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  When Raynard finally pulled back, Ori leaned up and tried to bring their mouths back together. He was desperate to cling to the moment forever, but Raynard wouldn’t permit it, not even when Ori let out a pathetic little whimper.

  Raynard considered the cuffs for a second before dropping them back onto the pile of toys and selecting the blindfold instead.

  He smiled as he placed it over Ori’s eyes, not a half smile or a little twist of the lips, a real, full smile. It was a rare sight, and the last thing Ori saw before the world went black around him. He could still sense Raynard’s presence in front of him, but suddenly that was the only thing he could be sure of.

  “I’m going to tie you up now.”

  Ori gasped as the words caressed his ear. His master’s hands were strong as they settled against his arms. Guiding Ori’s hands around in front of his body, Raynard led him blindly forward.

  Ori had walked across the bedroom a hundred times and more, sometimes in the halflight of dawn and occasionally in the real darkness of night. He’d have thought he could stride confidently across the space with his eyes closed, but stepping forward wearing the blindfold was harder than he’d ever imagined it could be.

  He knew full well how easily things had materialised to trip him up whenever the shifters at the nest had covered his eyes. Objects that hadn’t existed the last time he’d been permitted to see, had a way of popping into existence right in front of him for the amusement of the crows.

  Sliding his toes along the carpet, Ori desperately tried not to make a fool of himself in front of his master and ruin everything between them with his clumsiness.

  Raynard kept his hands around Ori’s wrists as he led him forward. At some point after he put the blindfold on Ori, Raynard had picked up the cuffs again. Ori could feel them hanging from Raynard’s fingers, swinging gently with each movement.

  “Trust your master, fledgling.”

  The most valuable possession my master owns is his submissive. I will take great care that no harm comes to my master’s submissive whenever he is not there to watch over me himself.

  Except, his master was there. Ori didn’t need to look after himself when Raynard was there to do it on his own behalf, did he? Ori swallowed. He took another step forward lifting his foot from the floor, moving more quickly, feigning a confidence he really didn’t feel.

  “Better,” Raynard praised.

  Ori smiled slightly as he took another step forward. Nothing jumped in front of his feet as his master guided him forward. It wasn’t easy to trust Raynard when other men’s laughter at his blind clumsiness rushed back into his mind and his nerves increased, but Ori called up every scrap of strength he possessed and gave everything he had to the endeavour. When Raynard turned him around and nudged him backward with a push against his shoulders, Ori let himself fall as if he had no doubt the bed would be there to catch him.

  He bounced as he hit the mattress.

  He smiled his relief as he slid his hands out across the sheet to steady himself. Sitting up, Ori lowered his feet to the carpet by the side of the bed. Raynard nudged the inside of Ori’s foot with his shoe once again. As Ori obediently spread his legs farther apart, he sensed Raynard move closer and stand between his thighs.

  Tilting his body forward, Ori sought out his master. His forehead came to rest against Raynard’s shirt, and Ori instinctively leaned into him, rubbing his face against his torso.

  Raynard’s hand came to rest on the back of his head, encouraging Ori to believe he was welcome there. When Raynard stepped back, there was no sense of rejection. When he pushed against Ori’s shoulders, his touch wasn’t harsh.

  Ori toppled willingly backward onto the mattress. Before he even had a chance to try to right himself, one of the leather cuffs was wrapped around his left wrist. He had a fair idea how it would look against his skin, but he had no idea if his master would be pleased with the sight or not.

  “Sir?” Ori bit his tongue, but it was too late. The plea for reassurance had already escaped.

  Raynard didn’t say anything, he just tugged Ori’s wrist up toward the headboard. As Ori blindly scrambled to please him, the mattress dipped, letting him know that Raynard had joined him on the bed. Raynard’s clothes brushed against Ori’s bare skin as he leaned over him to cuff his right hand in place alongside the left. Ori wriggled beneath him, blindly glorying in a world that was suddenly full of wonderful sensations.

  Then, Raynard disappeared.

  Ori strained his hearing, trying to get some sense of where Raynard was. His heart raced faster, filling his world, making it even harder to distinguish any clue as to where Raynard might be.

  A hand grabbed Ori’s erection, catching him by surprise. He automatically thrust up into the very welcome touch. Raynard chuckled, but it was nothing like the laughter Ori had heard so often at the nest. There was a warmth to it, as if his master was pleased with him as well as amused by his enthusiasm.

  Ori nibbled at his bottom lip as Raynard began to stroke his cock, his every movement strong and confident. A lifetime had passed since Ori had been allowed to touch himself. He tried to remain still, but it was impossible to do that. As Raynard’s fingers set off wave after wave of pure pleasure cascading through his veins, Ori pushed up into each stroke.

  Raynard’s hand disappeared. Ori kept thrusting blindly up into the empty air above him until Raynard’s hand returned to Ori’s world—this time to rest over his hipbone. Raynard soon settled his other hand over Ori’s other hip. He pressed him down against the mattress, forcing him to still himself when he tried to continue humping nothingness.

  Ori scrambled for control and panted for breath, but his body was no longer his to command. The cuffs kept his hands in place more securely than he would ever have been able to keep them there himself. The hands on his hips were stronger than his own willpower. Raynard owned every scrap of him.

  Ori was his master’s submissive, and there was only one man making any decisions.

  Hot wetness closed over the tip of Ori’s cock. He let out a cry as his hips redoubled their efforts to thrust forward. For a moment, Ori’s erection slid even deeper into his master’s mouth.

  The air rushed out of the room. The ensuing vacuum pulled each molecule of oxygen from Ori’s lungs. His head spun as every drop of blood in his body rushed to his cock, leaving nothing for the rest of him. Raynard pulled back. His tongue swirled around Ori’s cockhead, teasing his foreskin, making him squirm.

  Raynard tightened his grip on Ori’s hips as he dipped his head again. Ori opened his eyes behind his blindfold and tried to stare down his body at Raynard. The darkness behind the blindfold remained. His imagination took over.

  A mental image of his master’s head bobbing over his cock flooded his mind. He saw his shaft disappearing between Raynard’s lips as Raynard sucked around him and dragged him closer and closer to the edge by the moment.

  He wasn’t allowed to come without permission. From those times when he had gone down on other men, Ori was reasonably sure he shouldn’t want to come without permission—not after just a few seconds. But he did. He wanted to come. He needed to come so badly.

  “Sir, please…”

  Raynard murmured around his shaft, as if he loved listening to him beg—maybe even as if he intended to draw out the blowjob simply because he wanted to keep hearing him pleading for his release. Vibrations shot through Ori’s body, making him arch up. He pulled at the cuffs and kicked against the bed sheet. Raynard’s fingers bit into his sides as he held Ori still, forcing him down against the mattress as he toyed with him in his mouth.

  The marks from Ori’s tumble had faded away. Ori was sure that, by the following morning, he’d have new marks from where his master had held him so tightly. They’d be marks he’d never want to lose.

  Ori whimpered as, once more, his master’s hands left him without any warning. When one rematerialized, it slid between Ori’s thighs, slick with lube. Ori i
nstinctively spread his legs wide apart on the mattress.

  Raynard rubbed two fingers against his hole. Within moments, they were buried deep in Ori’s arse, pounding against his prostate. Raynard wrapped his lips around Ori’s shaft again. His mouth worked around his cock in time with the fingers thrusting inside Ori’s arse until the pleasure was so intense it became pain.

  “Please…” Ori bit down on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, but there was no way he could keep back the stream of breathless begging.

  His head thrashed against the pillow, his hands clenched and unclenched into fists above his head as he strove for control and failed. Just when he thought there was nothing he could do, that he’d come with or without permission, his master’s mouth left him. Raynard’s fingers vanished from his world.

  Ori parted his lips to resume begging but he didn’t get a chance to say a word. Raynard’s mouth came down on Ori’s lips, stealing the words from him. A movement against the mattress and Raynard’s body covered Ori’s. His slicked erection nudged against Ori’s hole as his tongue stroked across the cut on his lip.

  Raynard sucked against the broken bit of skin, just as he’d suckled around Ori’s cock. Ori whimpered into the kiss as Raynard pressed his cock against his hole again, teasing him, then denying him until, with one deep thrust, Raynard was sheathed inside him to the hilt.

  The kiss ended as Ori tossed back his head. He was so close. “Please…”

  “Come.”

  He did as his master commanded. The permission left Raynard’s lips and rushed straight to Ori’s cock without bothering to check in with his brain en route. He came, clawing at his cuffs as crescendos of pure bliss rolled through him, and his cum spilled between them, landing on his stomach to be smeared against their bodies every time his master ploughed forward.

  Raynard thrust into him again and again, drawing Ori’s pleasure out until it was impossible for him to remember a time when he hadn’t been in the grip of a kind of ecstasy he’d never guessed existed before that night.

  As Ori slumped back on the bed, too exhausted to move, Raynard yelled out. He came, pounding into Ori harder than ever as he lost himself in his own pleasure.

  Ori blinked in the darkness behind the blindfold, wishing he could see the look on his master’s face. When Raynard pulled away from him and rolled onto the mattress beside him, the cuffs were the only things that kept Ori from trying to follow him across the bed.

  Raynard wasn’t far away. Ori could feel his presence right there. But there was no such thing as being close enough to his master right then. He wanted to feel his master’s cock buried inside him forever, anything else was a paltry second best.

  Raynard didn’t leave him bound and trapped on the other side of the bed for too long. The cuffs and the blindfold were soon tossed aside.

  Raynard stroked Ori’s cheek as he turned his head to face him. Ori slowly lifted his gaze. Success shone in Raynard’s expression, and Ori knew his master had realised that he was the first man who’d ever actually gone down on Ori; he was the first person who’d ever thought he was worthy of receiving that sort of pleasure.

  Raynard curled his lips into an approving little smile. Ori echoed Raynard’s expression as his master’s satisfaction with the discovery seeped into his mind.

  Turning his head, Ori kissed his master’s fingers in a way he would never dared to have done with any other man—tentatively hoping that Raynard would understand what he was trying to tell him.

  Raynard chuckled at his silliness, but it was a gentle sound, as if he really did understand, and didn’t mind that Ori didn’t know a better way to show it.

  He ruffled Ori’s hair before he took his hand away. “Good boy.”

  Ori felt heat race to his cheeks.

  “Put these away before you settle,” Raynard said, handing him the cuffs and blindfold.

  Ori carried them over to the oak coffer, his knees still not quite steady under him. He put those items his master had tossed on top of the dresser away as well. They were all simple bindings, but he couldn’t fail to notice that some of the toys still left in the chest had nothing to do with keeping someone bound where his master wanted. Carrying the key back to the bed, he offered it to his master.

  He could feel Raynard studying him carefully as he took the key, but Ori couldn’t bring himself to meet his gaze. He’d seen the whip in there, and he knew that his master would realise that the moment their gazes met.

  “You said you’ve been whipped before?”

  That he’d realised it even before their gazes met…

  Ori nodded. Raynard patted the bed next to him, guiding Ori to lie down on his stomach alongside him. He stroked his palm up and down Ori’s back. There weren’t any marks there right then, but there often had been, during the time he’d spent at the nest.

  “Always a punishment?” Raynard asked.

  Ori was about to give an automatic answer, when he stopped himself short. “Sometimes, I think they made up an excuse, just because they wanted to whip me, sir,” he admitted.

  “And did those whippings feel different?” Raynard asked.

  Ori thought about it for a little while, as he savoured the feel of his master’s touch sliding over his skin. He nodded, his cheek rubbing against the sheet beneath his head.

  “Did you like it?”

  Ori bit his lip as he realised the truth, as he let the truth come to the front of his mind and really make itself known for the first time. He nodded again. “I never liked knowing I deserved to be punished, sir,” he added, a few seconds later, unable to stand the idea of Raynard thinking he didn’t care whether or not he pleased those he served.

  Raynard’s hand continued to stroke Ori’s back, along the lines where the lash had landed so many times. The memory of the whip tingled along his skin. His imagination rushed forward, wondering what it would have felt like if his master had been the one holding the whip, and if Ori had known that he was only whipping him because he wanted to.

  If he hadn’t already been so completely filled with satisfaction, Ori knew he’d have stiffened against the sheet.

  “Shall I fetch the whip for you, sir?” he asked.

  Raynard shook his head. “Sleep now. You’re going to need your energy. Tomorrow, I’ll be starting your formal training.”

  Ori nodded. He didn’t really understand what that might mean, but his master sounded pleased with the prospect. Right then, that was enough to please Ori too.

  As he closed his eyes, the same words that had gradually been seeping into his mind every time he wrote them down, replayed themselves once more inside his head.

  The most valuable possession my master owns is his submissive. I will take great care that no harm comes to my master’s submissive whenever he is not there to watch over me himself.

  Chapter Eight

  Raynard ran a critical eye over the dining table. It was set to perfection. If Ori hadn’t actually pulled out a ruler and measured the gaps between each item, no one would have ever guessed it. Every piece of silverware shone, every glass sparkled.

  If his first forays into it were anything to go by, the more formal rituals of high service were going to suit Ori very well. More than a few times over the last few days, Raynard had caught sight of a quietly satisfied smile on the duckling’s face. After all the grunt work he’d put in while making the house fit for habitation, getting to play with a bit of sparkle was obviously doing him a world of good.

  A smile crept to Raynard’s lips too. The simple fact that Ori had managed to do it all without adding to the list of things he’d broken, seemed to have done wonders for his confidence as well.

  Raynard looked over his shoulder. Ori stood by the dining room door, his hands folded neatly behind his back and his chin up—his stance as perfect as everything else he’d laid out for his master’s inspection.

  The table was set for two, just as Raynard had ordered.

  R
aynard nodded to Ori, signalling that he was ready for the food to be served.

  Ori reappeared three minutes later, ornate silver tray in hand. He’d followed Raynard’s orders when he’d prepared the food and hadn’t panicked about producing something that fitted the elaborate trimmings that graced the table.

  The scent of the meal called to Raynard. Not as much as the sight of the naked man carrying it, but still, it promised him a plate piled high with the kind of simple food Ori had quite a knack for.

  Raynard took his seat. Ori served the meal, just as he’d been taught to over the previous few weeks, as the kitchen table had found itself set a little more elaborately every day.

  He served the empty chair next to Raynard in much the same way before stepping back to receive his master’s criticisms.

  Raynard didn’t have any to give.

  “Leave the tray by the door, and take your seat,” Raynard ordered, as they reached the end of those sections of a dinner party’s proceedings in which he’d instructed Ori so far.

  “Sir?”

  Raynard raised an eyebrow at him. “Did you think I’d be eating alone?”

  Ori hesitated for another second before slipping into the seat to Raynard’s right. Just because Raynard had been content to eat with him in the kitchen until that evening, it obviously hadn’t occurred to the fledgling that they would both migrate to the formal dining room now it was fit for purpose.

  “There will be times when the table will be full of guests,” Raynard told him. “The Raynards have been a leading family in the area for generations. I’ll be expected to entertain.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In which case, you’ll be required to dress for dinner,” Raynard added, a little rush of jealousy coursing through him at the very idea of anyone else seeing Ori wearing nothing but his collar.

  Ori glanced up at him. He smiled hesitantly, as if not sure his master really meant he’d be allowed to take a seat at the table when there were others there.