Page 121 of Sycopation
His smile was sly. “Oh, I think I do.”
And maybe he did. Zavier patted Ray’s cheek. “Get the cuffs, all of them, and bring them here. Donotstand to do it.”
Ray’s eyes flickered and his grin widened—and he obeyed beautifully, crawling to the bed, picking up the cuffs and returning. Ray was glowing, eyes bright and face enraptured.
“May I ask for something?” Soft words.
Zavier took the cuffs and set the ones for Ray’s ankle aside for the moment. “Yes.” Because this scene was being run by both of them in some way.
“I’d like to bring you the collar, too.”
Heat chased ice chased heat through Zavier’s veins, and he shivered. Couldn’t help it. Collaring Ray. He nearly spoke, nearly poised the question.Do you understand what you’re asking?But of course he did.
Ray fucking grinned at him, but said nothing at all.
Zavier’s voice was rough and his dick very,veryhard. “Yes. Get it and bring it here.”
A few seconds later, he was holding the leather collar in his hands. A significant moment. He gazed at Ray, who seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh.
“What?” Zavier fingered the collar.
Ray’s face was joy. “I never see you like this. And I’m so fucking happy, I could fly.”
Zavier parsed the second sentence before the first, since the first made no sense. “We’ve played this game before. You’ve seen me over you before.”
The joy remained, but Ray’s smile fell to an intense seriousness Zavier had only seen on him when he talked music. “We’re not playing a game.”
Oh.Oh. Zavier swallowed, and the world did one of those standing still things that sometimes happened in his life. Turning points. Precipices. Moments when everything going forward would bedifferent. Had happened when he’d opened that letter from Juilliard, when he’d first seen a man tied up and flogged, and when he’d walked into HR in Silverton to tender his resignation.
He’d asked Ray to marry him. In return Ray asked for a collar. No, they weren’t playing anymore. Maybe they never had been. He’d wanted to help Ray from the moment he’d read that apology of his, wanted to see how Ray had grown and changed. Now? He was twined into Ray. Planted in his life.
“How long have you needed me?”
“Since high school. But I don’t think that’s the question you’re asking.” Ray suddenly didn’t look at all submissive, despite kneeling at Zavier’s feet. “Needmeans so many things.Want, too. All words have layers.”
Yeah, he shouldn’t underestimate a songwriter. Zavier tucked that away. “What am I asking?”
Ray chuckled. “There’s how I’d phrase the question, and how you’d phrase the question. What you’re asking, and how you’d say it, is ‘How long have you trusted me?’”
Okay, that did sound a little like him. “And?” He raised an eyebrow.
Ray raised his in return. “I love it when you’re imperious.”
“I am holding a collar in my hand. I’m assuming you want it around your neck.”
“I do, yeah. Because I want to belong to you and you want me to belong to you.”
Lightning in his veins. Ray knew him perhaps better than he knew himself, at least in some things. “Not all the time.”
“No. Not all the time in the whole Dominant and submissive way.” Ray’s smile was crooked and charming. “We’d both hate that.”
Zavier slipped the leather collar around Ray’s neck, and Ray’s eyes fluttered shut. He seemed to melt as Zavier buckled it on, tight enough. But not too much. “Now...how long have you trusted me?”
“Got two answers for that,” Ray murmured. His voice, like his body was soft. Ah, subspace. “My head—the one on top of my neck—has trusted you since the night on the bus.”
Zavier didn’t need to be told which one.
“But my soul?” Ray opened his eyes and stared up at Zavier. “Since the audition, when you played ‘White Hot Midnight.’”
