“Should this be done from the back?” he asked. “Because I am loath to lose the look on your face. My God, David. How did you do this so often?”
“How did you?” David returned. He could barely breathe for the feel of Richard’s hands on him, now unknotting his neckcloth with infinite care and slowness and sliding it away. Richard leaned down to press his lips to David’s bared throat, making him groan.
“David, my David.” Richard straightened, tugging at David’s shirt. “May I?”
“Please.” He lifted his arms. Richard pulled the shirt over his head, and David stood, bare to the waist, bare to his gaze.
“My God.” Richard put out a trembling hand and ran his fingers over the copper hairs that sprinkled David’s chest. “Sweet Jesus, you are beautiful. I have wanted to know—”
“All red. All the way down.”
Richard closed his eyes. “You cannot imagine how that has occupied my thoughts.” His touch was a little more certain now, thumbs tracing David’s chest, sliding apart over the wings of his rib cage, coming back to meet at his navel and the red trail downward. His hands shifted to David’s waistband, then he glanced up, a question in his eyes.
“No,” David said.
Richard snatched his hands back, retreating a long stride, and David felt as though his heart might not be able to take the strain of all it had to hold. “No, because I want you somewhat more unclothed first,” he went on. “And no, because I want you to understand that I will say it for myself if I wish to, and I shall not wait for you to ask.”
Richard exhaled. “Noted. Noted. I may have an apoplexy.”
“I should probably loosen your clothing then,” David said. “Turn around.” That was quite deliberate. One did not ask one’s master to make any effort. Richard turned, and David reached up and slid the coat off his shoulders, down his arms. It was a tiny struggle against nature to drop it on the back of a chair, endangering the fall of the cloth, but he managed.
Richard had turned back to him. David came close to unfasten the waistcoat buttons, looking up into his face. He could have done it blind.
Richard’s hand was in David’s hair again, idly finger-combing. David smiled up at him. “You do like my hair.”
“Beyond anything. Or, beyond most things.” He let go to allow the waistcoat’s removal and tugged off his own shirt, and David caught his breath.
He had not seen his master stripped often. He had averted his gaze rather than put himself through it. Now he could look his fill, on a bulky chest thick with dark hair, wide shoulders, a body used to exercise and unmarked by suffering or work. He spanned his hands over Richard’s pectoral muscles and rubbed, very lightly, watching Richard’s throat convulse. David leaned forward and put his mouth to use, lavishing attention on a nipple that hardened under his tongue, relishing the scrape of curled hair on his lips.
“David.” Richard was clutching David’s hair again, stroking his neck, his back. “Dear heaven. Stop.”
David pulled away. Richard was breathing hard, eyes shut. “A moment, please. It has been too long, and I have wanted you too much, and…I think I have reached the limits of my self-control.”
David ran a finger down Richard’s arm, feeling his shudder. “I should very much like to see you lose control. Particularly if I could make you do it.”
“You have no idea.” Richard’s voice was a growl. “None.”
“Show me.”
Richard opened his eyes. He gave David a long look. Then he bent, grabbed, and hoisted David clean off his feet. Two strides, and he found himself dropped unceremoniously on the bed on his back with Richard leaning over him and blotting out the light.
“You,” Richard said. He fumbled at David’s waistband, opening the fall of his trousers, and pushed them and the drawers off over David’s rigid stand. “Oh, dear heaven.” He reached out and gently stroked the curls at David’s groin with a single, careful finger.
“Red enough?”
“If anything could be. Your skin, your hair. You.” Richard tugged off the rest of his own impeding clothing, clumsily, because he could not seem to take his eyes from David’s nakedness. David propped himself on his elbows watching, his calves dangling over the bed. “You are a thing of beauty, and I am very afraid I will not do you justice, but by God, I intend to try.” He moved downward, pushing David’s legs apart, and knelt between them. He grasped David’s hips, breath warm on his skin. Then he took David’s stand into his mouth.
David’s fingers dug into the counterpane with such force, he felt a seam burst.