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A dler surveyed his bedroom, taking the time to stretch his neck muscles and roll his shoulders. Gordon would be home any minute unless one of the pack found yet another nonsense reason to chat him up and thus keep Adler waiting.

That had been an increasingly frequent occurrence ever since the last full moon, and it made Adler all too aware that it was time to introduce Gordon to everyone properly.

“But not tonight,” Adler mumbled, his eyes falling to the contents of the package that had arrived earlier in the day.

The costume was not for cosplaying, not at all. Adler had made sure to finish work on time and rush home so he could wash the clothes Gordon would be wearing while he took Adler’s cock. Like all newly bought clothing, they’d had that industrial factory scent, and the thought of putting something that smelled like that on his mate’s skin… Adler could not.

The wig had been the most time-intensive of course, but after blow-drying and combing it, Adler’s mouth watered just from looking at the artificial tresses.

When a key was turned in the lock, nervous energy ran through Adler, and he rushed to his hallway just in time to watch Gordon come inside. He had a grocery bag in his arms, and grinned shyly when their eyes met.

“Hey. I went shopping for you.”

Adler knew a romantic gesture when he saw one, but this one also happened to make his cock strain against the soft cotton workout pants he’d changed into.

“Sweetheart. You bought food for me.” He crossed the distance between them and kissed Gordon deeply while pushing the apartment door closed at the same time.

“Yes, detective. Don’t read too much into it. I plan on biting you later. Tit for tat.”

And that was yet more…romantic. My mate asking me to feed him. Shivers ran through Adler. Why did no one ever tell me that being mated was going to feel this good?

“You’re welcome to all of me.” Adler whisked the grocery bag from Gordon’s fingers. “But I decided earlier today that you’ll work for it. By that I mean some of the things I ordered for you—for us—came, and if you’re open to it, I’d like to try them out.”

“Oh?” Gordon’s eyebrows rose and nearly vanished in his fringe of teal hair.

Adler motioned for Gordon to follow him to the kitchen where Adler started unpacking the food. He smiled when he saw that Gordon had gotten him grapes. Adler had mentioned liking them once as an aside, but Gordon had remembered. My mate. He cares for me, he loves me.

“I’d like to try a bit of role-playing. The costume and the wig are one part of it. There are also ropes I laid out on the bed so you can look at them, touch them if you want. I’d like to use those to tie you up. I’d like to keep you tied up while I fuck you unless you tell me otherwise.”

Gordon didn’t move or say anything, so long that Adler pretty much resigned himself to just the wig, which would be fine, better than making Gordon do anything he wasn’t comfortable with. Then, the vampire licked his lips.

“You’re going to tie me up?”

“Yes, if you want me to.”

“Does that hurt at all?”

“No. I mean, it’ll restrict your movements, which is part of the appeal, and you can struggle against it, also part of the appeal. But at the end of the day, they’re just ropes I tie around you to make you look beautiful and to make you feel good.”

Gordon nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay. We’re going to be using the traffic light system. Red means stop, yellow or orange means pause or something doesn’t feel right, green means all good. You okay with that?”

Gordon bobbed his head once more. “Works for me. You know I’ve never done anything like that, but I’d like to try. Right now?”

Adler put some fancy bread away. Gordon had gotten two kinds.

“Right now.”

“What do I do?”

“You go into the bedroom and change into what I laid out for you there. No underwear, just what’s on the bed. Then you sit on the bed and wait for me. I’ll start the role-play when I walk in there, and you go along. How’s that sound?”

Gordon giggled and looked away shyly. “Good. Scary, but good. I’ll go to the bedroom then. And wait for you.”

And he went. Adler watched him, anticipation building.

But there is no point in rushing this. Sometimes slow is good, and I want to take my time with him. All good things to those who wait.

Gordon felt more than a little uncomfortable despite the costume fitting well. Which is surprising. I don’t think I ever told Adler my size.

Gordon brushed a strand of hair back behind his ear. The wig was long and black, reaching past Gordon’s shoulder blades, and together with the butler outfit, he knew he looked like a cliché vampire.

But the butler outfit, while normal where the black vest and white shirt and tie were concerned, was clearly made for the bedroom below the waist. The pants had a conveniently placed zipper that would expose Gordon’s behind, and in the front, it had just a few buttons that could be undone quickly.

The worst part about the waiting was the thought of disappointing Adler. It wasn’t so much the acting, Gordon felt confident that he’d be able to pretend he was a vampire butler, no problem. More importantly, Gordon was scared of not liking what Adler liked.

What if he ties me up and I hate it? I mean, it sounds hot, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be hot. If I hate it and say so, he’ll never ask me to try again, and I bit him. My bite changed him, never mind that mate bite. What if he has to spend eternity with a kink-shy forensic pathologist who spends more time with corpses than living people?

Gordon started picking his nails, his nerves almost making him get up and leave, citing some emergency at the morgue.

Not that there ever was one. Gordon’s patients could hardly get any deader.

When Gordon was almost at the end of his rope, Adler walked in, his wide shoulders blocking the door, his jaw set.

“There you are. I thought I gave you orders to clean the kitchen floor. Do you think you are too good to get on your knees?”

“Uh, no,” Gordon said, then remembered he was supposed to be acting. “No, m-master.”

Adler’s face remained hard, and he walked into the room, looking all intimidating in a way Gordon had never seen him. For some reason, that made Gordon’s mouth water.

“At least you remember what I am to you.” Adler came right up to Gordon until he stood in front of him, knee to knee, glaring down with a smirk twisting his lip. “Not that that seems to keep you from sitting here and being lazy. Are you allowed to be lazy?”

“No?”

Adler cupped Gordon’s face and tilted his head back. “Do I hear a question there? Tsk, it seems you’re due a lesson in how someone of your station should carry himself in my house.”

“But, master, I tried doing what you told me,” Gordon said, doing his best to sound pleading.

Adler seemed to like that. He forced Gordon’s legs open so he could step between them. “Oh, did you? I don’t think so. You were supposed to get on your knees and clean the kitchen floor, and yet I find you here, relaxing.”

Gordon swallowed. He had an idea of where this might be headed. “But the scrubbing hurts my knees, master.”

Adler flashed his teeth. “I see. An excuse for your disobedience. I’ll have to punish you for that. It won’t bring me any joy, but it’s necessary. How else will you learn? Stand up.”

Gordon did or tried to. It was awkward with his knees having been forced wide, but Adler gently pulled his chin up and guided him until their bodies were almost flush.

Adler casually reached between Gordon’s legs, smiling when he found Gordon’s semi. He said, “If this is how you react to the threat of punishment, I might have been too lenient with you all this time. We’ll remedy that today.”

“Please, no,” Gordon said.

Adler paused, running a warm finger along Gordon’s jaw. “Is that still a green?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Are you ready to take your punishment and learn how to get on your knees when I tell you to?”

“But, master, I really tried,” Gordon whined, doing his best to make the protest sound genuine.

Adler squeezed Gordon’s cock, not painful, but enough for Gordon to let out a breath and drop his head forward.

“Turn around and face the bed.”

Adler stepped back, watching. Gordon did what he had been told, but he got the sense Adler had wanted it faster. He didn’t say anything though.

Once Gordon’s back was turned, Adler walked around him and fished the ropes that lay coiled on the covers, their shiny black making them almost look like the records of Gordon’s childhood.

“You’re always testing me, aren’t you,” Adler said, sounding conversational when he stepped out of Gordon’s line of sight again and stood behind him. “You don’t do what I tell you to do or take ages doing it. Sometimes I wonder whether you want me to fuss over you, but I don’t think that’s it. Am I right?”

“But I’m really trying.”

Adler’s hand came around to cup Gordon again. “All you are is aching for it, but trying you are not.”

Then, Adler used the ropes. It was a slow process, or at least one that went slower than Gordon had thought it would, the rope going around his chest and under his pecs. Adler took his time making sure they were snug even over the clothes. The goal was, Gordon thought, to bind his wrists at his back, but really, it was more than that, the weave stretching across his chest feeling a lot more constricting, not entirely uncomfortable though.

“Still green?” Adler asked again.

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re ready for your punishment then.”

Adler shoved Gordon forward onto the mattress although he was careful to support him, keeping Gordon from truly face-planting into the sheets. Once Gordon was there, he felt the restraints even more, was unable to really push his upper body up.

That’s the point though. I get that.

And it was, but it was also Adler, strong, dominant, above and behind Gordon. It was arousing in the best of ways.

Adler ran his hands along Gordon’s back and arms, and that allowed Gordon to follow the way Adler had set the ropes even if he couldn’t really see them.

“And now you’re just lying there. We can’t have that.”

Adler pulled Gordon’s hips up, adjusted him, big hands cupping Gordon’s buttocks before once more sneaking to Gordon’s front and checking the state of his cock, which was truly swollen now.

“Adler…”

Adler slapped him, not hard at all. “What should a servant call me?”

“Master.”

“Good.”

Fabric rustled, and Gordon strained to see. He couldn’t though, not with his face and shoulders resting on the bed.

Then, he felt Adler, the werewolf’s cock rubbing against Gordon’s pants.

“This will be your punishment,” Adler said. “You’ll take all of it, and you’ll leave me satisfied. That’s the purpose of a good servant, to satisfy his master.”

Gordon heard the zipper before he felt it, but once the seat of his pants fell away, he was uncannily exposed even though he was still mostly dressed. Adler kneaded the naked buttocks first, making appreciative sounds as he stretched them wide, exposing Gordon’s hole.

“You know, servant, your hole looks all pink and small, almost like it has forgotten all the things I’ve been trying to teach you. Well, I guess there’s nothing for it but to start from the beginning again.”

“Ah!” Cool lube hit Gordon’s sensitive skin. He had no idea where Adler had hidden it, and it didn’t matter, not when Adler pushed a thumb into Gordon.

“You know, you’re sucking me in. It’s like your laziness has made you greedy.”

Gordon focused on breathing, on finding a position that allowed him friction of any kind. Oh, he would have liked to touch himself, and his fingers closed of their own accord, grasping only air.

Adler chuckled and filled him with a second digit, beginning a rough, fast stretch that Gordon could only agree with.

“Please, master, touch me,” he begged.

“Touch you? For a punishment? I think not.”

Whether it was the stretch or Adler’s words Gordon didn’t know, but his hole quivered with need. “Please,” he said, and when the torture continued, he added, “master.”

But Adler’s huffing laughter was the only thing Gordon got for the next several minutes during which Adler loosened him methodically. When that was done, and Adler retreated, Gordon’s thighs trembled, and he let out a shaky breath.

He didn’t get much of a break though. The hot tip of Adler’s cock replaced the stretch of his fingers. He pushed into Gordon, not tenderly but with determination, and that suited Gordon just fine.

“Touch me, touch me, please,” he pleaded.

As a response, Adler snapped his hips, sliding home all the way.

“How should you address me?”

“Master!”

Adler thrust, once, twice, hitting places inside of Gordon he’d never hit before. “That’s right. That’s right. I’ll punish you now. Are you ready?”

“Y-yes, master. Please, yes.”

Adler grabbed some part of the complicated rope art and pulled Gordon’s chest up off the mattress. Huh, that’s what all that was for, Gordon found himself thinking, right before, his werewolf thrusting into him made all thoughts just go overboard.

Adler was rough in the best of ways, going fast and hard. Gordon moaned or thought he did. Adler made deeper sounds, hungry, eager wolf sounds.

When Gordon felt Adler close to cumming, the werewolf reached around Gordon and flicked those buttons open to free Gordon’s cock, jerking Gordon with already lube-slick fingers.

After that, it was a matter of seconds. Gordon wasn’t sure which one of them came first or if they came together. It didn’t matter. It was the messiest, most lewd, best thing Gordon had done in a while, ever since the mate bite.

“There. You should learn from this,” Adler whispered into Gordon’s ear, the werewolf’s voice rough and straining while his cock softened inside of Gordon.

He then shifted them, deadlifting Gordon and setting him upright so that he was on Adler’s lap, facing him.

“That was…that was something. Master.”

“It’s okay. You can stop calling me that now. I’m going to leave you in the ropes for a second longer, okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay.”

Adler leaned his head to the side. “While you drink.”

Gordon looked into Adler’s eyes. I’m yours, Adler’s expression seemed to say.

And that was almost too much. The ropes, all of a sudden, became a comfort, helping Gordon settle and remain calm. He leaned in for the bite, and when he broke skin, he drank, Adler’s taste more comforting and grounding than any meal he’d ever had.

Adler wiped the small traces of blood off his neck, tossed the towel into his bathroom hamper, and went back to the bedroom.

There, his vampire was sleeping. Adler smiled, his heart warm and beating the slow beat of home and family. Gordon was naked and beautiful, the wig lying on the bedside table like something from a horror movie. But nothing here is terrifying. All is well, my mate is sleeping in our bed, and he has my scent on him, inside of him.

Gordon had allowed himself to be undressed, had been out almost the moment Adler was done cleaning him up. He enjoyed tonight, Adler thought and climbed under the covers, snuggling in close to his mate.

Gordon turned in his sleep, making a soft, murmuring sound even as he snuggled against Adler’s chest.

Mine, Adler thought, and held his mate, keeping his cold vampire warm and safe in his arms.