Nico reached up to cup his face. “I have no difficulty asking for what I want. Nobody has ever made me feel that I should not have what I want. Plenty of people havetriedto make me feel that,” he added thoughtfully, “but it did not take. Whereas you are generous at heart, and have been trained to ignore your own wishes, and I love the first of those but not the second, so—do you know what I want? I want to be the first man you have fucked exactly as you please, without fear or obligation. I don’t know if you can do that tonight, but I want you to try. I want that place in your heart.”
That heart currently felt too large for Titus’s ribcage, and worryingly fluttery. “I don’t want to be selfish.”
“If you wish to please me, you will be as selfish as possible.”
“… I don’t think that makes sense.”
“You know what I mean.” Nico grabbed his cravat. “Come, mon coeur. Tell me how you want me.”
Titus swallowed. “Naked. Um, can I undress you?”
Nico spread his arms. Titus moved forward, dreamlike, and set to work, unknotting the cravat, easing off the coat, unbuttoning the waistcoat. Nico, bare-chested, sat on the bed, and Titus knelt to pull his boots off. Taking his time, stroking the shining black leather, feeling the blood throb in his groin.
“Your face,” Nico said softly. “Beautiful. Keep doing it.”
“Lean back?” Titus suggested. Nico obliged where he was,over the edge of the bed, bent back at the hips. It made his arousal very prominent in his well-fitted pantaloons. Titus ran a hand over the bulge and heard his breath stutter.
“Can—I want to touch you for a while,” he said. “Just touch.”
Nico purred pleasure, and Titus knelt up and let his hands roam free. Nico’s sturdy chest, with a thick tangle of hair over the pectoral muscles, his belly, his tight nipples. Touching everywhere, letting his hands roam, rejoicing in skin and flesh under his palms, feeling his confidence grow with the visible evidence of Nico’s pleasure straining against his clothing, the audible deepening of his breath, the hooded eyes.
“I might just get undressed,” he said.
“I may watch?”
“God, yes.”
Nico propped himself up on his elbows, still lounging half off the bed, legs wide. Titus had a sudden, guilty memory of wondering about hiring him as a gigolo, because he looked absolutely obscene, in the best possible way.
He undressed with shaking fingers, trying not to rush, stripping himself bare. It was a relief to get his breeches off. Nico watched, eyes very dark.
Titus came to stand over him again. Unfastened the front fall of his pantaloons, pushed drawers out of the way, so Nico’s prick sprang up and stood hard. Wrapped it in his hand.
“Oh God. Merde.”
Titus knelt and took him in his mouth. He tongued Nico’s cock slowly, carefully, exploring at his leisure because the sense of power was overwhelming.
He’d spanked Henry and called him names, and felt small and helpless doing it. Now he was on his knees with Nico’s prick in his mouth and he felt like a king, because it wasn’t, it had never been about the acts. He was doing exactly what hewanted to be doing, by his own choice, and because that was the sole thing Nico had asked of him.
It felt like a revelation, albeit one he did not have time to consider right now. He lifted his mouth off. Nico made a strangled noise.
“I really do want to fuck you,” Titus said softly. “Would you… would you ask me to?”
“Merde alors. Yes, I want you to fuck me, mon Caesar. I want all of you in me and I want to come like that, and I want it—ah, when you are pleased to give it to me, but for your information, I am howling like the wolf inside my head.”
“Oh, well, that is difficult,” Titus said. “I should just get your boots off, then.”
Nico groaned. Titus worked the boots off, one then the other, eased down his pantaloons with some helpful wriggling on Nico’s part, watched him sprawled naked and beautiful over the bed. He had brought up some linseed oil from his supply room earlier; he dribbled a little into his hand, slicked his fingers, slid them down Nico’s inner thigh, traced the opening. Nico uttered several words which were entirely new to Titus, but some things transcended language.
“Well, you have to be a little patient,” he said reasonably. “I want to make sure you’re ready. One has to do things properly.”
“Ready” might of course mean different things to different people. To Titus, tonight, it meant sliding his finger into Nico, more oil, adding another finger. Searching for the sweet spot and finding it, and watching Nico’s head arch back. Teasing—that was what he was doing, he knew perfectly well, and he loved it. Nico’s prick was glistening wet, a viscous drop sliding down the smooth head.
More oil. More exploration. Nico swearing near continuously in French and English, but not telling him to get on withit. Letting him take his pleasure at his own pace. Titus could have cried.
“Are you all right on your back? I want to see your face.”
Nico shifted his legs in answer, getting his thighs round Titus’s hips. The bed was high enough to make it work. Titus leaned forward to get hold of Nico’s hips, lifted him, pushed his oil-slicked prick in.