at the door, but he was comfortable and sleepy and he wanted to lie in the crackling feeling of anticipation for a change, spinning out the moment until Brad appeared to break it like the crest of a wave.
Plus, sometimes when Brad came home unexpectedly in the middle of the day, he would come up and see Ray all soft and warm on the bed and crawl up over him, oily jeans and dirty shirt and all.
He heard Brad open the garage door and store his bike, heard the garage door closing and the silence that followed Brad taking the time to remove his leathers. The loud ringing crash of the side door into the house being slammed closed was unexpected.
Ray sat up and was out of bed and making his way downstairs as he heard another door slam, heard something being kicked and then Brad swearing his way from the living room to the kitchen.
He came curiously peering around the kitchen doorway to see Brad snatching up a beer bottle and doing his best to slam the fridge door too.
Brad was bare on top, his t-shirt stuffed into his jeans back pocket, and he was all heat-sweat-glazed along the contours of his muscles and down the dip of his back where Ray liked to lick. So he was hot for Brad’s body, so sue him, he had permission.
Brad downed a good two thirds of his beer before he put it down; the way his hands resting on the countertop made his shoulders look taut and clamped. Ray was sure that Brad knew he was there, but he was still careful to let his bare feet make noise on the tiled kitchen floor as he approached.
He put a silently inquiring hand on Brad’s back and, when he wasn’t twitched away, slid them around Brad’s hot skin to his waist. He pressed up against Brad’s back and rested his cheek between Brad’s stress-sharp shoulder blades.
Ray just held him, quiet and rubbing his thumb soothingly against the lithe and hidden strength of Brad’s abs.
He stayed there until the storm building in Brad’s muscles regressed and Brad breathed it out, covering Ray’s hands with one of his own.
“Bad day?” Ray asked, almost against Brad’s skin and with no intention to tease in his tone.
The question put tension back into Brad and Ray freed one of his hands to reach up and squeeze at Brad’s trapezius from the front, urging the stress back out.
“A bad fucking day, Ray.” Brad confirmed.
Ray didn’t push. He waited silently, still holding on tight until Brad moved and turned around, back to the countertop and his half-empty bottle behind him.
Ray stepped back a little and reached up now to hold Brad’s face between his hands, studying him with the little moue his mouth sometimes made when he was being solemn, and then stretching up on his toes to kiss him.
Brad reciprocated, accepting the comfort and commiseration Ray offered, his hands coming to settle on Ray’s hips. He dropped his head down towards Ray and just rested his forehead against the top of Ray’s fluffy head of hair.
Ray rubbed at Brad’s back a little, working his strong hands over the knots and tight spots whenever he came across them until his hands slowed and remained still, lying close to Brad’s skin.
He didn’t know how long they stood there, but Brad eventually pulled away with a sigh and drained his nearly finished beer; he looked at it like he was deciding on whether he should open another one of not.
Ray swayed back on his feet to watch Brad, hands stuffed into the pockets of the sweatpants he’d been napping in.
“You look like you should take a shower.” He commented after a while. “You can use that fruity shower gel that you totally didn’t buy yourself and definitely didn’t ban me from using.”
Even pissed off, Brad still managed a little smile for Ray. It was a weak little thing, but there nonetheless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said blithely, but it was a good idea and he was already moving to the stairs.
“Did you eat?” Ray called to Brad’s retreating back.
“Yeah.” Brad shouted back.
“Okay. Leave your clothes on the floor, I’ll stick them in the wash.” Ray offered, yawning as he made himself a cup of coffee.
--
By the time Ray remembered that he’d forgotten to empty the washing machine by opening the washing machine and finding the last lot of clothes musting inside, by the time he’d sworn and thrown Brad’s extra clothes in before restarting the wash, Brad had reappeared downstairs.
He was still slightly damp, dressed in his faithful plaid pyjama bottoms and a Henley and lying stretched out on the once-his-now-theirs massive couch; he’d shoved a cushion behind his head, his long legs crossed comfortably at the ankles.
He had a book propped open on his chest; some hardback thing missing a dust jacket that Ray thought was either one of the Chronicles of Narnia, or that new Harry Potter thing. Ray’s smile was fond and provoked by a sudden punch of love for Brad and all the little fissures of his character that Ray felt privileged to know, his idiosyncratic taste for the Young Adult genre.
He wanted inside that comfortable, private little moment and he knew he was allowed. He didn’t have to stop himself from walking over to the couch, clambering up and prowling up the length of Brad’s body, so he didn’t.
He propped himself over Brad, hands on either side of Brad’s chest, and Brad responded by uncrossing his ankles, flipping his book down against his chest and cocking a mild eyebrow Ray’s way.
To anyone else it might have looked like Brad’s usual aloof nature, but Ray could read Brad’s subdued mood like it was obvious, that and the surfacing of an old but deeply scored pain.
Any playfulness that might have been percolating in Ray simmered flat when he realised that this was more than just a ‘bad day’. He should have guessed as such when Brad came down in his pyjama pants despite having most of the day ahead of him.
Ray slipped his hands across Brad’s chest and then up under Brad’s grasp on his book, ushering it free. Brad allowed this, and Ray reached out to carefully place the book down on the coffee table beside them before sitting on top of Brad and reaching down to his face.
Brad was quiet, uncharacteristically so, and Ray rested the palm of his hand flat against the side of Brad’s face, his thumb rubbing gently at the soft crease from the corner of Brad’s mouth to his nose that was marked there all serious by Brad’s unhappy expression.
He curled down and kissed first the severe staple of the corner of Brad’s mouth, and then his mouth full on but still almost chaste, comforting. It was lingering and encapsulated within itself, just a kiss, just for Brad.
He settled down then, stretched out and on top of Brad and reaching to cradle Brad’s face between his hands. He petted at the slightly weathered high points of Brad’s cheekbones, the softer skin under his eye, the span of his cheek, just watching him quietly.
Brad closed his eyes under the way Ray was trying to skitter all the upset out of him, like it hurt, like Ray’s fingers were too gentle.
Ray kissed Brad again before he lay against the breadth of Brad’s chest, resting his head down and notched under Brad’s chin like a place had been carved there just for him to do this.
He worked his hands down either side of Brad’s chest and then underneath him, and then squeezed in a cuddle that was more Ray trying to help Brad hold himself together.
It was only moments before Brad brought his arms up and over to hug Ray to him.
Ray knew when to ask and when not to, and he didn’t ask yet. Brad had started petting Ray’s hair a few moments later, so Ray hadn’t tried to move away from him either. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been cuddling there before Brad seemed to find the space between his sadness and the silence to be able to start talking about it.
“My ex came by this morning.”
Brad’s fingers curled gently against the back of Ray’s neck, and his voice was pragmatic and blunted like it had been when he’d bared this soft part of himself in the Humvee back in Iraq and Ray wanted to hit someone. Someones. A specific pair of someones, even if one of them was a chick.
“They’re having a kid, a boy. They wanted to know if I was allowed to be the godfather, if I wanted to.”
Ray couldn’t hear much more of this. He sat up, incensed, breaking out of Brad’s hold. “Oh come the fuck on, how fucking dense do you have to be to-”
“It’s okay, Ray.” Brad said, jarringly calm, his hand rubbing Ray’s thigh like he was the one who needed soothing.
It only momentarily cut Ray off mid-stride. “No, it fucking isn’t! How much more of this shit are they going to drag you through? They can’t just leave you the fuck alone?”
Ray slammed the side of his fist against the back of the couch for lack of any other outlet, brought to a quick, true fury that he rarely showed for anything else, already wet-eyed because he was an angry crier.
Brad sat up from the waist and was suddenly close up to Ray’s face, his hand clasping against the back of Ray’s neck again. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m okay, Ray, it’s fine.”
His smile was fond but faint and only there because he was touched by Ray’s anger on his behalf. Ray bared his teeth, his knuckles aching with how tight his fists were held.
Brad shook Ray by his grasp on the back of his neck a little, affectionately. “Ray, stand down.”
Ray frowned, but he let the tension go. He rubbed at his eyes before dropping his hands to lie them against Brad’s pjyama’d hips instead. “I can’t stand that they still come over and hurt you.” He admitted, running his hands up Brad’s side and pulling him into another, slightly awkward, hug. “I don’t get how they don’t know what they do to you when they pull shit like this.”
Brad let himself be held, nosing in against the crook of Ray’s neck. He sighed, hard and heavy enough that Ray could hear that Brad was far from okay, despite what he’d said.
Ray turned his head and snuck a kiss against Brad’s temple. “Hey, do you need anything?” Ray asked.
Brad made an inquisitive noise, but didn’t look up. Ray rubbed his fingers into the short hair at the back of Brad’s head.
“I don’t know. Is there anything I can do for you? Anything you want? Lunch or something. D’you wanna go out?”
Brad pulled back and gave Ray a studied look before his mouth pulled up at the corner into one of those Brad smiles. He took hold of Ray’s face between his hands and held him still for a kiss that took both time and control away from Ray.
Ray felt how hard Brad was when Brad let him go, and not just because Brad grabbed two handfuls of Ray’s ass and pulled him in tight.
“I don’t want to go out.” He confirmed, tightening his grip and making Ray buck away from those grabby fingers and neatly in against Brad’s stomach.
Ray was grinning, a hand on each of Brad’s shoulders. “Yeah, well what do you want then?”
He already had a good idea. He still yelped, startled, when Brad jogged him up and took that thin moment to heft them both up off the sofa, holding Ray against him by that grip on his ass, or more of a grope than a grip.
“This.” Brad said, short and intent.
Ray had curled his legs around Brad in an instinctive move to cling on, and now found himself in the unflattering position of being hoisted up in Brad’s arms as though his own legs didn’t work.
“I can walk!” he protested, struggling only a little before Brad let him slide down back on to solid ground, mostly because Ray wasn’t as light as he looked. He didn’t let go of his hold on Ray’s upper arms.
“Yeah, for now.” Brad shot back, dark and promising and Ray could smell the leather already; he knew what was coming.
Brad surveyed the living room like it was suddenly their AO, and then turned that scrutinising look back on Ray, up and down his body and up again in a way that lit up all of Ray’s ‘run from the predator’ instincts. “Get out of those.” Brad ordered, tipping his chin at Ray’s sweatpants.
Ray knew this wasn’t the type of game where backchat would be appreciated. He kept his mouth closed, his wide eyes still on Brad, and wriggled out of his sweatpants in no time at all.
One of these days he was going to surprise Brad by wearing underwear, but it wasn’t going to be today.
Brad nodded a perfunctory reminder at Ray’s feet, and he obediently stepped out of his socks as well, leaving him completely bare and waiting.
“Get on your knees.”
Ray folded smoothly down onto the floor rug in a low kneel, his eyes on Brad’s face the whole time.
Brad ran a hand over Ray’s hair, and Ray heard him silently questioning if this was okay. Ray smiled his willingness, his eagerness, even if Brad hadn’t said anything; Ray was always good at knowing what Brad wanted.
What he needed.
Brad needed this. He’d no doubt had a day of stewing over the news before he’d decided on shutting up shop and coming home, and he’d been well and truly wounded. He needed to feel in control of something, he needed to see that he could be heard, that he would be listened to, and he needed Ray’s attention on him.
He needed someone to acknowledge him as there and he needed to see that someone trusted him, that he could rely on that trust. That he could rely on that person. And Ray needed him to know that he already had that, that Ray would give that to him and everything else.
Brad smoothed his hand over the back of Ray’s head, down over his jawline and then ran a thumb over Ray’s mouth - Ray felt the love that Brad didn’t voice in there too. He didn’t so much as twitch and he saw how pleased Brad was with him for that.
“Close your eyes. I’ll tell you when you can open them again.”
Ray did as he was told and then all he had was the sound of Brad moving around him. “Don’t open them until I say you can.”
Ray pouted a little, only because he was slightly offended that Brad had to tell him as twice.
He listened to the stairs squeal as Brad walked up them, concentrating on those movements so intently that he barely needed the soft tread of feet to follow Brad’s progression through to their bedroom, around and back down towards the stairs.
He was still kneeling low, one hand resting against the floor and the other on his knee, haphazard and happenstance. Still had his eyes closed. It was the easiest position he’d been asked into in a while, but he still found himself aware of the way he breathed, the slight tremble in his thighs and stomach in anticipation.
“I love that you listen to me so well.” Brad was there and Ray sighed at the disappearing tension in Brad’s voice.
“Just taking your hand.” Brad warned, before doing just that and passing something over into Ray’s hand to see without seeing.
The blindfold was one of Brad’s favourites. Rather than the tease of a silk scarf, or the generic lozenge of a sleep mask, this blindfold was nothing but the piece of BDSM equipment it was.
Surprisingly soft in classic black leather and shaped like conventional glasses to fit the narrower contours of the nose, of Ray’s nose specifically, Brad had paid extra to have it custom-made.
He liked it because it left Ray’s features unobscured, but blocked out any line of light Ray might have seen.
The blindfold should really have had a buckle set in the back of the thin leather strap that secured it around the head, but Brad had asked for something that he could tie: they’d never been in a situation where they’d been taken as POW, but they’d experienced the terror of being stripped of sight during SERE.
It might be a training exercise, but after days with nearly no food, moving through the night and staying alert during the day, things started to feel more real.
It was easy to forget that you were being faux-captured. The rough handling and the inability to see made it all feel true, regardless of the lack of any real danger.
The whole purpose of the exercise was to throw each Marine into a situation they might have to face in very real circumstances, just a lick of what could happen to them. Now the experience of being captured and blindfolded wouldn’t be entirely alien to them if it happened.
Their training hadn’t traumatised them, or they wouldn’t have become Recon Marines, but Ray had pre-existing issues with this kind of loss of control. A childhood of being jumped by creatively cruel bullies throughout a miserable time at school had left a mark in his still-developing brain that even Marine training couldn’t completely wipe out of him.
Someone moving around him when he couldn’t see them, unable to predict if he was going to be jumpy without his sight, and the possibility of just forgetting where he was while blindfolded and then panicking, it was all still there and Brad would never allow that for Ray.
He’d asked for ties instead of a buckle so that he could quick-release the blindfold with a couple of tugs if he needed to. It jarred with the aesthetic a little, but Ray was far more important to Brad than that.
“Can I put this on you?” Brad asked, because he’d always ask. Ray nodded, but Brad still asked him to say his safeword before going ahead.
“Delta.”
“Again, please.”
“Delta.”
“Thank you.” Brad thought Ray would be more likely to use his safeword, to be able to remember that it was an option, if the shape of it was already on his tongue before they started playing in earnest.
Brad cupped the side of Ray’s face, and Ray leaned into the feeling while Brad took back the blindfold and brought it up against Ray’s other cheek.
“Keep your eyes closed.” He reminded, before fixing it snugly but comfortably over the bridge of Ray’s nose and making sure the eye pads lay as they should. He did all this with both hands and as much contact with Ray’s face as he could make, took up the lax ties and brought them around Ray’s head, smoothing at him as he did.
He stepped closer, coaxed Ray’s head forward until he had his forehead resting against Brad’s thigh while Brad knotted the ties securely, tugged the blindfold free experimentally, and then knotted it up again.
He petted over Ray’s hair when he straightened up, taking Ray’s chin in his hand to tilt it and check the fit of the blindfold.
“Okay?” he asked, nodding in satisfaction at Ray’s little ‘uh-huh’ of confirmation. Ray looked amazing in a blindfold, in just a blindfold, the heightened focus on his surroundings, how he looked dangerous and vulnerable all at once.
“Beautiful.” He praised, slipping just the tip of his thumb into Ray’s mouth and rubbing briefly at the smooth wet inside of Ray’s bottom lip. “So good, Ray. Can you put your hands behind your back for me.”
It was an order dressed as a query and Ray obeyed smartly, kneeling upright the way he knew Brad would want him to, his hands crossed at the wrists at the small of his back.
He heard Brad laugh, pleased, and he turned his face up in what he guessed was Brad’s direction, wordless and ready.
“Fucking beautiful.” Brad murmured again, almost to himself. “Okay, I’ve got the broad collar with the cuffs attachment. I’m going to buckle you into it, and I want you to let me. Okay?”
“I’ll be good.” Ray nodded.
“I know you will.”
Until Ray had been tied up for a little while, until he could find the headspace that would let even his subconscious surrender, Brad would narrate what he was doing so that Ray would be ready for the next unseen touch.
Sometimes it was fun to set Ray up to fail; to give him orders he wouldn’t be able to follow, or to chastise him for not obeying orders that weren’t clear. Creating the feeling of failing and then punishing that failure was something that Ray tended to ask for though, and this was Brad’s turn, his show.
He wanted to see Ray do as Brad told him. He wanted Ray to trust that Brad would look after him and lead him safely through this, wanted to see Ray be good and do well just for Brad. It was the same kind of thing that had him fighting arousal when Ray unfucked a radio in the middle of the Iraqi desert and then turned to Brad, not because he needed his approval, but because he liked to see Brad proud, because it made Brad feel possessive.
Just as with the blindfold, Brad made contact with Ray’s shoulder and kept it there as he brought the soft inside of the collar to Ray’s throat. He smoothed the leather around Ray’s neck and buckled him in, ensuring that it wasn’t compressing or constricting anything with a finger between the material and Ray’s skin.
Ray maintained his upright position, but something about him relaxed when the comfortable pressure of the collar closed, like he could lean into it.
Brad bent to press a kiss to Ray’s forehead and then crouched to reach Ray’s hands, trailing his hand over Ray’s neck and around his shoulder, and then down the sweet furrow of Ray’s spine as he went.
The cuffs were the type that buckled, the same broad leather of Ray’s collar, the same understated black as the blindfold, although they hadn’t been purchased as a set.
He buckled Ray’s wrist into one of the cuffs, marvelling again, as he always did, at the sheer unlikely daintiness of the bone, the mockery they made of Ray’s claim to be a Marine.
Brad usually held back his comments on the things he briefly found delicate and fragile about Ray; the nape of his neck or the back of his skull, the sharp line of his jaw or his silhouette or the many other things about Ray that sometimes made Brad afraid of breaking him (sometimes made Brad want to break him). He did no such thing when he spoke about Ray’s wrists.
They were fucking delicate and he’d say as such, usually while holding Ray by both forearms and shaking them in front of him, ‘Look at them! Just, look at them, Ray, how?’ usually while he was a little drunk and usually before he’d pin Ray down by them and fuck him, leading Ray to curl his lip with protestations that Brad was full of shit.
They looked ridiculous when he was all cuffed up, so fucking ridiculous that it made Brad’s hard-on ache. The cuffs attached close to each other, leaving Ray with maybe an inch of space between them, connected by a single chain link between the two D-rings sewn into the cuffs.
Brad pressed a kiss to the middle of Ray’s back and then bit him on the shoulder, gently, just a press of teeth really.
The muscles of Ray’s back tensed and Brad petted him like he would a horse, rubbing down Ray’s thigh and up again as well. “Look at you, not even a quiver.” He praised, then used a lobster clip like the one you’d find on the end of a dog lead to attach a simple cable chain to the sole link between the cuffs.
It wasn’t particularly pretty, it didn’t have a fancy design; all it had to do was chain Ray’s wrists to his neck, which Brad did when he stood, by clipping the other end into the D-ring at the back of Ray’s collar. The length was just enough that Ray had to keep his chin lifted for his arms to rest comfortably at the small of his back.
Brad could unclip them if he needed to, if Ray needed a break or safeworded out, but for now he checked the length with a gentle tug and felt around Ray’s throat under the collar again to make sure he wasn’t being choked.
“How does that feel?” he still asked.
“Good, Brad, yeah, it’s good.” Ray answered, his mouth dry and his words already stumbling a little.
Ray was high up on his knees, hands bound behind his back and chained to the back of Ray’s neck by the thick leather collar, prettily, helplessly, blindfolded.
Brad had to kiss him, almost had no other choice. He took Ray’s chin gently in his hand, and tipped Ray’s face up, taking advantage of Ray’s expectant and blindly parted mouth to kiss at his bottom lip.
A little protesting sound came out of Ray’s mouth and Brad kissed him again, then bit at his chin.
The audible startled gasp that drew out of Ray was amplified by the upturned angle of his face, his open mouth. This was normally when Ray would have protested, but he just followed the gasp with a whine that was basically a mewl. In his defense, and to his credit, it still sounded a little frustrated, but it was mostly just pleading.
“Oh, love.” Brad tsked, but it wasn’t taunting or playfully condescending for once. The tenderness in Brad’s voice made Ray’s breath hitch as though he’d never heard it before, the same way it did every time Brad spoke to him like that.
Brad rested his hand against the collar, over the straining, reaching tension of Ray’s neck and kissed him again, keeping it long and consuming.
Ray felt as though Brad was pushing them up to the limit of their dive training, but it was difficult for him to keep hold of his orientation in time like this in the dark, even with his SERE training, because Brad’s mouth stole his thoughts.
He was already breathing fast and shallow and Brad wouldn’t risk him passing out, at least not yet. He let Ray’s mouth go and straightened up; the only bad thing about having Ray like this was that he really felt the size difference in his back when he had to bend a little to reach him.
He sat on the couch instead, making it easier for him to reach out and trace Ray’s jawline with his thumb, slip it into his mouth up to the base knuckle and watch as Ray sucked at it.
“Jesus Ray, I could put anything in here and you’d just let me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Ray still whimpered around Brad’s thumb in answer and Brad had to reach down and squeeze at his cock through his pyjamas.
“Open your mouth.”
Ray did as he was told immediately, and Brad smoothed his thumb against the soft flat of Ray’s tongue before withdrawing it; Ray kept his mouth open.
The sight of him like that, open and ready, the slight kiss-swell of his bitten lips, the tender wet insides of his mouth bracketed by those uneven, perfect teeth, it made Brad catch his breath.
The literally blind trust that Ray had in him made him want to gather Ray up into his own body, into his heart, but also made him want to exploit it, some bloodied dark thing in him wanting to test it because he knew Ray wouldn’t break.
Saliva pooled in Ray’s mouth and Brad watched it, almost fascinated, as he reached down and brusquely skipped his wet thumb over one of Ray’s nipples. Ray jolted. The noise that came from his still open mouth was a sharp ‘ah’ and it was too hot for Brad to make gentle fun of.
“Close it.” He ordered, and Ray did, immediate effect to Brad’s cause. “Fuck baby, you’re so good for me. Gets me so fucking hard watching you just do as I tell you. I could do anything to you, and you’d just let me, wouldn’t you?”
This was Brad asking to affirm Ray’s trust in him, masquerading as a question, and Ray answered it. “I’ll let you do anything. I’ll do anything for you, Brad, I belong to you, I’d do anything for you.”
That was a lot of what Brad was trying to cling to here, owning Ray, keeping Ray, and only being able to do so because Ray allowed it, because he wanted it too.
“God, how much I love you, Ray.” He bent to kiss Ray again, going in hard at Ray’s startled, exhilarated intake of air, biting at his bottom lip until Ray whimpered.
He stood and tucked his middle and index fingertips into Ray’s collar, tugging him forward, moving forward just a little so that Ray wouldn’t overbalance when he pulled Ray’s face in towards his inner thigh before releasing him. “The things you’ll do for me.”
He ghosted a touch around the back of Ray’s head and brushed his thumb against the short lengths of hair at the vulnerable nape of Ray’s neck briefly.
He pulled Ray in closer, and Ray knew what Brad wanted before Brad had to ask. He nosed in against the inside of Brad’s thigh, turning his head a little, finding and mouthing at the shape of Brad’s cock through the fabric of his pyjamas.
“Fuck, yeah. Look at you, you just need it don’t you.”
Brad tugged Ray back by the back of his collar, leaving Ray with his face tipped up a little, his mouth half-open. Brad rocked his hips against Ray’s face gently, rubbing his hardon through his pyjamas and against Ray’s cheek, sometimes teasing over Ray’s mouth and his wet-hot breath.
“Do you want this?” Brad asked, moving back to let Ray speak.
“I want it.” Ray responded, immediate and a little breathless. “I want you. Brad. Please, I want you.”
Ray might have been begging for it, but Brad was the one desperate to hear it.
He traced his thumb over the half-circle of Ray’s open mouth and hooked it into the corner while pushing his pyjamas down and wrestling his cock out of the waistband with his other hand.
“Here sweetheart, here it is.” He was as breathless as Ray was, carefully feeding the tip of his cock into Ray’s mouth and shivering to feel his thumb in there too.
Ray just kept his mouth around it, let Brad pull his thumb back out and still held still, rubbing his tongue under the head when Brad took hold of his face, linked his fingers together at the back of Ray’s head and sighed.
“Just like that baby, just like that.”
Ray mouthed at it for a moment, until Brad pulled his head close and he went lax, let control go and let Brad push in as far as he felt like.
Brad rolled his hips slow and languid towards Ray’s mouth; the slow, soft pace of his thrusts and Ray’s lack of sight, the feeling of being held and tied back, it all served to rock Ray into a strange, numb warmth.
It wasn’t subspace, not as he knew it, not yet, but the tension in his shoulders, some of the subtle strain in his muscles unwound and he leaned in towards Brad a little.
Brad noticed and petted over Ray’s hair, drawing back and watching as his cock left Ray’s mouth wet and rosied. “Hey, you with me?”
Ray nodded and Brad couldn’t stop himself rubbing his thumb against Ray’s cheek, fondly, softly. “Safeword, Ray?”
He had to swallow a couple of times, but he sounded aware and mostly alert, if mellow. “Delta.”
“Okay. Can you open your mouth again for me?” he asked, and then, “Perfect, just like that, keep it just like that” when Ray did.
He buried his fingers into Ray’s hair on either side of his head this time, his hold firm but not tight; he didn’t want to hurt Ray, he just wanted the control that Ray handed over to him, freely and easily.
He watched again, watching how happy Ray seemed just kneeling where he was and letting Brad use his mouth. Brad was almost lulled by the sight of it himself, steady pushes in, slow, smooth withdrawals.
Ray curled his tongue up against it, but otherwise just kept his mouth open, stayed good for Brad.
Brad kept it up until his movements had slowed right down, enough that Ray had to breathe through his nose. Brad pushed in deep again, lodged the head of his cock just before Ray’s gag reflex and this time didn’t pull back.
Ray twitched like he was about to panic.
“Hold it there for me baby, just hold it there.”
Brad soothed him and the chain tying Ray’s hands to his collar clinked briefly as Ray jolted a little before he could calm back down and keep himself still. He couldn’t count time, but he knew that Brad would, and he wrestled himself into steadiness in full trust that Brad wouldn’t push him too far.
Of course Brad was keeping track of time, keeping track of the flicker of Ray’s muscles and his unconscious shifts to remain upright, to remain still.
He didn’t push Ray too far, pulling back and letting Ray get air for a moment before he slid two fingers in there instead, stroking at the ridiculous softness of the inside of Ray’s mouth.
“You’re gonna suck me off.” He told his blinded partner. “But not yet. Gonna fuck your mouth with my fingers a little bit first. I’m not asking.”
He didn’t even give Ray the time to nod before he was doing as he’d warned, introducing a third finger and keeping his pace erratic and off-beat so that all Ray could do was take it and trust Brad not to nick the delicate skin of the insides of his mouth with his nails.
By the time Ray’s chin was a mess of wet drool, Brad’s fingers were dripping wet. He wiped a smear across Ray’s chin with his thumb, but it did little to clean him up, mostly because that hadn’t been his intention. He was seized with the need to see his own spit, his own come smudged over Ray’s face – all in good time.
Ray was left panting and Brad gave him a minute, now stroking his aching hard on with his still spit-wet fingers but just looking at Ray the entire time. Ray’s head kept trying to drop a little, only for him to pull it back up when it pulled his chained hands too high up his back.
Ray would have been able to do it if he’d wanted to, if Brad asked him to; he was still flexible, wildly pliable in a way that Brad had exploited before, and would again, but not today.
“Hey, I need you to stand up.” He told Ray, and spoke again before Ray could try to obey, fall over and hurt himself. “Wait a minute. How are your legs feeling?”
Ray shifted his weight from side to side, but really couldn’t tell. “I can feel them?” he managed.
Brad knelt at Ray’s side and laid his hand flat against one of Ray’s tense thighs, tight from maintaining the tall kneel he was in, just so that Ray wasn’t startled at his touch. He felt down to Ray’s knees, then rubbed firmly across his calf muscles. “Nothing hurts?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Ray spoke, sounding a little anxious. He wanted to give Brad an answer but couldn’t. He felt a little unmoored from his body, an ill-fitting visitor inside his own skin. He didn’t feel pain, could barely remember that he was hard and aroused himself, and he couldn’t feel much of anything until Brad touched his skin and it burned where he was suddenly reconnected.
Brad felt the tension run through Ray and turned Ray’s head to kiss his cheek, kiss down and over Ray’s throat above the line of the collar. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m so pleased with you Ray, you’re doing such a good job.”
Ray exhaled the feeling of being a thing inside a shell and dared to tip his head over towards Brad, who pressed his forehead against Ray’s temple.
He allowed a few seconds of this union before he moved back and stood up.
“I need you to stand, but I’m going to help you up.” Brad told him, reaching for the curve of Ray’s shoulders that fit into Brad’s hands like they’d been carved out of each other. Brad slid his hands down to hold onto Ray’s upper arms, bracing him.
“You can lean into me.” He told Ray. “I’m going to lift you a little bit so you can get your legs under you. Remember, I just want you up. If I have to hold you there, that’s okay.”
Ray nodded and that was good enough for Brad for now.
“Okay, come on.” Brad compensated for Ray’s bound hands for him, and together they worked Ray up onto his feet. He was wobbly with muscle strain and pins and needles, but Brad was as good as his word and held him up.
Ray might have tried kissing Brad, or biting him, licking for the taste of his skin, but not when he was like this, when whatever Brad said is what would happen. He was slumped against Brad’s body, as much as he could with his neck and hands still tethered to each other; it let him rest his head against Brad’s shoulder, and Brad allowed it for a moment, stroking Ray’s short, damp hair.
He loved Ray like this, his face flushed red in contrast to the black leather of his blindfold. He looped his finger into one of the empty D-rings on Ray’s collar and shook him a little playfully, just so that Ray could feel the pressure change around his neck.
“So fucking good for me, Ray. What’s your safeword, baby?”
It took Ray a moment this time, catching his breath or thinking about it. “Delta.” He confirmed, and while that pause wasn’t long enough to concern Brad, it was enough to tell him he needed to keep a closer eye on Ray’s reactions.
Brad lifted Ray’s chin to kiss him because Ray couldn’t see how much Brad wanted one to offer it himself.
He reached down Ray’s body to palm at his ass, grabbing hold and using his grip to pull Ray forward against his body. Ray gasped out a sigh when his cock ground up against Brad’s skin, feeling the leaking head of Brad’s cock against his own, and the chain on his cuff tinked in response to the way his hands instinctively tried to reach forward and touch Brad.
Brad ducked his head and bit at Ray’s earlobe. “I wanna fuck you so bad Ray, you have no idea; the way you look.” He set his teeth under Ray’s ear, above his collar, and bit at him there.
“Brad, Brad…” Ray couldn’t say anything more than Brad’s name.
“Fuck, Ray. Gonna bend you over the couch.”
He said this more to warn Ray before he stepped back to move him. Ray went where Brad urged, moving easy and unafraid because of his full and unthinking confidence in Brad. Brad wouldn’t let him stumble or fall.
His blindfolded faith was rewarded when Brad stopped him just before he hit the arm of the couch, close enough that Ray could feel the fabric against his thighs.
Brad took hold of Ray’s hips, pressing close to him. He briefly took one of Ray’s bound hands and held it, squeezed it, and Ray felt his appreciation, his love in that one touch.
He missed Brad’s hand as it continued up Ray’s spine, disturbing the chain into gentle clinking as he went, up to Ray’s collar and then feeling over the leather to rest against Ray’s shoulder.
“Yeah, come on baby, bend over for me.”
The slight pressure from Brad’s hand had Ray folding over the chair arm, just enough resistance to remind Brad of the control he had here.
It was awkward for Ray, being bent over the sofa arm like this with his hands tied behind his back and the collar keeping his neck straight. Brad noticed, of course he did, and he moved away to drag over some of the couch cushions to pillow Ray’s neck and chest.
“Is that better?” he asked, Ray’s face turning to the side and nodding like he was nuzzling into the pillows.
Brad stroked Ray’s hair once before moving back behind Ray to the side table drawer and fished out the handy tube of lube that they’d stashed there for this exact purpose.
Ray had splayed his legs for stability and Brad went to his knees between Ray’s legs, sliding his hands up Ray’s thighs and up to his ass, using his thumbs to expose Ray’s hole and leaning in to lick over it, just the once.
“I’d eat you the fuck out if I didn’t want to fuck you more.” He all but growled, biting at the lean round of Ray’s ass, making him start.
“Brad, fuck, please…” Ray begged between short, plosive pants for breath. He was dizzy with feeling, without being able to see and orient himself in any meaningful way. It left him completely in Brad’s hands and he knew that Brad knew that, knew that it was helping.
“Impatient.” Brad chided, and he lapped over Ray’s hole a couple of times despite what he’d said, lazily slicking his cock up with lube with his free hand as he did. “You’d like it if I just pushed into you, wouldn’t you? Yeah, you’d just let me fuck you with nothing but the lube on my cock.”
He squeezed the bottle of lube from Ray’s tailbone down, using his thumb to coax it inside Ray. “It’s a good thing I’m being so good to you, isn’t it Ray? Say yes.”
Ray was wriggling, trying not to but failing as it let him rub his hard, red cock against the side of the sofa arm; it was uncomfortable, but he couldn’t stop doing it. “Yes, yeah, yes.” He agreed, responsive and sweet and on the verge of a whine.
Brad withdrew his thumb and pushed back in with two fingers and a twisting motion that had Ray pushing up onto his toes, his head tipping back. “Yeah. Now thank me.”
“Thank you!” Ray gasped, shuddering, unable to do more than try and keep his mouth closed.
Brad got back on his feet, lube bottle forgotten on the floor, taking hold of Ray’s hips again and teasing him by sliding his cock against Ray’s lube slick skin, flirting with penetration but not following through. He lay down over Ray’s back, heedless of the chain between them, and stamped hard kisses under Ray’s ear.
“Feel that?” he said lowly with another push up, earning a little cup of a sound from his trussed and trusting partner. “How hard my cock is for you? It wants in you so bad, Ray. I’m gonna let it. I’m gonna dick you down like I’m paying for it.”
He straightened up, one hand on his cock and the other holding Ray still by his hip as he guided himself into Ray’s body unceremoniously. He pushed in smooth and steady and still so careful not to hurt Ray, who was holding his breath under him.
“Breathe, Ray.” He prompted, the sound of the wry grin in his words making Ray start breathing again with a huffed laugh.
It broke off into a sustained whine when Brad moved again, rocking into Ray without pulling out, much like he’d done earlier when he was getting Ray to suck his cock.
Ray’s fingers flexed like he was trying to hold onto Brad or hold onto something to steady himself, but it was a useless endeavour. Brad loved watching him struggle, loved how helpless he looked but mostly how he’d let himself be helpless like this for Brad.
It made Brad fuck into him harder, Ray’s body being pushed down into the couch cushions he was resting against, the little gulps he was left making because the position and the collar cut off his moaning.
“It feels better with the blindfold on, yeah? You like that?”
Ray whimpered an affirmative and Brad paused for a moment to lean in again briefly to bite at his shoulder, making Ray twist.
“Yeah, yeah you do. When you can’t see anything and it’s all you can feel. When I’m all you can feel.”
He let himself rut into Ray for a few moments before he slowed and stood back up and then changed the pace of his movements, keeping them sporadic or frantic, off beat and irregular so that Ray wouldn’t be able to anticipate the next thrust and was reduced to just taking it.
One of Ray’s feet kicked for purchase against the floor, unable to find it because of the angle Brad was holding him at. Ray turned his head towards Brad and Brad reached out to stroke two fingers over Ray’s mouth, fingering into it and watching Ray pant and fail to suck them in.
“You do what I want so beautifully for me Ray.” He commented breathlessly, taking his hand back and pushing those two wet fingers in under the leather of Ray’s collar, using his grip to hold Ray’s head down. “You’ll never be like this for anyone else.”
“No, I- Yours, I’m- Brad- not for anyone.” Ray’s voice was muffled, broken, but Brad could the end of every unfinished sentence.
“Yeah, just mine Ray, you’re just mine, you belong to me. I could share you or rent you out or watch you with someone else, but it’s always because you’re mine, because I have you.”
“You do Brad, always have me, not going anywhere.”
Brad whimpered, because Ray was pushing on a raw place, but it was one that was healing over. He pulled back out of Ray abruptly and tugged Ray up with him by his collar, one hand braced against Ray’s chest so that he didn’t choke.
He tugged Ray off the sofa arm and helped him down to his knees, standing before him. Ray knew that Brad wanted him to kneel up, and he opened his mouth when Brad pushed his thumb against the corner of it like that was a key.
“Keep it open.” Brad ordered, taking up the back of Ray’s collar in his fist like he was holding back a lunging dog and grabbing his dick in his other hand, rubbing the head of it against the taut stretch of the side of Ray’s open mouth.
“Keep it open for me, Ray.” He warned. “Just hold still and keep it open.” He fed just the tip of his cock into Ray’s mouth, rubbing it up against the soft inside of his cheek, careful to avoid Ray’s teeth.
“God, you’re fucking obscene.” He said under his breath as he watched, pushing in to distend Ray’s cheek and then pulling back out again. “Okay, now suck me off.”
He didn’t help Ray, rested his hand against the flat of his own hipbone and just watched him blindly seek out his cock with his mouth, groaning when Ray found it and just took him in.
Sometimes they’d play games where Brad would pretend to force Ray to take it, usually at Ray’s request; or he’d accept blowjobs as trade in exchange for doing some chore that Ray didn’t want to do. The truth of it was that Ray loved sucking cock, especially like this, where he could only use his mouth and his eagerness to do the work for him.
Brad didn’t restrict Ray’s movements, but kept his hand on Ray’s collar and rode them out. He felt Ray’s throat, watched Ray’s neck and shoulders flex and pull, but the sounds Ray was making were pornographic all by themselves. Not so much the usual but Ray-specific wet and sloppy sounds of dicksucking, but the deep, purring moan of true pleasure at what he was doing.
Like this, with his eyes bound and his wrists restrained, Ray must only be able to feel the strain in his thighs keeping himself upright, the soft knot of Brad’s knuckles around the leather on the back of his neck, and the concentrated sensory experience of sucking Brad’s cock.
Brad just watched him. Ray loved this. He loved Brad, and the truth of that thought, now when he was feeling so fragile, hit Brad like a 5.56 into a SAPI plate.
Brad swore softly and pulled back from Ray, one hand coming back to grip his cock and the other reaching to tug the ties of the blindfold free. “Keep your eyes closed, baby, keep your mouth open.” He managed, tight and strained, drawing the leather away and stroking his cock fast with his free hand.
“Fuck, Ray.” He gritted out through clenched teeth, cupping the back of Ray’s neck in one hand to hold him still just before he came all over that upturned waiting face, on Ray’s forehead, under his eye, in his mouth and a little on his chin.
He kept one hand on Ray and wrung his cock dry with the other, fighting to get his breath back and watching the slide of his come down Ray’s cheek. He used the side of his thumb to swipe Ray’s forehead clean.
“Hey, look at me.”
Ray opened his eyes in squinting intervals as they adjusted to the light. Brad felt like he’d forgotten exactly how deep and dark Ray’s eyes were in the scant time they’d been covered.
Ray’s shoulders rose and fell with his own slowing breathing, his hands still behind his back and his gaze heated and glazed and fixed to Brad’s.
Brad smiled down at him and fed his thumb into Ray’s mouth, watching while Ray sucked Brad’s come from it. He cleaned off Ray’s cheek and chin in the same way, and then used the same thumb to open Ray’s mouth for him, holding his lower jaw down.
“Fucking gorgeous, taking anything I want you to take.”
He dropped to his own knees, enough that he could put his own mouth up against Ray’s and lick into it, stopping Ray kissing back because he still had his thumb there holding Ray’s mouth open.
“God, you fucking taste like me.” He managed, his words smudged against Ray’s mouth. “Wanna fuck you all over again, Ray.” He reached down the line of Ray’s body to where Ray was still hard, pulling his hand up Ray’s cock once and catching the little noise Ray made in his mouth, along his thumb.
“I could just have you stay like this.” He mused, sitting back a little to allow Ray air. His hand moved slow on Ray’s cock, contemplative, making Ray’s breath shudder. “Have you hump my leg like a dog to get off. I could have you sit here just like this, on your knees, until I felt like getting you off. You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you, Ray?”
He released Ray’s chin and Ray nodded so adamantly that the chain lying along his back jingled. “I’d do it for you Brad, because I want to, because I want you to be happy, because I love you.” He leaned forward and pressed his sweat wet, come smeared, spit damp forehead against Brad’s chest.
“Because you don’t have to tie me down to keep me. I’m here, and I’m yours, because you’re mine.”
Brad made an urgent sound that he’d never made anywhere but here, with Ray, and pulled Ray up to take his mouth, as frantic and hard as Brad’s grip on Ray’s dick became.
He stayed there, held there, pinned Ray there as Ray came between them over Brad’s hand, his body shaking and pressing into Brad, unable to hold itself up.
Brad let go to take hold of him, and Ray turned his head to nuzzle into Brad’s damp hair, because Brad had tucked his face against the crook of Ray’s neck. Hidden away in there so that he could re-compose himself as much as possible after the way Ray had taken him apart like that.
They both knew who this small bondage had been for at the start.
Ray gave Brad his time, and when Brad finally re-emerged, he took hold of Ray’s head and brought him in for another kiss, grateful to Ray and thankful for him. “I love you too.” He said softly, butting his head gently against Ray’s.
“I know.” Ray replied, serious. “I know you do.”
There was time for another kiss, and then a beat before Ray’s face screwed up. “Did you get my own come in my hair?”
Brad laughed, that short burst of unexpected amusement that Ray loved provoking from him. “Sorry.”
“I am gonna smack your ass for that, as soon as you get me out of these things.” Ray promised, earning a raised eyebrow from Brad even as the taller man stood up and moved around behind Ray.
“Ray, you can’t reach.” He was able to grin all he wanted at Ray’s affected snort of offense while he took the time to unclip the chain from the cuffs and then unbuckle the cuffs themselves, laying them to the side for now.
“Give me your hands.” He murmured, reaching out and massaging Ray’s freed wrists. There was a little flushed redness from the negligible pressure from the cuffs, but no damage and no bitten skin; they had been expensive, but a worthwhile purchase for this reason.
He felt down each of Ray’s fingers and pushed his thumb into the palm of Ray’s hands, rubbing any tension in them out.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, all good.”
Brad kissed the side of Ray’s neck from behind him and then stood to move around to his front and reach down. “Come on.”
Ray hesitantly released his position and let his arms drop back to his sides. They tingled with a small ache, but didn’t hurt. He was able to reach up to take Brad’s hands again, but he still let Brad lift him to his feet more than getting up himself.
His legs shook all the way up his thighs from the posture he’d been maintaining, and Brad pushed him gently down onto the sofa. “Okay?” Brad asked again.
Ray shook his hands out and then stretched a little, pointing his toes and splaying his arms and fingers out, catlike, before slumping, relaxed. “Yeah.” He said on a sigh.
He let Brad watch him for a moment.
Brad still had Ray’s come spattered against his stomach and a little on his hips, the flush on his body already receding, his hair tufting a little
Ray was still red-faced, fidgeting a little to get rid of the lingering trembling in his muscles. The smears of come left behind after Brad’s shoddy clean-up job were drying on his face, his mouth was still wet and there were superficial indents where the blindfold had been.
It had left some of Ray’s hair lying flat in a circle around his head too, the back mussed where Brad had pushed his fingers into it, where he’d taken hold of the collar, the one that Ray was still wearing.
Brad grinned at him and reached out to give the thing a little tug on the D-ring at the front, making Ray close his eyes in brief enjoyment at the feeling.
“You okay in this for a little while?” Brad inquired. After all that, it still did a lot for him to see Ray so obviously displayed as his.
“Yeah?” Ray asked, half a question.
“Just for a minute. Just until we can get up to go shower.”
Ray tilted his head in agreement, and Brad came closer to stand between Ray’s legs, taking hold of the sides of Ray’s face again and tilting him up into a kiss that he had to lean down for.
“Thank you, Ray.” His face was serious, his tone profound.
Ray turned his head as he reached to hold Brad’s hand still and kissed the palm of it, never looking away from Brad. “Always.”