Rough Canvas (40 page)

He worked his strong fingers over the ridged head, the steel shaft. When he pushed his leg against the back of Marcus’, he made his knee bend. Slowly, Marcus went down onto one, then the other. Emotion flooded Thomas’ chest, made it hard for him to speak.

He didn’t think there were words for this kind of moment, anyway.

Guiding Marcus’ hand up, he held the arm straight in the air and fit the cuff around the wrist. Then the other. “Lace your fingers behind your head now,” he said quietly.

Marcus had a preference for restraints that made his submissives feel that extra step of vulnerability. So now Thomas ran the stiff strap threaded through a loop of the wrist cuff around Marcus’ throat, a three-inch thick collar which nudged up his chin. With his thumb, Thomas nudged it up further so he could fit the collar, run it through the other cuff ring and adjust it.

As he slid the tongue of the strap through the buckle, he ran his fingers beneath, made sure it wasn’t too snug against Marcus’ throat. Then he snapped the joining pieces of the wrist cuffs, the final reinforcement. It effectively kept Marcus’ hands laced against the back of his head, unable to lower arms or move his hands at all. It allowed Thomas access to any part of him.

Guiding Marcus back to his feet, he turned him. Gripping his bound forearms,

Thomas leaned in and simply seized his mouth. He could do whatever he wanted to that mouth, and he did, playing deep into him, moving to hold Marcus’ face to take himself deeper, push his tongue so far in it was probably at the back of his throat.

When Marcus’ legs hit the bed, Thomas took him down flat on his back on it, pressing between his legs, still half standing, hard groin to hard groin, the pressure of his body on every available inch of Marcus’ as he kissed him, kissed him, and kept kissing him.

He used his hands, running them over the biceps, hard as rock. Along the laced

fingers, tugging on the wrist restraints and the collar to tease, underscore his bondage.

Marcus strained for him. Arms, upper body. When he tried to raise his legs, buck against him, Thomas shoved them down. Held the powerful thighs to the bed and

ground denim against soft cotton, let him feel the full press of his length and need against his testicles, against Marcus’ own aroused cock.

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Oddly, Marcus said nothing. It was as if his voice was paralyzed and all he could do was move against Thomas, conveying his desire with his body, the expression in his eyes, his now wet mouth. He was trembling still, all over, so hard his teeth were practically chattering. Thomas reached under him, gripped his ass, his fingers opening him, teasing the rim.

“Ah…fuck…”

That got a response. Thomas felt Marcus’ cock convulse against him like a separate beast. He moved his hand forward, inside Marcus’ snug briefs and gripped the base. He was hot. Jesus, was he hot. When he was sure the near miss had passed, he caressed the tip, then withdrew his touch and licked Marcus’ salty taste off his hand while those green eyes watched him.

“Fuck me. Do it.”

Instead, Thomas put his hand to Marcus’ throat, his fingers sliding under the

restraint of the collar to hold him still as he bent to the left nipple and began to nibble.

Marcus had the sexiest nipples, the flat brown circle of pigment around them like burnished pennies. He laved them, nipped and then nipped more sharply.

Marcus almost came off the bed. Thomas fought him and won, ending up

straddling his waist, his ass pressed down on his cock. Marcus’ gaze traveled down his own body to Thomas’ tightly restrained crotch area. His chest was heaving from the exertion.

“Show it to me. I want to see all of you.”

“Stay where you are.” Thomas eased back, stood between the spread of Marcus’

thighs and caught his thumbs in the band of Marcus’ boxer briefs, ran them down his legs and took them off with the jeans. He wanted Marcus completely naked first.

God, he’d never felt anything like this. He wanted to devour Marcus, drown in that green fire in his eyes. He wanted to be fucked by him forever, taken down on his knees and savaged as punishment for doing this to his Master. But first he wanted to earn that punishment. Earn it well.

For a moment, when Marcus’ gaze traveled down his body, Thomas could tell it

occurred to them both, that Thomas could make Marcus open his mouth, thrust himself in. But he wouldn’t. That was a true act of submission, one he would never force upon his Master.

Despite the rush of this moment, Thomas had no illusions he was a sexual

Dominant. The desire he saw in Marcus’ eyes when he Mastered Thomas goaded a

response from Thomas that was explosive, all consuming, so raw he knew it came from a core identity of who he was. The slave of one particular Master, who was as much a Master as Thomas was his slave.

Therefore, this might be the most difficult thing Marcus had ever done. Thomas

didn’t want to do anything to destroy the highly fragile, perfect moment. Everything he was doing now was following his intuition of what his Master needed in order to let go, to love. To do that, his slave had restrained him. It was a delicate, completely instinctive 209

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give and take, so close to the deepest, darkest areas of Marcus’ psyche that it seemed to require the deepest level of Thomas’ submission in an unprecedented way.

As he took off his shirt, he felt Marcus’ eyes cover his chest. Thomas lay back down on him, putting his knee in between Marcus’ legs and stretching out so he brought his chest to Marcus’ face, giving him the heat of his body. He closed his eyes, shuddering as Marcus’ lips clamped on his skin, mouthing him greedily, sucking on his flesh, tasting him, licking the tender crease of the pectoral, the bump of his nipple, the curve of skin over the last line of ribs before his flat stomach.

He rubbed his hard need against Marcus’ abdomen even as he pressed his upper

thigh against Marcus’ arousal. Marcus strained upward, grinding. Locking his legs over Thomas’ ass, he increased the friction in a way that had Thomas fighting his own response, creating a light dew on both of their skins.

He moved back down hip bone to hip bone, chest to chest. Thomas loved the feel of his bare, cleanly shaven skin rubbing over the light covering of silken hair over Marcus’

pecs that made a dark arrow down his belly. Marcus kept his pubic area clean though, except for a trimmed mat of hair. Thomas reached between them to stroke it now, to run his knuckle along his cock.

“Jesus…clothes…off.” Marcus reared up, bit his throat with a growl.

Thomas pulled back from him, stood and pulled the button free, took the zipper

down and shucked off the jeans, kicking off his shoes to make it happen. He suddenly found his hands perspiring, heart high in his chest. The first time he’d done this it had been with someone he’d picked up at an artist’s hangout in New York. They’d been two kids groping each other, laughing.

Philip. After Philip fucked him, they switched places and Thomas did him. It had been fun, simple sex, though it had been a wonder for Thomas, having always had to guard his desires so closely, never exercise them. It had been Philip in that first painting, when he’d met Marcus.

This was anything but simple. This was Marcus. Marcus whom he wanted so badly

he had to remember to breathe.

One step, two steps. He put his knee on the bed, by the outside of Marcus’ hip, and leaned over him. Reaching behind his head, he unsnapped the cuffs, slid the strap free from his neck and laid it to the side. Pulled one cuff free, then the other, running his fingers over the red marks on his wrists where Marcus had pulled so viciously against the restraints.

It was dark in the room, but there were lights from the city outside the bedroom window, enough light he could see the gray tones create a sculpture of Marcus’ face, the way his cheeks sloped, the line of his jaw, his lips still moist from Thomas’ mouth and his own ministrations on Thomas’ skin. Those eyes.

“I’ve tried to paint your face. Did you know that?”

Marcus shook his head, one slight movement. “No, pet. I didn’t.”

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Thomas remembered it as he ran his fingers over Marcus’ upper body slowly,

thoughtfully, semi-aware of Marcus’ breath catching in his throat, his charged stillness.

Marcus wasn’t restrained, but he lay there as if he was, his knuckles on the bed above his head. It only emphasized the mouthwatering line of elbow to armpit,

deltoids, abdomen, pectorals. Down to elegant straight hips and a cock that begged for Thomas’ touch, his mouth. He looked at him and he hurt. Because it was all his. His.

The same way he belonged to Marcus.

Thomas had never really understood it, had been incredulous of such an enormous gift. Yet here it was, the proof in how Marcus just lay here against all his dominant instincts. Needing him, waiting on him, though Thomas knew it was taking everything in him, tearing things inside, for him not to take control.

“You’re a masterpiece, Marcus. You never imagine going to the Louvre and getting to take something home like that. Not a kid from a small rural town that doesn’t even register on cosmic radar.”

“How do you think a kid from Iowa feels every time he looks at you?” Marcus said, his voice barely a sound emitting from the shadows.

Thomas’ touch stilled on him, his eyes burning through the darkness, summoning

an answering fire from Marcus’.

Marcus closed those green eyes then, turned his face to the mattress. “Thomas…I can’t. Do this. God, just do it, or I’m going to break. Hold me together, pet.”

Thomas pressed his lips together, nodded and moved to put the heat of his palm

against Marcus’ thigh. As he exerted pressure, Marcus began to turn. The one leg crossing over, taking him to one knee on the bed, his shoulders flexing as he pushed himself up. Thomas brought Marcus’ feet back to the floor, pressed on him so his knees bent, supported by the slight shelf of the bed rail holding the box spring mattress.

Picking up lubricant from the nightstand, he applied it liberally to his own cock, then worked a stream between Marcus’ buttocks. They tightened, the display drawing a growl of desire from Thomas as he rubbed more lubricant on himself. Marcus’ head swung to look back at him, his eyes coursing over Thomas’ slick knuckles, the way he was fisting himself. “I could have done that.”

“If you had, this would have been all over.”

A flash of teeth, despite the intensity of the moment. It made Thomas want Marcus all the more.

Thomas set it aside and put his hands on Marcus’ hips, the oil making his hands slick over the upper part of his buttocks. When Marcus began to look down, Thomas’

hands clutched, dug in.

“Look at me, Master. I want you to look at me.”

Marcus swallowed, turned his head and met his gaze. Thomas held it as he guided himself in. Slow, easy. Marcus was tight, tight as a virgin. He hadn’t been taken this 211

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way in a long, long time. Probably not since he’d been a street kid when his ass had been up for whoever had the money or power to take it.

It made Thomas’ heart ache, even as his cock nearly spurted at the way it felt to be entering Marcus. He lifted his hips to Thomas, helping, his eyes going opaque, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as Thomas got past the sphincters and slid home. Slid deep.

“Jesus Christ.” Marcus was shaking again and now Thomas leaned over him,

wrapping his arm around his wide chest and putting his other fist to the mattress alongside his, biceps to biceps, the line of their shoulders together. Thomas pressed his face into his neck, letting Marcus drop his head now.

“Hold on.” He lifted his hips, thrust, and Marcus groaned. Thomas could barely

restrain himself at the excruciating feel of it, Marcus’ ass muscles holding him, working him, his body rippling with power beneath the hold of his. The smell of his hair, the neck, his skin.
His.

Reaching up, Marcus grabbed the hand Thomas had against his upper body. The

connection became one knotted fist, their fingers holding together so tightly against Marcus’ chest Thomas could feel the pulse of blood fighting through their fingers like the hammering of Marcus’ heart and his own.

Their curved bodies were two parts of the same heart, and though he couldn’t put this on canvas any more than he’d been able to capture Marcus’ face there, he knew moments like this were imprinted on the universe, already rendered by a Master Artist far greater than he would ever be.

He thrust, thrust deeper, looking for the place that would send Marcus over, and then he could go. He knew it had to be that way. To be done right, all the way, Marcus had to surrender, to let go. Jesus, it wouldn’t take more than a thought for Thomas to lose control. Marcus’ back was slick with sweat, his breath coming harsh. Almost too fast, as if he were a winded horse. Thomas tightened his grip on Marcus’ fingers, pressing his face hard into his neck.

“I’m here, Master. Let go. Come. God, you feel so fucking good.”

Marcus’ short nails bit into his hand, into the scars from working around the store.

His head dropped even lower, his back curved up high. He’d gone to one elbow, and Thomas leaned down with him, pressing the back of his thigh against his, half up on the bed with him. So slick and hot. God, Marcus had an ass worth dying for. He snaked his other hand under Marcus’ waist and Marcus cried out when Thomas gripped his turgid cock, squeezed, began to work the broad head.

“Thomas…no…”

“Give me everything,” Thomas demanded urgently. “Don’t you hold back on me.

Past…time for that.” Lord, he was going to just erupt any second, but he couldn’t go alone. Wouldn’t. “Mine. You’re mine. Forever…” His lips stretched back, almost a snarl.

“Family. You’re part of…my family. My blood. My heart. Forever. Always. Come now, dammit. Come…for me.”

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Marcus bucked, a roar tearing out of his throat. With relief and a surge of hot lust so strong it made him violent, Thomas slammed into his ass and worked Marcus’ thick cock at once, pulling on it, rubbing furiously with sure knowledge as he kept pumping him.