Chapter 32

Rafael freezes his face and goes very still to keep from doing anything stupid, like rushing at Sandgren in a suicidal rage. Rich turns his head enough to look at the man sidelong, then reaches out and taps a few piano keys, the corners of his mouth starting to turn up; a brave shadow of his usual arrestingly wicked little smirk.

“Like my playing, sir?” he asks.

“That wasn’t your playing,” Sandgren snaps. “You warned him off!”

“Who, sir?” Rich says, with a transparent innocence over equally transparent nerves. “I was just messin’ around.”

“You think I don’t know when a whore’s lyin’ to me?!” Sandgren says, and strides forward. “I’ll show you messing around. Arthur may pamper you at every step, but I’m not as forgiving. Get your pants open.”

Rich’s jaw raises and his shoulders square, and Rafael doesn’t miss how he holds himself to his full, massive height, towering over Sandgren like a fortress as he mutely follows orders.

“You and this freak cock of yours,” Sandgren growls, pulling a small tube of something out of his pocket, and then, even more worryingly, a disposable polymer glove. “We’ll see how you like this.”

“Sir, yessir,” Rich says, determinedly polite, and then his whole huge body quakes when Sandgren slaps him right where very few men want to be slapped. “Fuck!”

“Hold still, boy,” Sandgren tells him, and gets the glove on, then squeezes the tube over Rich’s dick. He rubs a disturbingly bright green cream briskly into the pale skin, which quickly reddens. Rich gives a low, choking growl and shifts his weight, his hands clenching by his sides.

“Not done with you yet, you oversized mongrel,” Sandgren says, still ruthlessly rubbing Rich’s hardening shaft, and he pulls a pair of bright metal beads out of his pocket. He sets them to either side of the crown, and Rich staggers back against the piano with a shocked snarl and a discord of keys, his eyes wide and horrified, as they start to vibrate with an audible buzz.

Rafael jerks with the impulse to go to him, but if he gets between them he’ll catch Sandgren’s attention, and all Rafael’s masks are in disarray right now. He won’t be able to hide how much he hates the man, won’t be able to look meek and obedient, and if Sandgren touches him he might go for the man’s throat. It’s hard enough to control himself watching the man torment Rich.

“Not so tough now, are you?” Sandgren says, and Rich makes a terrible noise, a shuddering rumble. His dick’s flushed a dark, angry red already beneath the glistening sheen of lubrication, the vibrating beads shining against the slick flesh, and precome wells up from the head unnaturally fast.

“Yeah, look at you, already drooling for it.” Sandgren steps forward and collects it on his slick gloved fingers, and Rich gives that awful shudder of a sound again, and then again when Sandgren thrusts the dripping mess on his fingers into Rich’s slack mouth, pumping them roughly in and out.

“That’s right, clean it all up,” Sandgren says, fingers still working against Rich’s tongue. “One of these days I’ll have you on my cock, soldier boy. Stick you like a pig and listen to you howl. For now I’m going to leave you to beg and slobber at the boss’s feet, see how long he feels like letting you squirm.”

He withdraws his fingers, wipes them on Rich’s shirt, and turns on his heel. He shoves Rafael as he leaves, almost casually, but then he’s gone and Rafael can rush to Rich’s side, heart pounding with fear and leftover rage. Rich is still leaned back against the piano, green eyes gone dark and unfocused, dick jutting urgently out of his open pants. It’s dripping precome in thick, continuous pulses, swollen up huge and dark red, veins visibly pulsing, and Rafael isn’t sure how Rich is going to fit it back in his pants.

“What can I do?” Rafael asks helplessly.

“Uh, mmn,” Rich grunts, and runs his hand over his face, obviously trying to focus. “Nothing, I guess. We gotta—work, we gotta wait for the boss, he might not be up yet… We can’t just go wake him up for this. Fuck.”

No, even this anguish isn’t worth the risk of one of Carraway’s violent awakenings. “Can you walk?” Rafael asks. “I can go wait for him, bring him here when he comes—”

“No, I’m, I can make it,” Rich says, pushing himself upright and staggering a little. “My mouth’s burning, what the fuck was that stuff…” He’s breathing hard, and Rafael puts a hand on his arm, wishing he could do more.

Rich tries to get his dick back in his pants, only to find them too tightly-fitted to fasten again. He struggles with it for a minute, then shudders and slumps down on a duvet with a thunderous creak, hunching in on himself in misery and gripping the back of his neck for a few long, ragged breaths.

“Fuck,” he mumbles. “I can’t just walk around like this, I’ll. I could, a wrap or s’thing. D’n wanna scare anybody. Make ‘em think I’m gonna…”

Of course that would be his concern. Passing through the world so deeply aware of his own fearful countenance… but considering their proximity to Carraway’s office, and his love of seeing his boys in exactly such extremity, there’s little to be done at the moment.

“I’m afraid Carraway will expect you dressed as… landside men do,” Rafael reminds him, and Rich groans and paws uselessly at the catch of his pants again, winces and then wrings his hands, looking helplessly to Rafael. “I don’t believe we’ll run across any other unfortunates on our path to his office.”

“Fuck,” says Rich, and looks down at himself again, then around, then up to the ceiling. “Fuck. ‘Kay. So, we. So let’s… I guess we might as well go in ‘n get this over with.”

“Yes,” Rafael says, and then hesitates, as Rich begins to stand. “Wait. How did you know Omar was here? I doubt even Sol could have heard him from that distance.”

“Sandgren’s rings auto-connected to back up data onna security access node down the hall from Omar’s cuffs, headed his way,” Rich says, incomprehensibly, and waves a hand up and about, toward the mansion as a whole. “So she lemme know.”

“She?” Rafael says.

“The mansion.”

Rafael has to stop for a moment to process that. When he speaks, he’s proud that his voice is very steady.

“You’re spying on him?” he says. “You can track people around the manor?”

“I’m not spying. Whatever he does in his berth is his own damn business. I mean, I could maybe see what he’s up to on his screens in there, if I wanted to, but I’m not some kinda weirdo—”

“Does—” Rafael starts, and then glances back at the door and lowers his voice. They haven’t much time before they’re expected in the office, and if Carraway’s there early for once, he’ll most certainly take note if Rich is late. “Does Carraway know of this?”

“No?” Rich says, with a reassuring bewilderment. “I mean, he knows I get in Sandgren’s way, I bet—”

“How much power do you have over this place?”

“Power over—I mean, I don’t, man, and I’m not…” Rich shifts, winces again and reaches down to rub gingerly at the hard red line of his arousal. “I’m not some kinda admin, okay? If I was, I wouldn’t hafta haul this much ass just to keep the first mate from hurting everyone all the damn time. But really I’m just fixing stuff up. That’s all he’ll see, is me fixing stuff up.”

They must go. Rafael has no time at all to press the man about this. But if Rich has invented some sort of tracking system, hidden it inside Carraway’s very walls—God’s wounds, Sam went only as far as to talk to the wrong people and speak of the wrong things, he certainly had no means to track Carraway’s sergeant or interfere with him, and even he was swiftly and crushingly put to an end.

“Well, today, you mustn’t,” Rafael says. He speaks with an authority he isn’t at all sure he carries, but Rich winces meekly with the chastisement. “Whatever work you’ve assigned yourself, put it aside today.”

“But why?” says Rich, as bewildered as a child. “It’s my job to do stuff like this, to fix things up around here, to optimize his systems. Why the hell would he blow up when I’m just doing my damn job—?”

“Because it is not your job to foil his lieutenant’s designs in his very seat of power!” Rafael snaps, and then glances back at the door and brings himself painfully back under control, fighting to neither raise his voice nor whisper. Soft and steady, a tone none would take note of if they happened to pass by. “Rich. This mansion has been a graveyard of meaningless volumes for decades, because he’s never bothered to take a book from the shelf. Do you think that was a fluke? We boytoys are not tools, we are not employees, his delight is to reduce us to helpless ornamentation. To repair, to re-order his mansion is to demand some measure of power over it, you must understand what a danger that is! You can’t just… work against him… ”

There’s no time for this, yet Rich is frowning at him in something very much like outrage, as though the concept of enforced uselessness is utterly incomprehensible to him.

“Are you saying,” Rich says, and pauses as though he’s lost the words. Blinks a few times, then begins again, tentatively, “Are you really saying he’d be mad if he found out that, what, I know how to use an AI interface, that I’m fixing things? He likes everything fucked up?”

“Yes,” Rafael says softly. Then adds, “I’m sorry.”

Rich stares at nothing, frowning. “Fuck,” he mutters, and rubs both hands over his face, and then over his hair and down to link across the back of his neck. He sucks in a breath and looks up at Rafael with wide-eyed distress. “I can’t stop, though. I won’t let him find out, it’ll be fine, I just, I can’t. He cut my implants, Raf. I don’t think you get how fucked up that is, how bad he broke me. He closed off half my fucking brain, and no one cares, no one gets it! I can’t even explain to anyone here how much less there is of me now! But if I just lie down and take it I’m never going to get up again. I have to keep going, okay? I have to keep working. That’s all I have left of who I’m supposed to be.”

Rafael has no recourse, in the face of that: Rich’s desperation, his horror, his stubborn determination. His heart claws at him so sharply it stings at his eyes.

“You must be careful,” he says, and steps forward to reach out, to touch Rich’s cheek—to command his attention or to beg his agreement, he isn’t even sure. He coaxes, “Promise me you’ll be circumspect. If he sees you as a spy, a usurper, as a threat… better slow now than sorry later, yes?”

Rich huffs softly, looking away like he’s none too sure of that. “Okay,” he says nonetheless. “Promise, I’m not a threat, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get any crazy ideas about that.”

It’s not much of a reassurance, but Rafael can no more order Rich’s actions than he can redirect the stars, and it would distress them both to try, especially when Rich is so deeply distraught already. Rafael takes a steadying breath, his fingertips lingering against the deepening flush of Rich’s cheek, then he steps away to offer a hand instead, beckoning Rich to his feet. Rafael could no more support the man’s weight than he could lift the moon, but he sticks close by Rich’s side, and together they limp along in the direction of Carraway’s office.

“Omar’s playing truly is lovely,” Rafael says, as they walk. “It’s a shame, to have such a beautiful talent, and to be punished whenever it’s used. I can find any out-of-the-way corner to tumble or juggle, Sol can hide his swordplay where he likes. But there’s only one piano in the compound, I think. I didn’t even know it could be played.”

Rich sighs. “Yeah, I had to get it calibrated, when I heard Omar complaining that it hadn’t been taken care of. He was pleased once I did, though. I don’t think he knew it was me who fixed it, I can be sneaky when I want to.” He shifts again, stride hitching, his flushed arousal bobbing distractingly out before him, and rumbles discontentedly. “I don’t think Carraway wants things to be useless like on purpose, he’s not actually crazy. He just… doesn’t care about anything past whether it looks good or not. And I guess the piano looked fine.”

“The point of all ornament is uselessness,” Rafael says, trying to phrase something he’s never had to explain to anyone before. “Clothes that you can’t move in, because you don’t have to labor. Land given over to nothing more than flowers, because you don’t need to farm. Mansions full of empty books because you don’t need to read, and toys you don’t need to keep wound, because you can just throw them away and get something newer once they displease.” He shakes his head and considers Rich’s flushed, intently focused face, the self-contained contradiction of him. “I know you need something to occupy yourself with, but… Rich, this isn’t your home. This is your prison. Why are you polishing the bars of your own cage?”

Rich’s thoughtful look shifts to open astonishment. “Uh, because I live in this cage, man! You don’t sink a ship to spite the captain!”

“But,” Rafael begins, then falls immediately silent, cursing his unguarded tongue, as they round the corner to see a towering figure in brown, black and gold, looking expectantly down the hallway toward them.

“Mornin’, you pretty little things,” says Carraway, looking amused by their startlement—and then even more amused, yellow eyes sharp and intrigued, by Rich’s very visible arousal. “So you’re the one who fixed up that old piano, treasure? I ought to have guessed.”

“Sir! Yessir!” Rich says, standing up straight and then gasping softly. Rafael’s eyes drop briefly to his barely-constrained erection to see it twitching. “I, how much did you—I mean, I didn’t think you’d mind, honest, I just, I wanted—you should have stuff that works, I don’t get why you wouldn’t want that!”

“I do like things to be beautiful just for the sake of showing them off,” Carraway says, strolling slowly forward, looking Rich over. “But there’s nothing wrong with you working to make what I’ve got even prettier, and sweet thing, you are looking good enough to eat today. What’s got you so ready to play? Has our little shadow had some unauthorized fun with you?”

“No, sir! No, he’d never, you know he’s good. It was Sandgren.”

“Sergeant Sandgren to you, darlin’,” Carraway says.

“Yeah, Sergeant Sandgren, sorry, sir. I ran into Sergeant Sandgren, sir. He… put some stuff on me, some weird lube and some vibrating beads, and I got all,” Rich waves at himself, bashfully apologetic. “Turned on. Uh. Can, can you take the things off, sir, maybe? Please?”

“Show me,” Carraway says, indolent and hungry.

There’s very little more to show that he can’t easily see already, but Rich has been captive here long enough to understand the order. He blushes even more brightly, and his eyes fall self-consciously away as he reaches down to frame what’s been done to him with a huge hand. Carraway makes a soft, hungry sound, considering it, considering Rich, and then laughs quietly and shakes his head.

“Well, I can’t say you’ll be good for much more than decoration today,” he says. “Will knows I don’t like you boys on just any of my… special imports, without permission. Makes you much too distracted.” He reaches out and traces the curved back of a silver claw along the line of Rich’s dick, watching with relish as Rich gasps and shudders, caught between miserable flinching and the captive twitch of his hips for more. “But if you were giving my sergeant trouble, sugar, he’s got every right to give you a treatment or two to get you in a more congenial state of mind. We’ll see how you feel at lunch.” He turns away, padding away through the door of his office, and Rich and Rafael perforce follow in his wake.

“But sir,” Rich starts, “I didn’t—”

“Ah—” Carraway holds up a hand, cutting him off sharply, and sits down behind his desk. “I’ve said my piece, treasure, you mind your manners. Now, why don’t we see what we can do with you and your little apprentice, hm? Go ahead and take those off. Shirt, too. Cleaning staff can pick it all up later.”

Rich grimaces, but folds his clothes and leaves them on the couch inside the door, neatly squared with the couch cushions. Then he takes his place behind his own desk and dutifully opens his screens.

Work goes poorly: Rich’s concentration is absolutely shattered by his unrelenting state of arousal, Rafael is distracted by Rich, and Carraway is in a particularly cruel, playful mood. For all his tsking and head-shaking about Sandgren’s misuse of his drugs, Carraway clearly enjoys the outcome too much to be angry, as Sandgren doubtless knew he would. The man is a snake and a sadist and constantly pushes the boundaries Carraway places on him, but above all of that he’s a master of knowing how far is too far. Despite every overstep and stolen liberty, Rafael could count on a hand the times he’s seen Sandgren receive any amount of chastisement, to Rafael’s deep and abiding frustration. And chief of those times, that single dreadful time, much too little and too late.

Carraway is hardly inclined to rein Sandgren in for today’s transgression, not when it has Rich slumped and panting at his seat, flushing ever more vividly pink with frustrated need and hanging on Carraway’s every word and gesture. The man has Rich touch himself slowly with faltering, unsteady hands, has Rafael come and kiss him until he’s shaking and teary, has Rafael touch Rich, trailing his fingers up and down the desperately hot, gleaming length of Rich’s shaft, toying with the buzzing, tingling beads set at his crown, tracing the slick glide of his precome as he drips, until Rich is cursing and begging and undone beneath him and Rafael is nearly mad with wanting him. But neither of them are allowed any true relief, and so by the time Carraway deems it time for a lunch break, Rich is slumped ragged and gasping senselessly in his chair, running wet with sweat and precome, ruined with desperation, and Rafael doesn’t feel much more collected.

“Please, sir,” Rich begs hopelessly, for the thousandth time, “please can I come yet? It hurts, I need, please.”

“You’re doing just fine, sugar,” Carraway says. “Say, did Will treat your mouth, when he caught you earlier?”

“I don’t—treat?” Rich shakes his head, dazed and slow. “What?”

“That cream I gave him’s a sensitizer, it softens you boys up nicely,” Carraway says. “Not something I can just let any of you play around with, you understand, but a little here and there goes a long way. Did Will use it on your mouth?”

“Oh, he—yeah, he sorta—he had his fingers in my mouth, I guess,” Rich says, vague and slurring with confusion, and raises his fingers absently to touch the flushed pink of his lips. “It feels—I mean, ‘s all so much sir, it all feels—so good, I mean, I really need to come, can I please come? I’ve been so good for you, I swear!”

“If you really were good then Will wouldn’t have had any reason to catch you, now, would he?” Carraway asks, and smiles a terrible, sharp-toothed smile at Rich’s desolate groan. “Come here, sugar. Let me see what he’s done to that sweet mouth of yours.”

Rich stumbles up from his seat and gets over to Carraway, sinking down to kneel in front of him. Carraway is already undoing his belt, and Rich has obviously realized he has no chance of receiving mercy until the man gets what he wants, because he’s already leaning eagerly in, moaning faintly as the man takes his mouth.

Rafael has not been ordered to come help with this, so he has no choice but to stay where he is, trying to keep his eyes straight ahead, gaze dragged ever away by the harsh, desperate way Rich’s hips jerk and rock against nothing, one hand trembling faintly on Carraway’s pant leg, the other gripped to the side of the chair. The sound of faint, wet noises and Rich’s constant, needy moans may force Rafael’s body to react despite himself, but he has no intention of letting Carraway catch him looking. The man doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.

He’s steadfastly focused on his screen, aimlessly re-entering data into the same ten rows of a spreadsheet again and again, when Rich’s moaning breaks abruptly into a sharp and startled whimper. Rafael looks up in alarm, to see Rich shuddering in quick, convulsive waves, coming untouched across the floor—and without permission.

Rafael goes still with horror, heart shooting up into his throat. It doesn’t matter how little choice Rich had, it doesn’t matter if he couldn’t speak to ask, Carraway has sent his boys to Sandgren for less.

Carraway doesn’t look upset, though—startled, and slightly amused, but not angry. He reaches down and takes Rich’s jaw, lifts his face and considers him indulgently.

“Guess that answers that question, now, doesn’t it?” he says, and presses a thumb into Rich’s mouth, getting a shaky moan, then strokes his lower lip. “You like that, doll?”

“I, yeah,” Rich gasps, and shivers, his dick still twitching and dripping as the aftershocks of his climax roll through him. “Ss, sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know.” He pauses, gasping raggedly, and moans again as Carraway keeps toying with his lips. “I’ve never, I mean I’ve always, haah, I’ve—sir, please, I liked using my mouth, always—please, it’s never been so much, so good, please, I’m gonna—think I’m gonna come again—”

“Very interesting,” says Carraway with relish, and keeps stroking at him, possessive and pleased. “We might have to keep working on that, doll, that’s downright delightful, a little oral fixation fixed right up to be even better for everyone.” He rumbles softly, pulls his fingers free and takes a handful of Rich’s hair instead—not pulling, but pressing Rich’s head inexorably back down. “You’re lucky I’m not done with your beautiful mouth just yet, sweetheart, or I might have the time to be strict about the rules. Let’s put you back to work, mm?”

Rich gasps an incoherent agreement, and Rafael pulls his gaze away as the quiet sounds begin again of Rich doing his best to please. He must be working hard, because it’s not long before Carraway gives a low, pleased snarl and pulls him in closer, his grip turning firm and unyielding on the back of Rich’s neck and holding him until Carraway has finished.

When Rich sits back, panting, he’s as aroused as ever, his dick still swollen and red and running slick with need, his eyes glassy and dark, insensate. Carraway does nothing to address it; he’s sitting back in his chair, the broad expanse of his chest rising and falling in heavy, measured breaths, and he seems little inclined to shift himself any time soon, while Rich gasps and shivers and drips steadily onto the floor.

“Sir,” Rich says unsteadily, voice a nearly incoherent slur, “can, um, can you take the beads off, at least? Please?”

“Mm?” says Carraway vaguely, and then rouses himself and straightens, adjusting his clothing, smoothing back some imaginary hair out of place. “I can if you’d like, doll, but I think you might not want me to. I‘d like to see you come just from using your mouth again, I think.”

“Oh,” Rich says miserably. “Yessir, should I…?” he reaches again for Carraway’s fly, and Carraway chuckles and gently intercepts his hand, directing it away.

“No, no,” he says, to Rich’s expression of worried incomprehension, and ruffles a hand through Rich’s hair, fond and condescending. “As much as I adore your work ethic, treasure, I think…” and he looks up and catches Rafael’s gaze, pinning him to his chair with that golden, predatory stare.

“Enjoying the show over there, sweet thing?” says Carraway.

There’s no point in lying. Besides, Rafael knows what the man is thinking and he can’t bring himself to make any attempt to avoid it—can’t keep his eyes off Rich’s pink, swollen lips as he turns to look as well, his dark eyes lost in need. Rafael licks his own lips and nods, barely remembering to murmur a deferential yes, sir, very much.

“There,” says Carraway, with grand and satisfied generosity, and waves a hand. “Go on, treasure. Don’t go too easy on him, now. He never does get much louder than a mouse, but at least he makes a pretty picture when he starts gettin’ desperate.”

“I think he’s pretty all the time, sir,” Rich says vaguely, pushing up to stand braced against the great oak desk, swaying for a moment as though his legs don’t want to bear his weight. He remembers himself a moment later and looks slowly back at Carraway. “You have really good taste.”

“So I’ve been told,” Carraway says, with intolerable smugness, and turns his chair as Rich comes unsteadily over to Rafael, kneeling before him instead.

“Hey,” Rich says softly, smiling up at Rafael. There’s a ravenous, overstimulated hunger to his gaze, but his hands are still so gentle as he strokes them up Rafael’s thighs, silently asking leave. Rafael scrabbles at the fastening of his pants in answer, dragging them open to bare himself to Rich’s appreciative eyes.

“Nice,” Rich murmurs, and leans in to swallow him down.

Rafael has been given no instructions, isn’t sure what’s expected of him here—he rocks his hips uncertainly into the sweet warmth of Rich’s mouth, and Rich gives a soft moan and presses into it, so Rafael gives himself leave to repeat the gesture, at least. To shift minutely and moan and let Rich have his way with him.

“Help him out, shadow, there’s a good boy,” says Carraway lazily, “let him know you’re havin’ fun,” and Rafael fights his eyes open to glance over, already panting, heart thumping against his ribs. Carraway is watching them—not touching himself, but drinking the picture in, settled back in his chair like some ancient emperor engrossed in his favorite bloodsport. Rafael meets his eyes for a split second and then drags his gaze away again, down to Rich’s bowed head. He can’t reach much, but he can curl forward in the seat and cup Rich’s head in his hands, stroke his fingers gently through thick, blood-red hair and pet the rims of Rich’s ears.

Rich’s next muffled moan is louder, and he shivers under Rafael’s hands, pressing forward eagerly for more as he swallows and sucks. His hips twitch and rock against thin air and he takes Rafael with the shameless greed of a starving man. He’s always sucked dick like he was genuinely enjoying it, but now there’s a raw, frantic desperation to him, huge hands trembling on Rafael’s thighs.

Rafael longs for the privacy to do more, to tell Rich how wonderful it feels and how beautiful he looks like this, artlessly hungry, pleasing himself with Rafael’s body. But Carraway’s eyes are on him and all he can do is shiver and give mute, soundless little cries. The faintest gasps of please and yes and Rich and no more than that.

Rich’s mouth must be rendered sensitive indeed, because even as urgency begins to coil hot and sweet up Rafael’s spine, Rich suddenly pulls off him and gasps, “Sir, I’m gonna come, please, can I—?”

“Very interesting,” Carraway says as if to himself, and gives Rich a slow nod. “That’s fine, doll. Whenever you like.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rich says, and dives back onto Rafael’s dick, working his mouth up and down fast and smooth and moaning around it. It takes a handful of seconds before he’s shuddering, mouth gone slack as he finds his climax, shooting untouched across the floor once more in long, heavy jolts that go on and on.

After an astonishing amount of time he finally pulls off to gasp for breath, throwing Rafael an apologetic look, then a grateful one at Carraway. “Thank you, sir,” he says again, a wet hoarse mumble through bruise-dark lips, and a scant heartbeat later he’s going back to work, whining very quietly to himself and shuddering all over at each stroke of his glorious mouth along Rafael’s length, drawing Rafael along rapidly towards his own peak with a focused skill and intensity that feels like being poured full of molten gold, boiling-hot and transcendent.

And still Carraway watches. Rafael has been at the mercy of the man’s hands and has helped tease and torture Rich for his amusement, but to be the only target of his interest as he used to be, once upon a time when he was new, threads a strange panic through the growing arousal. Rafael can’t stop trembling, pinned between the welcome pleasure and the merciless stare, coming closer to the edge and growing more frantic with every breath he takes. Too aware of every cry that’s too soft, that Rich is doing so well and Carraway could punish him for underperforming because of Rafael’s inadequacy, that Rafael’s freezing with the fear of the thought and making it worse—

“Please, sir,” he pants, as the pleasure and panic rise like battering waves. “Sir, please, may I, oh. Please…”

Rich blinks blindly up at him, utterly lost in his own torment of ecstasy, and only belatedly slows down at Rafael’s firm push to his forehead. He pauses, then turns his head just enough to look hopefully over at Carraway without even pulling entirely off.

Carraway seems hardly to notice the look until Rafael’s hand obscures his view of Rich’s panting, teary face; when he does, he gives a growl of a laugh and waves a hand in careless allowance. Rafael takes a shaking breath that catches into a helpless sob of relief, hand softening on Rich’s scalp, and Rich moans in answering pleasure and presses into the touch, then takes immediate advantage of the allowance to go all the way back down on Rafael with fierce delight, fucking his own throat with ferocious, unstoppable strength.

The relief and the renewed pleasure are more together than Rafael can bear. He spasms helplessly, arching up away from his chair, and comes in a long, sweet rush, shaking apart under Rich’s care.

“Thank you, sir,” he gasps before he’s managed to stop trembling. And more softly, “And thank you—Rich, thank you.”

Rich sucks at his softening length a last few times, almost compulsively, then finally wrenches himself back and smiles up at Rafael ruefully, almost apologetically. Then he looks down at himself and over at Carraway, pleading and hopeful, the whole huge span of his frame still wracked with pitiful little shivers and the overspent length of his dick still half-raised, still dark and throbbing with the unrelenting stimulation of the vibrating beads.

“Sir? Could, maybe, can I have the things off now?”

His voice is beautiful and broken, rough deep pieces cut with a high, hoarse, rasping whine. Carraway gives an immediate nod, gold eyes darkening, and he smiles with a terrible pride as Rich climbs unsteadily to his feet, his knees visibly shaking as he picks his way slowly, gingerly towards his master.

Left alone, Rafael takes a moment to slump back and catch his breath. The remnants of the frantic panic are still there, fading more slowly than the pleasure they came with, and he can only hope desperately that Carraway will have lost interest in pursuing the last few hours of his paltry workday.

He is, of course, not so lucky. Carraway’s eyes only darken further and the corners of his lips tip upwards in self-satisfaction as he removes each vibrating bead from Rich’s flesh and then rubs that flesh in a possessive parody of tenderness. The lunch portion of lunch is next, and Carraway has Rich kneel by his side once more, feeds him an overladen charcuterie board morsel by morsel off his fingertips, teasing and pressing and drawing him along until Rich is driven to another wrenching, shattering climax that leaves him witless with shock and confusion. Then he’s teased with a desert course of a dozen little chocolates, and an intricately involved production of syrupy liqueurs he has to lick from dainty cut-glass tumblers, and another round of attending Carraway’s own renewed arousal.

By the time Carraway determines that it’s time to return to work, Rich isn’t fit to answer to his own name, much less walk a straight line. He has to be poured back into his own seat by Carraway himself, blank-eyed and baffled, the sharp-eyed and startling man Rafael loves turned to a moaning, mumbling beast.

Carraway doesn’t dismiss them for a matter of hours, delighting in Rich’s mindless, needy ruin as Rafael struggles to keep his own head well enough to play-act at the work Carraway himself has abandoned. By the time he decides they’ve gotten enough done for the day and retires, Rafael is a single taut, raw nerve, pulled to the breaking point and vibrating with useless tension.

Rich doesn’t look any better, still overwrought from the exhaustion of too many shattering climaxes in too little time to recover, and yet still too desperate with relentless desire to rest. The sensitizing cream that Sandgren dosed him with has kept him helplessly pinned at the very peak of arousal, even without further mechanical stimulation, and his dick has flushed over the course of the afternoon from a raw red to a worryingly taut, swollen red-violet, his balls just as bruise-dark and overfull as he’s drawn from one irresistible climax to the next.

“You boys play nice, now, without me,” Carraway tells them as he takes his leave. He reaches down and gives Rich’s dick a sudden, sharp squeeze, then chuckles as Rich grunts in shock and comes all along his arm. “Clean that up for me, sweetheart? Thanks.”

The man lingers until Rich has licked every drop off his arm, his hand, his fingers, and says, “I can trust you not to make a mess of things, can’t I, treasure? If I let you ride this out however you like.”

“Yessir,” Rich says, hoarse and helpless, his voice an utter ruin. “I’d, I wanna clean up, shower…”

“Good boy. Don’t tell Will I went this soft on you. He’d only fuss.” Carraway gives him a wink, and gets a rough, disbelieving little rumble of a laugh from Rich that seems to please him immensely. He drops a kiss to Rich’s damp red hair and strolls jauntily out of the office, obviously well-satisfied with the day.