by Joey W. Hill
He knew Ange could tell he meant it. “I didn’t go overseas and fight for my country to have some assholes here harm or take my property. And I’m not just talking about my inventory. Got it?”
“Yes, Master.” Ange sounded like his throat had gone dry, a pleasing effect, but Robert wasn’t satisfied yet.
“Tell me why you keep leaving it off.”
Ange wanted out of that one, he could tell, but Robert tightened his grip, gave him a steely-eyed look that said he wouldn’t have a problem giving him a few more tastes of that whip.
“Because I kept thinking of you coming to me...like you did tonight. Just suddenly appearing. And…all these months, it was like you were treating me like yours, but not. I thought...if I gave you one thing to punish me for...it would help.”
Ange stopped, flushing. Despite the stumbling explanation, Robert understood immediately, enough that his mouth tugged wryly. Subs sometimes did that, if their Master wasn’t paying close enough attention. While Ange was a pure service sub, a pleasure to a Master like Robert, he had the need all subs did at times: to feel the pull of the reins, the cut of the bit against the mouth. Robert was protective, and Ange had picked up on that. He’d chosen the one thing that, when the time came, would most likely inspire Robert to dish out the punishment he craved.
“I wish I could touch you,” Ange said softly.
“You will. Eventually.” Robert ran his hand down Ange’s back to his abused ass. He straightened only to bend over it, pressing his lips to the first red area. Then to another. He traced them with his tongue, slid his fingers along the crease between Ange’s buttocks to the compressed testicles and caressed them as well, testing the spacing. He also checked the coloring and temperature to make sure blood was still circulating.
Watching Ange’s fingers was like viewing a ballet, the twisting and turning, gripping and releasing against his neck and hair. “The ones who beat me up...that first night. They wanted... I wouldn’t let them take what’s not mine to give.”
Robert stopped. As he leaned back and Ange met his gaze, he remembered the scraped fists, the bloody nose, the bruises where he’d taken a hammering from multiple body blows.
I wouldn’t let them take what’s not mine to give. The words implied that his body belonged to his Master, to Robert, even though they hadn’t yet met.
Robert lay down beside him again, stroked his hair. He learned Ange’s face by touch, the precise cheekbones, straight long nose. Ange pressed his lips against the side of Robert’s hand when it came close enough to allow it. Unhooking the cuffs from the collar, Robert then unlatched them from each other so Ange could bring his arms down. While he continued to play with Ange’s hair, enjoying the soft blond hair passing over his knuckles, he closed his eyes, waiting to see what Ange would do.
Those elegant, strong fingers touched him, the pocket of his throat above the open collar of his shirt. Since it was afterhours, he hadn’t worn a tie. Ange slipped several buttons, his fingers questing down the mat of Robert’s chest hair, tangling and tugging, caressing, then he had his palm over Robert’s heart, gently flexing, as if massaging it. It felt better than anything Robert had ever experienced. He found Ange’s shoulder, covered the back of the collar, holding on. At length, though, Robert moved his hand over Ange’s, trying to regain control of the situation. He opened his eyes.
“I’m not done with you, Ange. Not by a long shot. Is it too much?”
Ange shook his head. “No. God, no. I want…more. Everything.”
That made two of them. Robert rose to his feet. “Good. Tell me the story of The Littlest Angel. And keep your eyes closed from here forward, unless I tell you that you can open them. I mean it this time.”
Sensory deprivation increased nerve sensation, and he wanted to make the most of that. While Ange gathered his thoughts, Robert moved back into the stockroom. Finding the paraffin candles they used for the street candlelight ceremony on Christmas Eve, he pulled them out, along with a paintbrush, a potpourri burner, and a lighter.
“I’ve never told it from memory, so I may get some parts of it wrong.”
“That’s fine. I’ll correct you later.” Casting a fond look at the buggy whip, Robert bit back a smile at Ange’s reaction to his words, obviously torn between apprehension and the arousal the punishment had provoked.
“A little boy dies and goes to Heaven, but he doesn’t fit in anywhere. He tries, but he loses his halo in the hallowed halls, sings off tune in the choir. Eventually he’s brought to one of the older, wiser angels, and he asks the boy what would make things better for him in Heaven. The Littlest Angel says if he could have this box that was under his bed at his home on Earth, he’d be okay. So he gets this box, and he’s so happy about it, because it contains all the types of things a boy would love. A bird’s egg, a special rock, his dog’s collar…
“Then comes the night of the Christ Child’s birth, and the Littlest Angel is agonizing over what gift to bring to the new baby. Finally, he decides to give him this box. But when he sees it sitting among all the other amazing gifts, he’s sure that his poor little box is a terrible insult.”
Robert checked the candles he’d put in the pot, saw they were melting down into liquid form. Ange’s nostrils flared, taking in the scent, the heat. For his part, Robert was caught up in the story, in the parallels between that and the man at his mercy now.
“Just when he thinks he’s done something too bad to be forgiven, God chooses that box above all the other gifts. The Littlest Angel loved what was in that box so much, but he was willing to give it all up, so that made it the greatest gift of all. God set the box in the sky and it became the star over the stable.” Ange paused. “I thought you knew the story.”
“I do. It doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing you tell it. I was thinking about the day you read it to Mr. Oglesby, who lost his sight last year. You were sitting in the corner with him, not reading very loudly, but by the time you were done, every person in the store was still and quiet as if they were in church. They were caught up by how you told it, like you believed every word. That’s your magic, Ange. You are Christmas.”
Ange opened his eyes at that. Robert brought the pot and brush to his side, along with a cardboard box containing the other key item he needed. “I thought I told you to keep your eyes closed,” he reproved, but when he brushed a gentle finger over each of Ange’s eyes, the boy’s lips curved in a sweet smile.
Robert ran his hand over Ange’s shoulders. “Arms out to your sides. Like you’re making a snow angel.”
When Ange complied, Robert shifted. The young man gave a surprised grunt as Robert knelt over his ass, one knee planted on the floor between his spread legs, the other foot braced on the outside of his hip. Since Ange was probably about a hundred and forty pounds, and Robert’s burly Irish build was an easy two hundred, Robert didn’t put his full weight on him, but he did brace his thigh against Ange’s buttock, putting a little pressure on that sore ass, knowing it would constrict the clamp on Ange’s balls once again. When he released his testicles, Robert would take great pleasure in a not-so-apologetic soothing rub of his privates.
He turned his attention back to the melted candles simmering in the burner. Swirling the brush in the hot paraffin, he lifted it free, held it poised just a second above Ange’s flesh before he painted the wax in a short stripe outside his shoulder blade. From his own tests with it, Robert knew it felt like a teasing tongue, the tip of an aroused cock, the moisture of a kiss. Ange quivered, confirming the sensual experience, then stilled as Robert placed something in the wax.
“Feathers,” Ange breathed, recognizing the light brush of sensation where the object touched his unwaxed flesh.
“White feathers,” Robert agreed. “My angel.”
The box was full of them, the leavings from a pair of broken angel wings Ange had picked up as castoffs from a school play. Though Ange would have used them for the kids’ crafts, or to repair any feathered inventory they had, Robert liked his use bette
r.
With every stripe of the paraffin, Ange let out a little breath at the sensation. Robert kept pressing feathers into his back, starting on the upper curve of his shoulders and then working down the inside lines of his shoulder blades, creating wings. As he reached the lower part of his angel’s back, he shifted to Ange’s side.
Ange’s legs spasmed in their spread bondage, and when Robert painted some of that paraffin over his constricted balls, he moaned in ecstasy. Robert felt like doing the same, watching him. He left the small of Ange’s back clear, so when he was done, he kissed his way down that track, toward the ass that was humping the floor in tiny, helpless movements. Even though the sticks compressed his testicles and cock every time Ange bore down, he was obviously too aroused to care.
Robert parted his cheeks and put his mouth there, giving Ange a teasing, warm lick like the paraffin. Ange cried out in recognition of the difference, however, shuddering at the contact from his Master. Robert penetrated his rim, exploring, teasing, running his tongue along the crinkled outside while Ange gasped, fingers clutching the floor.
Sliding to Ange’s back, Robert put his face there, his cheek in the feathers, imagining how they would feel as he fucked Ange. Would he find possession, absolution, release... His own surrender? It was a complex thing, mastering an angel.
“Please…”
“Please what, love?” Robert moved up, lying on his hip once again, Ange’s arm trapped in the tunnel between his upper body and propped arm. While he trailed his fingers down Ange’s back, those green eyes sought his, wild, needy.
“I want... Please let me serve you, Master. How can I...give you release?”
“Nothing for yourself? You don’t want to be fucked? To come?”
“Yes...but to serve you. It doesn’t mean anything otherwise.”
Robert passed his hand over Ange’s head, stroking back the white-blond hair. “Do you ever brush this, and why does it always look so sexy, even in this shocking disarray?”
Ange blinked, then gave a desperate chuckle. “Hair. You want to talk about hair. I knew you were gay.”
It startled him. Then something broke loose. Robert threw his head back and laughed. As the sound of it filled the room, he found Ange staring at him in wonder.
“I never... You’ve never laughed like that, Master.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like I could.” Since it had felt right. He put his hand on Ange’s face. “You want to serve me, and I want to care for you. I think there might be a way to take care of both of those things.” He leaned in, breath close to Ange’s face, lips almost touching. Ange was paralyzed by his own need, a state that a Dom loved to see happen. He was looking for direction, a command to serve his Master’s desires. “Beg me to fuck you, Ange.”
“Please, Master. Please fuck me. Please…” Ange swallowed hard. Abruptly, he groped for Robert’s hand, clasping it in that upright angle like brothers-in-arms, and perhaps they were, for Ange had had his battles as well. “I mean no disrespect. I do want to be fucked, but could you also...love me?”
Jesus. The kid knew how to squeeze his heart like a vise. Robert pressed his forehead to Ange’s, caressing his shoulder, the collar. The wrong kind of collar. Lifting his head to look around, he found the case he’d brought out of the safe. It was on the other side of his captive. As he leaned over Ange to pull it closer, Ange caressed his thigh with his mouth, hot and wet. Robert’s balls reacted as if Ange had stroked a long tongue over them. Ange’s hand slid along Robert’s thigh and behind to cup his ass, brushing the seam. It made Robert shift, and the kid’s mouth was right on his groin, the moist heat coming through the denim.
“Behave,” he said, though his voice was ragged. Ange nuzzled him, but moved his mouth and hand back to Robert’s thigh. The pressure of his fingers continued to convey his urgent need, however, his desire to serve, to have his mouth on Robert, to take Robert’s release down his throat. Christ, the boy was fucking up his concentration. He was out of practice dealing with a sub.
No, that wasn’t it. He had no practice handling a sub who was so much of everything he’d ever wanted, one who wanted to give as much as Robert did.
He didn’t let himself hesitate. He pulled out the velvet bag pushed to the very bottom of the case, out of sight, but never out of mind. Sitting back on his heels, he gave Ange’s cheek a reproving tap. “I mean it. Behave. Remember who’s in charge.”
“I do, Master. I’m sorry. I just want you so much, it’s hard to hold back.”
Simple, sweet honesty, and a mirror image of the feeling swamping him. It was time to get rid of the spreader bar and ball clamp. Robert wanted to take his sub closer to where they both wanted to go.
Setting aside the velvet bag for now, Robert shifted to the lower part of the mat and began to remove the rope, holding the poles and lifting the top one off when the ropes’ steadying pressure disappeared. Lincoln Logs tumbled to the mat and he picked them up, laying them to the side with the sticks.
“Lift up your ass,” he commanded.
When Ange complied, Robert closed his fingers over his testicles and cock once more, rubbing gently over the wax he’d painted on his balls. The friction elicited a whimper of arousal and relief both as he soothed the compression. Ange’s cock was still just as tumescent, his balls drawing up beneath Robert’s manipulation, making it difficult not to start rubbing in a far more aggressive and purposeful manner, but he hadn’t forgotten what he wanted to do with that velvet bag. He indulged his desire to rub Ange’s ass with the other hand, though, idly squeezing and stroking as he massaged the kid’s enticing equipment. At length, he forced himself to let go.
“Sit up on your heels,” he said gruffly.
Ange obeyed, putting his hands in a laced position behind his head without being told, back straight, knees open, cock out there for whatever Robert wanted to do with it. A few of the feathers floated to the floor, but the tips of others haloed his shoulders. His pale cheeks were flushed. Whenever Robert had corrected him about something in the store, however mildly, he’d noted that earnest blush of color, the fair skin unable to hide it. He never had to correct Ange on the same thing twice. Except the security system.
When Robert picked up the velvet bag and loosened the drawstring, he knew Ange was watching his every move. The tremulous breath he heard when he removed the contents proved it. The bag held a custom-made collar. It was a thick braided black band, bound every couple inches by sterling silver triskelions. The pewter buckle was boldly engraved with an angel’s wing. The designer had recommended it, a symbol to suggest Robert was putting a guardian angel over his sub, but he’d never associated Freddie with an angel otherwise, even before things had gone sour.
“No one has ever worn this.” He wanted Ange to know. “It was going to be a Christmas gift for the man I was with, but he left me before then. I think it was never meant for him. Will you wear it, Ange?”
For this, he would ask, because this wasn’t a play collar like the one with the cuffs. He was taking the leap. He wanted Ange to belong to him. He wanted Ange to accept him formally as his Master.
When Ange lifted his gaze, his eyes were brilliant, his voice firm and steady. A man’s voice, not a kid’s. “Yes, Master. Please.”
Three simple words, but then “I do” were two simple words, weren’t they? Okay, maybe he was getting a little carried away. His father’s Irish sentimentality was trying to overtake his mother’s German practicality. Even so, his fingers shook a little as he removed the cuffs and the other collar before he wrapped this one around Ange’s throat, buckled it in the back. His throat was one hole slimmer than Freddie’s, but that notch made it a perfect fit. Robert lingered over the tracing of the angel wing, then ran his fingers along the heavy braid, the silver triskelions. “Mine,” he said. Fiercely.
With that dancer’s suppleness, Ange bent all the way over, leaving his hands clasped behind his head as he pressed his cheek to Robert’s thigh. Robert caressed
his back, tracing his spine between the array of feathers. Then he fanned out to follow his rib cage, before returning to Ange’s neck. Placing his hand on that angel wing buckle, he tugged. “All right, enough of that. My property has a fantasy about a manger. So do I.”
As Robert got to his feet, Ange straightened, but kept his fingers laced behind his head until Robert reached down. Then he put his hand in Robert’s. Robert brought him to his feet, sliding an arm around Ange’s waist to steady him. He’d been on the floor awhile and, flexible or not, a lot of blood was obviously, deliciously, in his cock, especially after that last announcement. Robert moved them out of the craft room, running a callused palm over Ange’s buttocks. At Ange’s involuntary flinch, Robert gentled his touch. “Don’t worry; you’ve had enough of that for tonight. I have another idea in mind.”
The store had six display rooms, and the life-sized nativity, a nineteenth-century carved set from Germany, was in the back left. The wooden faces were noble and dramatic, even the animals’. The creatures were in tranquil repose around the human characters. An angel was carefully mounted atop the wooden frame representing the stable cover.
They’d positioned the nativity scene so that, as a customer entered that nook of the store, it spread before them as if they’d stepped out of their world and into the Bethlehem stable. The old wooden floor added to the feeling, as did the scent of hay from the scattered handfuls and bales Ange had placed around the area. Shoppers could sit on them, contemplating the display of Christ’s birth while they enjoyed hot cider and sugar cookies offered at a refreshment table in the corner. Ange had rigged a separate sound system in here so, at the touch of a switch, their visitors would hear the various messages of the angels to the shepherds and Mary, good tidings of the hope and love the Child would bring.
So it wouldn’t get too repetitive, Ange had suggested adding other things to the recording, quotes from Jesus’s teachings and relevant scripture passages. Robert remembered Ange sitting with his back braced against the manger, going through a children’s book about Jesus because Ange said it had the purest understanding, the quotes that spoke directly to people’s hearts.