Page 50 of The Menagerie

A hitch in his breath, but Mal obeys, quickly shaking out and folding the garment, if a little unevenly with it still being unbuttoned, and places it on the corner of the bed.

“Good. Keep going.”

Rowan hadn’t planned on this, but something about it gets his blood racing. The power imbalance of having Mal pick up and fold Rowan’s clothes while his lie crumpled on the floor. It does something for him, is all. And the way Mal’s breath stutters when he pulls Rowan’s tank top over his head and immediately folds it tells him he’s most likely into it too.

Mal moves to start on his jeans, but Rowan pushes at his shoulders to get him on his knees instead, seeing that he’d intentionally landed on his own pile of clothing as Rowan hoped he would.

And God, seeing him on his knees in front of him, looking up expectantly, has Rowan’s cock growing impossibly harder.

“Shoes first.”

Mal sucks his bottom lip into his mouth as he unlaces Rowan’s shoes one at a time, Rowan stepping out of them himself. He doesn’t love his feet being touched, so when Mal moves to take his socks off, he stills him with a hand to his head and toes them off himself.

Without being told, Mal folds his socks in half and turns at the waist to place them atop Rowan’s shirts.

Fucking perfect.

“Now you can take my pants off.”

Mal deftly, silently unbuttons and unzips Rowan’s jeans, hooks his fingers in the front pockets, and tugs them halfway down Rowan’s thighs. He brings one hand up to half circle Rowan’s hard dick, feeling him through his briefs.

Even that simple touch feels fucking great, but that’s not what he told Mal to do. So with his hand still curled in Mal’s hair, hepullsonce again, tearing Mal’s gaze away from his lap.

“Didn’t say to feel me up, Mal.”

And Rowan half expects him to grope him again, but something about the way Mal’s cheeks flame instead gives Rowan pause. Almost like he’s not used to people calling himMalin bed, and his brattiness was thrown off. That’s something to delve into later, given that Mal told him to call him by that name when they’d talked after the gangbang. Insisted on hating being called Malcolm, even.

For a second, he’s tempted to pause. To check in and make sure he didn’t cross a line. To besoft.

But the way Mal’s fingers dig into Rowan’s hips at the band of his boxer briefs, knuckle tattoos vibrant against his pale skin, makes him reconsider.

Want you to be rough with me, Mal’s text echoes in his head.

“You done bein’ a fuckin’ brat, or do you actually want me to fuck a fake pussy instead of your ass?” Rowan asks.

A beat, then two. Mal doesn’t respond.

A sharptugat the roots of his hair. “Thatwould be one of the times I want you to answer.”

A pause then “No.” Grumbled. Annoyed.

Two can play at that game.

“Noyou’re not done bein’ a brat, ornoyou don’t want me to fuck the toy?”

Rowan can practically feel the resentment radiating from Mal as his muscles tense beneath him. So different from the near embarrassment he’d shown a few moments ago at being addressed by name. Yet now Mal answers, “Don’t want you to fuck the toy,” through gritted teeth.

“’S what I thought.” Rowan huffs out a low laugh, cupping Mal’s chin with his thumb and pointer finger and tilting his head up to meet his eyes. “That mean you’ll be good for me?”

And, yeah, okay, a small part of him does wish that Mal would be good and do everything he says. But a much larger,harderpart of himself wants him to keep going. Wants him to keep being the petty, whiny, mouthy brat that he is when he’s naked and make Rowan work for it.

But he can’t let him know that. Not right now at least.

In lieu of a verbal response, Mal nods against his fingers, curtly, clipped almost, if that’s possible with a gesture. Rowan takes it as a win.

“Good. ’Cause I missed this greedy fuckin’ mouth of yours,” Rowan tells him, dragging his thumb along Mal’s lower lip. Mal cranes his neck to follow the trail of Rowan’s hand, until he sucks the digit into his mouth, tonguing over Rowan’s first knuckle. “Yeah. Want you to get my dick nice and wet, just like that.” He lets him suck on it for a few seconds more before pulling it out of his mouth and wiping his thumb on the side of Mal’s cheek. “Got a job to finish first, though.”

At once, Mal’s fingers tug Rowan’s jeans the rest of the way down his legs, waiting for Rowan to step out of them before folding and placing them on the bed.

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