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He then moved to his chestplate, eyes on Elliott the entire time.

Elliott reached out to join him, elegant, long, pale fingers dancing along the scratched and dented metal of the chestplate, until they found Niko’s hand and covered it with his own.

Together, they gently pried open the release latch.

With a snap, the piece came loose, and a rush of cool, refreshing air flooded around Niko, its tight pressure released from him now. Elliott pulled it away from him, and with a single warning beep, the neurotech of his suit was disabled. The other man discarded it with the rest of Niko’s armor.

Elliott half-climbed off of him as Niko removed the final armor pieces from his legs. He let them fall to the floor, too, until only he—vulnerable, tender, and wanting with a passion that set his heart beating—remained.

“Lover,” Elliott said, “there you are.”

He straddled Niko again, pinning him under the weight of his lithe body.

The heavy sensation of him drove Niko wild.

It was something he could put his trust in, something reliable, sturdy, and real.

This time, when Niko snaked his arms around him and cupped the other man’s ass in his hands, it was allowed.

Elliott buried his nose in the crook of Niko’s neck and inhaled deeply.

Then he let out a low moan of pleasure, which sent a bolt of white-hot electricity coursing through Niko all the way down to his cock.

He could feel himself growing hard, growing hungrier by the second, his heart rapidly taking off and nearly leaving him behind.

Elliott raked his fingers through Niko’s hair, before gripping it possessively.

Then his lips brushed Niko’s fragile throat. He teased something that glanced barely upon the boundaries of a lingering bite, teeth pressing lightly upon skin.

Like the knife from their roleplay, it was a show of power, of dominance. Of something dangerous.

Elliott was dangerous, and he was powerful.

In just over a year, he had ascended to sit on a throne of a hundred billion stars, a formidable monarch.

He’d become the assassin an entire galaxy had come to both fear and respect.

The man who even the hard-eyed, shifty denizens of black market back alleys glanced at with wariness and awe.

He bent interstellar politics to his will.

He’d re-shaped the futures of empires. He’d changed the course of history with a morbid plan and piercing determination, the face of unrelenting justice itself.

And now he sat, pressed against Niko, teeth hovering above his throat, breath hot on his skin. A single snapping of his jaws closed could crush the air—and life—right out of Niko’s body.

It was a wordless plea for his trust. The arguably most powerful man in existence had held Niko’s life, time and again, in his hands.

And he’d only ever taken gentle, reverent care of it.

Niko slowly tipped his head to the side, baring more of his neck to him, a quiet acquiescence, and Elliott relented, releasing his pseudo-hold on his throat.

“Baby…” Niko whispered, a sunburst of exhilaration quickening his breaths into panting now.

Another quiet moan slipped from the other man as he pressed against him even harder, grinding his own erection against Niko’s, an urgent, heated sensation building between them.

His fingertips dug bruises into Niko’s skin, needy and demanding.

He bent and nipped at Niko’s ear, then murmured into it, all breath, ephemeral.

Niko could hear something well-controlled slipping from Elliott’s voice.

It hitched a little, low and scratchy at the edges with wild hunger.

“I want to fuck you, lover. I want you pleading on my cock. I want to make you cry for me.”

Then Elliott froze. He turned his face away, seeming almost ashamed.

Niko’s breath caught in his chest at the sudden switch from syrupy heat to frigid chill. He could sense Elliott’s growing hesitation, and something wounded panged through him at the realization.

He drew in a long, shaky inhale, forcing himself to sober from the euphoria of Elliott’s touch and come back down to reality to address this. “Elliott? Babe?”

Elliott pulled away slowly. Damp locks of golden hair hung in his face as their gazes searched each other’s now. His green eyes winced with subtle pain and uncertainty. He was retreating back inside himself.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter now. “Am I being too much?”

“No. God no, baby.”

In denying himself before, Niko had wounded Elliott too.

He had to let the other man know how much it all meant to him. How much he loved surrendering to Elliott. How much he wanted him in any way Elliott wanted to give himself to Niko. He wanted to be Elliott’s submissive lover.

He felt his face heat at the thought.

“Elliott, I… I want it, too.” He ran his hand along the length of the other man’s arm, a gesture both pleading and meant to comfort. “I want it. I want it like that. I want you like that.”

Elliott moved in so close that they shared one another’s breath. “If you want it, then tell me, Niko. Tell me what you want.”

Niko’s breath caught in his throat. Elliott wanted him to say it, wanted to draw it out of him. Wanted his commitment, his full-hearted enthusiasm.

Niko would give it to him.

“I…” he began. “I want you to make love to me. I want you to… to dominate me.” He could feel the heat stinging his cheeks, but continued on regardless. “I want to s-submit to you, Elliott.”

Something in Elliott shifted again. His gaze searched Niko, green eyes locking onto his own and boring in now, assertive.

“Why?”

The heat that pooled in Niko’s cheeks now flooded through his entire face and down into his neck.

He swallowed back a heavy lump in his throat—something both thrilling and terrifying.

But this time, he pushed the fear aside, leaving it to rest among the pile of discarded armor he had left on their bedroom floor.

He didn’t need to carry it anymore.

“Because I love it when you do. It—It feels freeing to let go for you. It feels good to give myself to you. I like it when you take over. I like being whatever you want me to be. I like when you use me. It feels… It feels unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t know it could feel like that.”

“Good boy,” Elliott purred, his tone bright and sensuous. Niko bit his lip. It was quite clear that Elliott loved making him squirm. “You did so well, telling me how much you like it when I fuck you.”

But Niko was getting bold now. He wasn’t done yet, a reckless courage bolstered by Elliott’s praise spurring him on.

“I fantasized about it. After you’d sent that picture.

I couldn’t get it out of my head. I used it.

I imagined you inside me. I imagined you—” He turned his face away, unable to look at Elliott when he said what lay on the tip of his tongue.

It was almost too much to bear. “I imagined you calling me a good boy. Like… Like you had in your first text message. But I don’t want to make it weird, or anything— I don’t want you to feel obligated to, you know, keep saying that. Or whatever.”

“Oh, Niko,” Elliott breathed into his ear.

“I promise you, it’s never an obligation.

” He leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek against Niko’s, his hand snaking downward to glance his fingertips along the swell of Niko’s erection through his jeans.

Niko let out an involuntary grunt of pleasure, beginning to sweat now.

But the other man wasn’t finished. “You touched yourself to my picture? While you imagined me giving you a good fucking? Did you like it? Did you wish I was really there to give it to you?”

“I— God, I loved it, Elliott. I craved it.”

“Did you come for me?” This time, Elliott gave his cock a squeeze that nearly turned Niko’s vision white at the edges from the frantic anticipation it aroused. Niko wished he could grind his hips up into that touch. He emitted a strangled, needy sound.

“Use your words, lover,” Elliott whispered.

“Y-yeah.”

“You imagined me splitting you in half? All while you were hunting me?”

“I… Yeah. I did.”

“That’s naughty, Niko.” Elliott smiled, foxlike.

Niko couldn’t help but laugh, a little self-consciously at first. “Maybe it was a little hypocritical, yeah.” Then he let go, and felt his mouth twist into a grin, Elliott’s smile widening as well.

It was good to laugh, to smile. It was relieving to be able to poke fun at himself and share in this joy with Elliott. All the flimsy walls he’d constructed from years of experience and expectation, of having to carry himself a certain way weren’t needed anymore. Not here. Not with Elliott.

It meant everything to have someone he could trust like this—fully, without question.

Elliott pulled him into a tight embrace, arms wrapped around Niko protectively. “Tell me what you want, lover.”

Niko returned the hug, melting into the other man. He let out a long, slow breath, setting whatever residual inklings of tension that still stubbornly remained free. “I want you to use me. I like it. I want to serve you.”

Elliott hummed as he began to stroke Niko’s cheek tenderly. Niko leaned into the touch thoughtlessly, all instinct and delight.

“Then why don’t you start by taking my pants off for me, like a good boy. Hmm?”

Niko gladly obliged, his hands—trembling, now, with anticipation and desire—fumbling to unbuckle Elliott’s belt, then unzip his fly. He pulled the belt free of its loops and made to toss it aside, when Elliott snapped out a hand and gripped his wrist tightly.

“No. We’ll be using that.”

Niko’s breath caught in his throat at the thought.

He laid it on the bed beside them, then pulled Elliott’s jeans down.

The other man finished kicking them off the rest of the way before straddling Niko again, clad now only in Niko’s oversized shirt and a pair of tight, deep gray boxer-briefs which accentuated the ravenous bulge beneath.

A wet spot of pre-come stained them that made Niko’s breath hitch with need.

His hands twitched to pull down that underwear and free the glory that lay beneath as well, but Niko knew better now.

“Can I?”

“Say it all the way.”

Niko buried his face in Elliott’s neck, lapping at and kissing the other man as though starving.

The taste of his skin and scent of his hair—still damp from his shower and smelling of Elliott’s unique shampoo—made him all the more lightheaded.

“Can I remove your underwear? I want to see you. Please, Elliott.”

“You can do that.”

He hooked his fingers under the elastic waistline and pulled down slowly, gently, unwrapping a gift for himself.

Elliott sprung free once they were down to his thighs, the tip of his blushing cock glistening with his need.

Niko salivated at the sight of it, barely able to hold himself back from immediately trying to take it in hand.

Elliott removed his underwear from there before straddling Niko’s lap again, staring down at him.

Only Niko’s oversized t-shirt remained on him now, the hem of it lifted by Elliott’s erection.

Niko wondered if it was going to get wet, like the underwear had been.

The idea of Elliott soiling his shirt sent a heady thrill through him, white hot as lightning.

Elliott picked up the discarded belt—simple, black leather—and examined it for a moment in thought. Then he eyed Niko, his gaze meeting his own in question.

Niko considered for a moment. Another jolt of mixed thrill and fear rushed through him, like it had his first time.

He’d loved being restrained and taken by Elliott before—even if his response afterward had been to dissolve into embarrassment and shame.

But he wouldn’t do that again. Not this time.

All the same, he longed, always, to wrap his arms around his boyfriend and pull him close in their lovemaking.

He nodded. “Yeah. I want to.” Then he paused, remembering what Elliott had pushed for before. Say it all the way. “I want you to restrain me.”

“As you wish, lover,” Elliott murmured. He took Niko’s hands and held them between the two of them in his own, trailing his thumb along their tendons, before turning them palm up.

He leaned down and kissed both his wrists, then slowly, gently, wound the belt around them together and pulled it into a knot—tight enough that Niko couldn’t free himself, but not so tight as to hurt.

A pang of alarm raced through him at the thought of being so trapped, but he felt his skin starting to burn with an even greater need now, too, goosebumps of anticipatory pleasure racing along his arms.

Something else was beginning to fill him as well, all felt in every part of himself: a sweetly burgeoning joy.

Sex with Elliott and the dynamic they were building through it was something entirely new to Niko.

Speaking these thoughts aloud was something he'd never done, nor had ever let himself try.

Neither was being spoken to the way Elliott did when they got hot and heavy—dominating, commanding.

But it wasn't unwelcome. It wasn't unwanted.

It was everything Niko had held deep inside himself, hidden away, yearning to be set free.

He would indulge Elliott in servitude, in softness, just as Elliott would indulge and ignite Niko by commanding him.

“Lay down for me,” Elliott instructed.

Niko closed his eyes, a fierce tidal wave of euphoria and joy crashing through him, and let himself slip under its warm waters. Starlight danced beneath his skin, bright behind his eyelids. He melted heavy into the bed below them, a blissful smile pulling at his lips.

He was no longer just a man here with Elliott Kestrel. Under his control and in his care, he became something elemental, a part of everything.

Like this, trusting himself in the hands of the most powerful, dangerous man in the galaxy, Niko could finally be free.

He surrendered to the love of his life, and let him take over.