by Joey W. Hill
Next to the photo was a cast metal horse with a copper tone finish his grandfather had won at the county fair decades ago, when those kinds of toys had been offered as prizes.
His grandfather had had a barnful of cast iron toys, the kind of collection that would have given the American Pickers crew an orgasm. It was where Robert’s interest in antique toys had started. Whenever he went to visit him, the older man would tell Robert about their history.
“Two things humans have always done,” Grandpa once said, as he put a railway car into Robert’s small hands. “Kill one another, and make toys for our kids. That’s pretty much all there is to say about us.”
While trying to decide what to do with himself after the military, Robert had found himself holding that copper horse, turning it over in his hands.
“Make sure whatever you choose to do engages your passions,” his father had said. “A man stays young with passion.”
His grandfather had left Robert his collection. The value of it allowed Robert to sell a few pieces to fund the opening of his store, and the remainder formed his core start-up inventory. He’d built upon it, successfully enough he had this townhome and a life of comfort, but there were a couple pieces he’d never let go.
Like the first toy he’d bought as a collector. Ange had moved to the dresser and was looking at that piece now. Robert’s lips quirked as Ange’s sensitive fingers slid over it, his bent head evidence that it had captured his attention. And no wonder.
The Lehmann lithographed tin wind-up toy showed a baker peddling a tricycle. The tricycle bore a closed wagon for his wares. A chimney sweep had caught a ride, standing on the tailgate. There was a sweetness to the baker, with his bow-shaped mouth, round cheeks and curly hair. The chimney sweep wore a tightfitting black outfit head to toe, his hood close around his neck and framing his stern, unsmiling face.
He held what was intended to be a broom, but the long bristles and angle at which he held it, so it extended over the top of the closed wagon and rested on the baker’s shoulder, gave the impression of a black hooded Dom with a flogger, teasing the nape of the baker as he furiously pedaled along.
Studying that clockwork toy, Robert had concluded its 1900s creator had nursed a few taboo fantasies.
Ange’s chin tilted further right as he looked toward Robert, his hand still resting on the toy. Then his attention shifted past Robert to the solid dark wood bed frame. The tall spiral turned posts were sturdy enough to bind a sub against or between them. Not that he’d had the chance to explore that, since the bed had been a personal housewarming gift to celebrate the townhome purchase.
Ange had apparently registered the durability of the frame. His expression shifted to pure, provocative mischief.
“I haven’t been in a bed this big in a long time.”
Ange toed off his loose shoes in a blink, removed the hat. Taking a couple steps, he did a spin and a leap that tossed his body onto the bed like he was landing in a favorite swimming hole. He sprang up, put the hat back on at a rakish tilt and bounced on the mattress on the balls of his feet. Robert crossed his arms and shot him a stern look. But Ange had successfully dispelled his worries about the room. The only change it needed, at least for tonight, was the addition of Ange.
“Don’t make me tan your hide, boy,” he scolded gently.
Ange fell to a cross-legged position with a smile that went instantly from playful to wistful. The windows had blinds, pulled up and staying that way most of the time. As a result, the city lights added to that moon-and-snow brightness. Robert didn’t need to turn on the electric lights.
Ange’s teasing, the challenge in it, had changed the nature of Robert’s thoughts, and his sub saw it, even before Robert did. Ange slid off the bed, gazing at his Master for just the right length of time before he lowered his eyes and knelt, lacing his fingers behind his head, lifting his chest and spreading his knees.
“What can I do for you, Master? How can I serve you?”
Ange hadn’t indicated he’d ever belonged to a Dom, or been part of the BDSM club scene, but he offered and presented himself like he’d been born to it. And in so many ways, Robert had been Ange’s undeclared Dom all these months.
“Take off the clothes. All of them.”
Ange rose and complied, handing the hat to Robert first. Robert let his fingers run along the interior band as Ange’s upper body did that graceful twist when he removed the tank. His hips shifted as he took off the jeans and socks. He hadn’t worn underwear.
The light streaming through the window kissed pale marble skin. He hadn’t rushed, undressing slowly. Robert put the hat aside and his hand on the door frame, gripping hard.
There was a small sitting area near the bed, a sofa and chair grouping. Robert gestured to the sofa.
“Go there,” he ordered. “Put your knees on the seat, hold onto the back.”
After being steeped in the limitless pleasures offered by a dancer’s body, how did anyone ever settle for anything different? As Ange complied, the divinely created choreography of muscle, flesh and bone made Robert’s breath shorten and his cock harden. It also roused other feelings.
As he circled the sofa, he was conscious of Ange’s attention on him, even when he went behind him, out of view. Laying his palm on the small of Ange’s back, Robert felt flesh heat on both sides. He stood close, his leg against the back of Ange’s thigh. He didn’t say anything immediately, just absorbing the pleasure of the handsome, naked man waiting on his Master’s desires. But as he thought of what Ange had said to him on the first floor, Robert’s heart was too full not to say what he was thinking.
“There were days I thought, I just can't figure it out. And when I went to the store, my thought was... I'll go to Ange. Be with Ange. See Ange."
Ange’s head tilted further down to show Robert his profile. His lips pressed together. “Master,” he murmured.
Bending forward, Robert kissed Ange’s brow, mouth lingering, teased by the strands of soft hair before he moved to Ange’s temple, inhaled his scent. He detected the faint smell of sweat from earlier in the evening, first from when Ange had danced for Robert in the snow, and then when he’d given his body to him fully. Robert also smelled the store’s Christmastime aromas—pine, cinnamon and sugar cookies. Plus the hint of clean snow and winter cold.
Robert was thankful he’d pocketed the small tube of lubricant from the store. He didn’t want to step away from Ange to go rummage in the bathroom. He also stayed full dressed, merely unfastening his jeans and adjusting the boxers beneath to let him take care of things.
Then he put a knee on the sofa behind Ange, fitted himself to that welcoming, tight channel, and drilled in, slow but relentless, until he’d filled him to the hilt.
His sub. His Ange. In his house.
He deliberately chose not to indulge in foreplay. This was a full claiming, driving back the shadows trying to interfere with the glory of the change in their relationship. Ange registered it with a groan of need. His long fingers tightened on the sofa, a breath escaping him, followed by another more intent note as Robert pressed up tight behind him.
He wrapped his fingers around Ange’s throat, let him feel that he had him, had him in all the ways that mattered. He gripped his hip with the other hand, but with Ange’s strong arms bracing himself, Robert could shift that hold, reach around and grip his boy’s cock.
Long and hard in his hand, he enjoyed stroking it, feeling the tremor that went through Ange, head to toe.
“Master…I’m afraid I’ll make a mess…on your sofa.”
Christ, he’d forgotten. His Duncan Phyfe rolled arm sofa with wooden trim. Yeah, probably not a good idea to risk that, though if anything was worth it, Ange was.
He found the condom in his pocket he thankfully didn’t have to use on himself, and rolled it onto Ange. Then he started thrusting, enjoying every leisurely back and forth movement, the flex of Ange’s shoulders and back, the working of his buttocks against Robert’s pelvis. As the p
ulse beneath Robert’s clamp on Ange’s throat became more insistent, Ange’s head dropped, his body rippling.
“Let go,” Robert said, an unmistakable command, and his deepest wish. “I want to see you lose control.”
Ange had no choice but to oblige, and Robert closed his eyes in bliss as those muscles clamped down, Ange’s body rocking against him. The snow outside swirled against the windows from a sudden burst of wind. It disturbed the layer covering the roof deck, the tin roof over the outdoor bar. The moonlight found a clear spot in the metal to strike a reflection, as if a star had appeared right outside the window.
A soft cry broke from Ange’s throat, and Robert pressed forward even as he pulled Ange’s head back. Shifting his grip to the unruly hair, he tugged on it, brushed his open mouth over the stretched lips, teased them with his tongue. He collected all those sounds, the vibration, into himself, and let himself release as well, thrusting deeper, pushing Ange even harder against the side of the couch.
Ange lost his grip, his palm landing against the pane of the window behind the sofa. It left a steam-created outline when he grabbed the top again.
Slowly, they finished, bodies moving in an easy, rolling dance. Robert hadn’t expected that resurgence of intensity so soon after the store. He should be bone-tired, and maybe he was.
But perhaps that was something else he’d associated with his home. Tiredness. Oldness. He’d shrugged on their mantle every time he crossed the threshold.
Ange was proving both of those things were self-mind-fuck bullshit. Robert was thirty-seven years old, damn it. Not eighty. He was more than capable and strong enough, not only to keep up with his sub’s needs, but to keep that sub hopping to fulfill his Master’s.
It was a grizzly bear roar kind of revelation, one that had his hands tightening on Ange’s flesh. He bent, set his teeth to the top of a shoulder blade, giving Ange a sharp nip that held a promising threat, resulting in a satisfying shiver through Ange’s flexible body.
Then Robert recalled a more practical issue. “Hell. Hold still.”
He managed to shed his shirt and get it between their bodies, making sure when he pulled out, he had something to prevent the spill of his own seed from endangering the sofa or area rug. He used the pressure of his arm around Ange’s waist to move them a shaky step back, then another. As he sat on the coffee table, he pulled Ange’s fine ass down onto his lap. When he pressed his face to the center of Ange’s back, Ange’s fingers came up, covered Robert’s, now on his chest. Ange’s feet were braced between his spread ones.
“I didn’t plan this too well,” Robert said. “Now I have a couple wet things pressed to the table.”
“And not a coaster to be seen,” Ange said.
Robert started laughing. A good, from-the-gut sound. Second time tonight, and it seemed to please Ange just as much this time, because he turned his head fully to glance back at Robert with luminous eyes.
Robert tilted his head toward the glass doors that led to his rooftop deck. Next to them was the window where he could still see the faint smudge of Ange’s handprint. “I haven’t been out there since it started snowing. A perfectly pristine stage. You can dance again for me. The neighbors will get to watch.”
Ange had followed his gaze, resting his face against Robert’s jaw. But at Robert’s words, his green eyes became more pensive, his relaxed mouth slightly more tense. Robert might not have noticed it, except the body in his arms also felt less post-coital relaxed.
“I like dancing for you,” Ange said.
“But just for me,” Robert guessed.
“Yes, sir.”
Robert nuzzled the thick hair. He used the time to consider his next question, the obvious one. But just like examining the question of why he’d allowed time to come to a dismal halt in three-quarters of his house, he concluded it could be left alone, for now.
He’d also save the cast iron tub soak for later. He wanted to be in bed with his submissive. He gestured toward the bathroom. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll do the same in a minute.”
He got Ange started, lifting him up, letting his hands slide over the trim hips and firm ass, the upper thighs, but then he exercised a Master’s prerogative, lingering. Ange responded as a good submissive would, picking up the cue, holding off on obeying his order until Robert was done touching him.
If Robert’s cock had superpowers, it would stay hard all the time around the kid. But he could still enjoy the hell out of touching him while he was recharging. And doing more than that.
Robert turned Ange toward him. Ange’s hand dug into his bare shoulder when Robert carefully stripped the condom from him. He dropped it into the nest of his balled-up shirt on the coffee table. Then he leaned forward, putting his mouth over the still semi-erect organ to suck on it slow, tasting the remnants of Ange’s climax.
A half-moan came from Ange’s lips, and his hand moved from Robert’s shoulder to his short hair. It felt good, but so did other things.
Robert lifted his head, met Ange’s eyes with a stern Master look. “Hands behind your back.”
Ange performed the task with pleasurable reluctance, and Robert noted his command inspired a little kick in his sub’s temporarily depleted cock. Some subs enjoyed and craved the dominance mainly in the framework of the sex, the foreplay. Others needed and desired reinforcement of it, whether sex was happening or not.
Robert already knew Ange was the latter kind of sub, which worked well, since he was that kind of Master. He wanted a sub with a limitless hunger for evidence of Robert’s control.
Robert returned to a leisurely sucking and licking, exploring the area beneath the ridge. He curved his hand around the base, squeezing hard enough to make Ange’s toes curl into the floor, and then he backed off and gave it a slap that had Ange’s breath whistling through his teeth as he held his position.
“Now go clean yourself up. Then get into my bed.”
Joy flashed through Ange’s face. No matter the earlier cues, he still hadn’t assumed sharing Robert’s bed was a given.
On one hand, Robert liked that Ange was the type of sub who would never take any reward as a given. On the other, sometimes he reminded Robert of the neglected and abused pet who couldn’t quite trust he’d found himself a loving Master.
After Ange disappeared into the bathroom, Robert rose, tucking himself back into his boxers but leaving the jeans open as he went to his dresser. He studied the toy Ange had liked, ran his fingers over it. Stood there thinking a few minutes. Then he dug out two pairs of pajama bottoms, one with a drawstring that had half a chance of holding onto Ange’s lean waist. He put the garment on the foot of the bed.
“Do you want me to wear those?” Ange asked. He was back, the shadows and light etching curves of muscle.
“No,” Robert said. “Not right now. They’ll keep you warm when we get up for breakfast.”
He moved across the room, cupped Ange’s face, running a thumb along the sculpted jaw, the sharp cheekbone. “I’ll be right back.”
Robert dropped a hand to his waist, squeezed, then stepped into the bath. He pushed the door to the jamb but didn’t completely close it, giving himself enough privacy to do things that weren’t all that fabulous to do in front of a lover. A smile touched his lips as Robert heard Ange winding the baker toy. From the sounds that followed, Robert guessed he was letting it roll across the area rug and then clack across the wood floor, until it bumped against the wall.
“Wow, it still works,” he heard Ange say.
“Yeah. Someone took good care of it, didn’t let the original clockwork get corroded.” He paused, glancing at himself in the mirror. He saw a man with sharp brown eyes, a body in good shape, posture straight and strong, hands half curled, wanting to take. He liked what he saw. “It was the first valuable collectible I bought.”
Robert had taken the other pair of pajama bottoms into the bath with him, so when he emerged, he wore only those. Ange had picked up the toy and was putting it back on the dresser.
As he faced Robert, Robert’s gaze coursed over all the bare flesh and graceful male beauty. Ange was standing in profile to him, so that moonlight gleam on his flank and the round of his shoulder, his dirty-blond hair, the smooth pelt of it over his dangling cock, made a picture.
“Here’s my most recent valuable acquisition,” he said quietly. Ange’s sensuous lips pressed into a line. He was looking at Robert, too, his green eyes coursing over Robert’s chest and arms and flashing with a hunger that went beyond sex.
They were likely both done with that for a while, but this was a different kind of hunger, one that had an answer in Robert’s heartbeat against the wall of his chest.
He glanced toward the toy. “You like it.”
Ange nodded. “It’s like the secret code to a kids’ clubhouse. Something that says we’re here, and we know about each other.”
“Way I’ve always thought about it, too. Probably a big part of why I hang onto it rather than selling it.”
At Ange’s chuckle, Robert’s smile left his face. Ange cocked his head. “What, Master?” he asked.
“I know you’re a grown man, Ange, but there are two times in particular when I know it. First, when you laugh. It’s there, rich and deep.” Robert crossed the room to him, and his gaze dipped. “Second, when I see you naked.”
Ange’s lips curved, the gesture sensual and yearning at once. “I feel like both man and boy with you. Because it feels like you need both. And I want that.”
“That’s another way you prove your age. You’ve seen enough, experienced enough, to know the things we learn as adults.” Robert’s gaze touched on the toys on the dresser. “Even though we never fully leave behind the kid inside us.”
Two things humans have always done…Kill one another, and make toys for our kids. That’s pretty much all there is to say about us.
But a whole hell of a lot of things existed between those two points of a human’s existence. Robert slid his hands to Ange’s waist, thumbs caressing as he tightened his fingers over it. He moved them to the back, cupped his ass, and brought him up full against him, uttering a growling moan against Ange’s lips as their cocks rubbed. Ange opened to him, let him take over. They swayed together, and Robert immersed himself in the kiss, tongues playing while he nipped at Ange’s lips. His demand was urgent enough to get the kid going, his cock trying hard to come back to life. Robert took his time, savoring, but eventually he drew back and shot him a hard look.
