Crooked Truce

“May I touch your cock?”

“Yes.”

Euan freed him from his trousers and underwear, leaving the collar and cuffs in place. His hand closed around Niall’s erection. The response was immediate; Niall’s knees spread beneath him, and his cuffed hands shifted against the strap.

“Good,” Euan said. “You asked.”

Niall made an awkward little laugh.

Euan stopped. “What is it?”

“That sounded terribly tender.”

“It was meant to.”

Niall laughed again, red to his ears. “I had expected something more formal.”

“I can issue a numbered instruction if you require it.”

“No.” He looked down at Euan, a crooked pleasure breaking through his embarrassment. “Please do not.”

“Then listen.” Euan kept his hand around him, moving with slow restraint. “You do not need to make a convincing display. You only need to tell me what feels right.”

Niall’s eyes closed. “I want to be prepared.”

“With my fingers?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want your cuffs left as they are?”

“Yes. But put something under my hands. I do not want them pressed into the platform.”

“That is well asked.”

Euan helped him turn. Niall knelt facing the padded bench, forearms supported on a folded towel so the strap did not bite. His collar buckle gleamed at the nape of his neck. Euan checked the position of both wrists, then reached for the lubricant.

“May I put this on you?”

“Yes.”

The first touch was cool. Niall made a small sound and pressed his forehead to his own bound hands. Euan waited until the tension left his shoulders.

“Still good?”

“Yes.”

Euan eased one lubricated finger into him, no farther than Niall’s body accepted without protest. He remained there, patient as a man checking the settling of foundations.

“Tell me what you feel.”

“Pressure. Not pain.” Niall breathed out slowly. “I want more.”

“Another finger?”

“Yes.”

Euan added it with care, moving only when Niall’s body softened around him. He worked him open gradually, asking at every change, checking the collar had not shifted, checking the cuffs had left no mark. Niall answered each question. Sometimes the answer was only yes. Sometimes he supplied more.

“Turn your hand a little,” he said once. “The left wrist is beginning to pull.”

Euan adjusted the towel at once. “Better?”

“Much.”

“That correction matters.”

Niall gave a strained little laugh. “You make it sound like a professional accomplishment.”

“It is.”

When Euan judged him ready, he withdrew his hand and reached for a condom. Niall looked back over his shoulder.

“I want you to fuck me,” he said.

Euan held the condom where Niall could see it. “Do you want me inside you with this on?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to begin now?”

“Yes, sir.”

Euan rolled the condom on and added more lubricant. He positioned himself behind Niall, one hand resting at his hip.

“First movement,” he said. “Tell me at once if you want it to stop.”

Niall lowered himself onto his forearms. “I will.”

Euan entered him slowly. Niall went still at the first pressure, his mouth open against the towel, then let out a long breath as Euan eased farther in. The room seemed reduced to small, essential sounds: leather creasing, the faint shift of knees on padded vinyl, rain against distant glass.

“Pause,” Niall said.

Euan stopped at once.

Niall stayed there, breathing carefully. After several moments, he looked back again. “Continue. Slowly.”

Euan did. He gave Niall time with every inch, keeping one hand at his hip, asking after each change.

“Still good?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

When he was fully inside, he did not move until Niall asked him to.

“Please,” Niall said. “Move.”

Euan began with a shallow rhythm. Niall’s body received him in gradual increments, tension turning into something looser and more generous. Euan reached beneath him only after asking.

“May I touch your cock?”

“Yes.”

His hand closed around Niall again. The rhythm changed as he stroked him, each motion answering the other. Niall’s bound hands clenched around the joining strap, then relaxed when Euan reminded him that he could use them to signal.

“You are doing well,” Euan said. “Not because you guessed. Because you told me.”

Niall made a broken sound that became a laugh, embarrassed even now. “That is unfairly effective.”

“I will record the finding.”

“Do not dare.”

Euan’s mouth curved. “Do you want more?”

Niall looked back, face flushed, eyes bright. “Yes. Deeper. And faster.”

“Say it once more.”

“I want you deeper. I want you faster.”

Euan gave him exactly that. His hand worked Niall’s cock in time with the movements of his hips. Niall’s body tightened around him, then yielded, every response clear enough that Euan could follow it without needing to invent a meaning.

“Cairn remains available,” Euan said.

“I know.” Niall’s words broke apart as pleasure overtook their shape. “I am here. Keep going.”

Euan kept going. Niall came first, spilling over Euan’s hand with a cry that echoed sharply from the tiled walls. His body shook beneath the cuffs. Euan held him upright by the hips, slowing only when Niall said, “No, stay.”

The request undid something in Euan.

He drove into him a few more times, each one deliberate, then came inside the condom with his hand firm at Niall’s waist. He stayed close until the force of it passed. When he withdrew, he did so slowly, giving Niall time to adjust.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes.” Niall’s face was turned into the towel. “Very all right.”

Euan disposed of the condom, washed his hands at the small basin, and returned with a clean cloth and water. “May I undo the joining strap?”

“Yes.”

“One cuff at a time?”

“Yes. Leave the collar.”

He released the strap first, then unbuckled Niall’s wrists. Red marks circled the skin, already fading. Euan checked Niall’s fingers for colour and movement, massaged each wrist gently, and helped him sit back against the bench.

“Any numbness?”

“No.”

“Sharp pain?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“A little.”

“Water first, then something sweet.”

Niall accepted the cup in both freed hands. Euan put a small packet of shortbread beside him and drew the wool blanket over his shoulders. Niall looked at the cloth, then at the collar still fastened around his throat.

“I want this on for a while,” he said.

“It stays on.”

Euan sat beside him on the floor, close enough to reach him without crowding him. Niall ate half a biscuit, drank again, and rested his hand on the blanket.

“You praised me for choosing,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I think that may be the first praise that has not made me wonder what I missed.”

Euan considered him carefully. “Then you did not miss anything.”

Then you did not miss anything.

Niall considered that with the grave attention he had once given to the joining strap, as if Euan had offered him a small mechanism whose purpose required studying from every angle.

“I would like to sit somewhere that is not this room,” he said at last. “Not because I want away from you.”

“I understood.”

Euan helped him dress without making a ceremony of it. Shirt first, carefully guided around tender wrists; trousers; socks; the jacket left over one arm. The collar remained where it was, black beneath Niall’s open throat. When Euan asked whether he wanted it covered, Niall said no.

The pool hall received them in its great tiled quiet. Heated pipes beneath the old floor had taken the chill from the blue grid, though rain continued to fret at the high windows. The emptied basin descended beside them in pale steps, its lanes reduced to geometry. Niall sat at the shallow end with his shoes neatly together. Euan lowered himself beside him, shirt untucked, sleeves rolled once.

For a little while, they watched rain make silver runnels on the glass.

“I said I wanted service,” Niall began. “That is true. But I think I have used the word to conceal other things.”

Euan turned slightly toward him. “Go on.”

“I do not want someone who can read me.” Niall looked at his hands. The cuff marks had faded to thin red rings. “I want a dominant who waits for an answer. Even if it takes me time. Even if the pause is awkward. I want someone who would rather lose an evening than take a yes I have not managed to give.”

The admission left him exposed in a way nakedness had not. He expected Euan to refine it into something procedural, to make it safe through vocabulary.

Instead, Euan said, “That is reasonable.”

Niall gave a short laugh. “It sounds rather large to me.”

“It is large. That does not make it unreasonable.” Euan rested his forearms on his knees. “And I want a submissive who can correct me.”

Niall looked over. “Correct you?”