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"Er. Righto, then. The only rule, this time," Jake tells you, pushing his glasses up the ridge of his nose and giving you a very cheerful look, "is. No talking unless I ask you a question. Hang on, no, that's too vague, I know you - unless you're answering a question. Got it?" As if for emphasis, he strokes a hand up the top of your right thigh, thumb kneading the taut muscles, and smiles.
He has you stretched out supine, completely naked. Your wrists are in leather cuffs, attached to the headboard in such a way that your arms are fully extended, flush to the sheets - you didn't get a good look at the apparatus, you're not sure what the precise setup is. Your ankles are more loosely attached to the posts at the foot - keeping your feet about six inches apart, unable to lift more than five inches or so off the bed. You find this interesting because you can't shut your thighs. It's highly probable that you're going to be getting some.
"... Got it," you say, after a moment, because that was technically a question. Wondering what Jake is going to do at this point strikes you as a boring activity, you're pretty sure he won't surprise you. At least you'll enjoy it. That's a given.
"Great," he says.
And then he just watches you, and you figure two can play at the waiting game, and you run through different kinds of rules in your head, amusing yourself. It's not like your position is uncomfortable. ... You can't remember what the first derivative of the arctangent looks like and it's bothering you. Your shoulder twitches. You can figure it out if you can just remember the equation. One over something. One over -
"You're very handsome when you think," Jake notes, and slides the hand on your thigh further up, petting your stomach. It breaks your concentration - the tactile buzz, his hands on your skin, calluses and the soft pressure of fingernails on some of the thinnest epithelium covering your body - your abdomen clenches, navel dipping. He smiles a little wider and pets firmer, until - you don't force them to, but the muscles he's touching relax anyway. Melting. "You get this look on your face when you retreat up there into the old noodle - very grave and impressive. Shows off your jawline."
A single darting kiss, pressed to that jawline. The afterimage on your nerves - the feeling that remains after his lips have left you - almost itches. You think you could map out its precise dimensions. If you wanted to.
... He could tell you weren't paying attention. You were supposed to be paying attention, you think - only he didn't tell you to, but you should have assumed -
"Shh," he whispers. His eyes are limned with something gentle - kindness, perhaps - as they travel across your face and inspect you. The noise skitters through your thoughts like dice rolling across a board, the weird soft sound of icicles falling into snow - shh, shh. "Hush now. You're very good."
He's still petting you, like you're an animal he's trying to gentle. You'd find something scathing to think about that if it didn't feel so good - contact is like a drug to you, his skin on your skin tugging at the tiny translucent hairs too fine to see, his warmth invading yours. Your spine arches a little, pressing your stomach into his hand, and he gently presses you back down. Into the softness of his blankets.
You aren't good. He should know that more than anyone.
"So very good," he repeats, gently running his knuckles under your chin, up and down your neck, the barest pressure. His other hand pets at your hips, which jitter beneath it until he presses firmer. "Exceptionally. I don't think you hear that nearly enough - you don't, actually. Look at you, minding me so well and keeping so still. What a beauty."
A faint warmth is blooming across your face but at the word beauty a tender thing clenches in your chest. You hear yourself sigh - too late to cut back on it, you end up biting your lip, you don't breathe audibly, you don't like hearing yourself breathe, but he's making you.
Jake cradles your jaw, slides his thumb over your mouth, tugs your lower lip out from between your teeth with the barest pressure. His eyes would be green, if green burned, if green was a bare electrical wire on your exposed skin.
You keep on breathing aloud. Throaty, weak noise. Contemptible. Surely.
Your muscles - intemittently - tremble after he strokes them, and if you focused yourself you could stop it, you're sure, but you don't want to. It feels too - pleasant isn't the word, but it's close.
"That really shouldn't surprise you, you daft peacock. You're a knockout," he insists, leaning closer, keeping his eyes on yours. "Thank my lucky stars I got to you first. I mean, crickey. Look at these gams," he adds, a low rumble in his voice, sliding his hands to the tops of your thighs again, kneading - you make a choked noise in the back of your throat. "You could kick a fellow halfway to the moon."
- Which makes no fucking sense, but your skin prickles, embarrassed heat spreading through your sternum, pulse jumping. You don't realize you're biting your lip again until he bends close and brushes his nose against yours and sucks it out from between your teeth, so gentle it hurts. Your mouth falls open under his automatically. Tiny barely-audible cry.
"And you care so terribly," he says, right into your ear, breath warm, thumbs tracing the divots of your hipbones. Your mouth stays open, as he left it. "With your heart too large for your chest and your brain too big for your body. You rip yourself to pieces, caring so much."
Hips squirming - panting. He starts to suck on your neck, right where your pulse hammers, where it feels intense and overwhelming, and your wrists jump, straining in the cuffs. You can't see it at this angle but you're pretty sure you're sporting a semi. Jesus. You're so fucking needy, look at you, look at this pathetic display, if he had any sense he'd be revolted, he -
"If only I could have you like this all the time," he sighs, fingers trailing over your pectorals, massaging. You hiss, jumping, when he brushes your nipples. "Spoil you rotten."
You don't understand why he'd want to. You're lost in that statement. You, of all people to treat gently - of all people to be kind to, you who deserve it the least and warrant none of this tenderness -
"Dirk, do you want me to stop?" he asks you, kissing the furrows in your brow, fingers of one hand still worrying at your chest, his others carding gently through the hair at the nape of your neck. Mild concern.
Jake knows you well enough to know how he has to phrase the question. You wouldn't have been able to say you wanted him to keep going. Affirmative statements are like pulling teeth.
"... no," you say, and it comes out sounding broken despite your best attempt at steadiness. He trails kisses down your forehead, meets your mouth with his.
"Good," he says, an octave lower, thicker with - lust? want? desire? you can't quantify it mentally because it doesn't process, the concept of Jake wanting this from you, but your flesh trembles and your blood burns and maybe that's all right. (Surely it's not.)
He kisses you deeper, answering your hunger with a kind of coaxing patience, forcing a slower tempo.
"I don't get to take my leisure with you very often," he murmurs into your mouth, after a long exploration of it. It sounds filthy, the way he says take my leisure, and he's only kissing you, petting you, it's absurd. He's pressed his torso flush to yours, hips beside, one leg hooked over your closest. You're rutting against air, no rhythm, no intent - reflexive, as waves of need flood your system. "I lose my wits. You're so awfully sublime, a fellow gets carried away."
(You aren't, you aren't.)
"You trust me so," he sighs, hands running the same path to your hips that they've run dozens of times already - you feel electric and simple, like all you need in the world is for him to stay right here and keep touching you, feeding you compliments a bit at a time so you can stand them - fuck, no, you can't need this, you can't need it -
"You're safe," Jake says, so quietly it's almost difficult to catch above your pounding heart and ragged breathing.
(- you're only allowed to need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and all else is superfluous, everything else will be taken away unless you can be good enough and you aren't - nearly - enough -)
He kisses your face where it's dripping wet. "You're safe, I've got you," he tells you again, and his voice is soft, the bed is soft, everything about this is gentle and tender and you don't know what to do when you aren't fighting for your life and maybe all you'll ever be is an almost-human thing alone above the water and you weren't ever meant to feel anything this good.
When he slips his fingers further down your stomach, strokes you down there too, all you can do is bury your face in the crook of his neck and try to remember to breathe. It's too much. It's bewildering, it doesn't hurt at all and it's too - you can't pull your knees to your chest and hide, you can't jerk away, it's only pleasure, but -
"Perfect," Jake murmurs into your skin - coaxing your face out to kiss your forehead, kiss your lips, gaze at you like he's totally besotted, the lenses of his glasses slightly fogged. "So good for me."
And it's always easier on you when it hurts, pain is the salt that justifies the sweetness, but maybe this wasn't supposed to be easy. You're bound at wrists and ankles but your body still tries to thrash. He holds you closer, shushes and croons, tells you how good you are, praises you for trying so hard, for doing so well. You're incoherent.
The pleasure plateaus, coiling below the threshold of release like a spring.
Jake smiles at you and slides his free arm beneath your neck, cradling your skull. You meet his eyes through a haze. You can't stop trembling.
Kisses your temple. Tells you, "It's okay, Dirk."
(Maybe it is, if he says so.)
You shut your eyes, and believe him.