“Okay,” Kurt said.

“What?!” Blaine stared at him. He looked angry, like Kurt had given the wrong answer.

Kurt smiled, provocatively, he hoped, unfolded his arms and slinked toward Blaine. "After all we've done together, do you really think I can't handle a little rough trade?” he purred.

He'd hoped his tone would help get Blaine back on the right track – the track that led to some nice hard fucking – but it had the opposite effect. Blaine deflated before his eyes.

“You don't get it, Kurt.” He was still shaking his head. “I want to hurt you. It's all I've been thinking about since the restaurant. I don't mean a little rough sex. I mean I want to tie you down and do things to you, things that we've never . . .” He ran his hands through his hair, restlessly, and turned away from Kurt as if he'd said something shameful and couldn't bear to have Kurt looking at him.

Kurt couldn't look away. The words Blaine had said, and the way Blaine was responding to them, they ignited all kinds of new feelings inside him. He did like things rough, sometimes, and he knew how a little pain – pinching, biting, pulling – could add sharp counterpoint to pleasure, focusing and enlarging it like a magnifying glass with a ray of sunlight. Pain for pain's sake was something he'd never thought about, but Blaine had, obviously, and Blaine hadn't mentioned it which implied he was ashamed about it and that in itself made Kurt want to do it, just to purge that shame from Blaine's mind.

And the thought of what Blaine would look like and sound like and be like . . . that was enough to make Kurt's cock start perking up again.

He moved quickly then, grabbing Blaine by the shoulders and turning him around. “I said okay,” he said, breathless with the new implication.

“No. I'm too upset. I could lose control. I shouldn't –”

“Blaine, you have never lost control in your life.”

“This is different. I've never felt like this before. I don't know –”

“Are you so upset that you'd ignore a safeword?”

“No!” Blaine flinched like Kurt had hit him. “God no. I would never –”

“Then you're not too upset.”

“But we never talked about it. We don't have limits. There are rules about this stuff.”

“Fuck rules,” Kurt said emphatically. “We make the rules. Will this help you deal with . . . whatever it is you don't want to tell me? Be honest.”

“Yes,” Blaine admitted, then rushed to contradict himself. “But we don't –”

“Then here are the rules. You tie me down. You try things. If I don't like it I safeword and you stop. If I do like it I scream and yell and writhe around but I don't safeword and you do what you want. I think those are perfectly good rules and since I'm the one getting tied up and hurt I think I get more of a vote than you do.”

“But I don't even know if you – ”

Kurt could see the time for talking was over. He grabbed Blaine's hand and slapped it to his groin, with a little more force than was necessary, just to make his point. Blaine's eyebrows popped up when he felt Kurt's dick half hard in his pants.

“Tell me again,” Kurt said, holding Blaine's hand in place over his cock.

“Tell you what?”

“That you want to hurt me. Say it again, and really mean it. Come on.”

And then it happened. That rare and beautiful moment when Blaine dropped courtesy and good manners and all the shoulds and musts; when he started to let down the wall he usually kept between himself and his darker desires. His eyes narrowed and his spine straightened, pulling him up taller. His hand tightened around Kurt's dick and Kurt let go of his wrist because Blaine got the point now; he literally had Kurt by the balls. He stalked forward, steering Kurt backward by his dick until Kurt's back met the wall with a thump that made him wince and his cock spasm.

“I want to hurt you,” Blaine said in a low growl that twisted Kurt's belly and pushed his cock over the edge into full erection against Blaine's hand.

Kurt kept his eyes locked on Blaine's, trying to communicate the enormity of his excitement in just one word. “Okay,” he breathed.

“I want to make you shout. I want to make you beg for mercy.” The golden heat in Blaine's eyes was igniting sparks in the air between them.

“Then trust me as much as I trust you,” Kurt said, grinding against Blaine's hand.

“Stop that!” Blaine ordered, slapping Kurt's crotch.

The unexpected pain made Kurt jump and gasp, but immediately Blaine's hand went back to caressing. This time Kurt pressed his ass into the wall to help him keep still.

“Good, that's much better,” Blaine said, and he kissed Kurt gently, just soft lips pressing warm, then whispered in his ear, “Strip and wait here until I call you.”

“Yes, sir,” Kurt said, summoning up his provocative smile again. Blaine gave his dick a warning squeeze, which he held until Kurt pulled his face into something like penitence, then he released Kurt and disappeared into the bedroom.

Left alone, Kurt was hit with the enormity of the permission he'd just given Blaine. He had no idea what he'd find when he was summoned into the bedroom. But Blaine clearly did. He'd moved with purpose. He'd been thinking about this, Kurt realized. Planning. Conflicted he may have been, but unprepared he was not. Kurt wasn't walking into some casual, improvised exploration of sensation play. Blaine had prepared for this, if only in his own head. The idea should have made him nervous, he supposed, but it actually did the opposite. He felt weirdly calmer than he had since the party. Calmer and violently aroused.

He remembered Blaine's orders and unzipped his pants with a grateful sigh. He shed shoes, socks, trousers and briefs, sweater, everything arranged neatly on the couch. Then, naked, his cock jutting and hopefully turgid, he knelt. Blaine hadn't told him to but Kurt liked how it felt to kneel and contemplate what he might be about to endure. He'd found it put him in the right frame of mine, so to speak.

Blaine must have moved quickly because almost as soon as Kurt had settled into his position the bedroom door opened and Blaine appeared. He was still fully dressed; his bare feet the only change from before. He smiled at Kurt kneeling on the floor and lifted one hand, silently crooking his finger in an unmistakable gesture. Kurt stood up as gracefully as he could manage – in many ways he thought of his progress through their scenes as a kind of dance – and obeyed. As he moved forward Blaine moved back until they had both crossed the threshold. Then Blaine moved away to stand at the foot of the bed, still smiling a small and inscrutable smile.

The lamp on the far side nightstand had been dimmed so that it cast a small, warm circle of light over the bed, which was covered, Kurt was startled to see, with what they called the drop cloth – a king-sized heavy black sheet they used whenever they thought they might get messy. Blaine had lit some of the candles that Kurt kept on the dresser and his vanity, and their light cast flickering shadows around the rest of the room. It made the space look unfamiliar and dreamy, and the candles were already starting give off their various scents, adding to the effect.

“On the bed on your back, and spread nice and wide.”

Blaine's voice pulled Kurt's attention back to him and to what was about to happen. He obeyed immediately, climbing onto the bed and spreading himself with a hand or foot in each corner. He stretched out as far as he could, loving the feeling of tension in his muscles and the sense of vulnerability it gave him even before he was tied. Blaine touched one of his ankles then moved around the bed, trailing his hand up Kurt's leg, over his balls and cock, across his ribs – which made Kurt laugh breathlessly and contract against the tickle – and finally resting it firm and warm over Kurt's sternum, between his nipples.

“First I'm going to bind you to the bed,” Blaine said, no trace of his earlier tension or shame in his face, “then we'll start.” His eyes were warm, calm and commanding, the way they always were when they played like this. It made Kurt's chest fill with pride, knowing that he was responsible for helping Blaine exorcise his fear and doubt.

“Okay,” he whispered. It seemed that was his word for the night.

“What's your safeword?” Blaine asked.

Kurt suppressed the desire to roll his eyes. “Asparagus,” he said instead. Which you know that I know because we've had the same safeword for years so relax and hurt me already, he kept inside, although at least some of it might have shown through his eyes, if the unexpected pinch Blaine gave his nipple as he turned away from the bed was any indication.

They had bondage cuffs, but tonight Blaine used rope, wrapping it artfully around Kurt's wrists and ankles and securing each in turn to the bedposts. Kurt loved any kind of bondage, but he adored rope. There was a give to it, even where it wrapped his skin, that gave the illusion of possibility, like he could almost escape it, if he could just find the right way to move, and that illusion made the inevitable realization of his helplessness as he reached the limit and could go no farther so much more exciting. Cuffs were strict in their own way, but with rope it was as if Blaine's expertise was what held him, as opposed to the rope itself. Each wrap around his body was an extension of Blaine's hands on him and that thought made Kurt shiver in anticipation. By the time he was bound securely spread-eagle, Kurt was so turned on he would have let Blaine do absolutely anything to him.

What Blaine did was perch on the bed next to Kurt and stroke his cock, which had gotten steadily harder as the ropes restricted more and more of Kurt's body. Kurt knew he should brace himself for another smack, or a pinch; Blaine had he was going to be hurt. But he felt so secure in the bondage and Blaine's hand was so warm and he'd been aroused for so long that instead he closed his eyes and enjoyed the first direct contact his dick had gotten that night. There was no way Blaine was going to let him come, not yet, but if he was going to be hurt Kurt figured he'd better enjoy what pleasure he could get and deal with the pain when it happened.

Blaine didn't slap or pinch his cock. He just kept stroking, slowly. Kurt's arousal had been so up and down throughout the evening that he expected to feel his need build to fever pitch, but Blaine was good at this. He knew how to wind Kurt up, when he wanted to, but he also knew how to soothe him with pleasure, and he used that skill now. Under his clever fingers Kurt stretched as far as the ropes would allow and closed his eyes. His cock was heavy with possibility and soft waves of sensation rolled out from it. They rippled through his body and lifted him until he was floating on them; only the ropes around his arms and legs kept him tethered to the bed. Without them he was sure he would drift right away, up through the ceiling and out into the sky.

Warm lips pressed to Kurt's and a bare chest fluttered against his in a rhythm that interrupted the flow of his pleasure waves. He opened his eyes to find Blaine's startlingly close, sparkling with laughter.

“You're purring,” Blaine said.

Kurt felt himself blush. He knew he tended to hum when he was very aroused. He still hadn't decided whether he loved or hated the name Blaine had given the phenomenon.

“You like it when I purr,” he said.

Blaine kissed him again. Being kissed while bound was so different from any other time. Kurt swore he could feel the kiss not just in his lips, but anywhere the ropes or cuffs or leather touched his body. This time Blaine's kiss, the soft movements of his lips and the teasing strokes of his tongue, echoed in each of Kurt's wrists and ankles. Pulling against the bonds intensified the effect.

“Stop squirming,” Blaine said, pulling back to smile down at Kurt. “I'm ready to start.”

Kurt took a deep breath and let it out, slow and measured.

Blaine watched him, still smiling. It was a strange sort of not-smile smile, something that implied danger more than happiness. But Kurt knew this Blaine. This Blaine excited him just as much as the other, normal Blaine. The wild, tense Blaine was the stranger, and that Blaine couldn't be seen anywhere anymore.

“What are you going to do to me?” Kurt asked. He tried to make it sound more like an invitation than a query.

“It's very simple. If you do everything I say, this ends with you coming in any way you like. But if you disobey me, you won't come at all. I'll edge you until you beg and then make you go to bed like that, and you'll have to hope I'm ready to forgive you in the morning.”

Kurt shivered in his bonds. Talk like that was like fingers poking and teasing all the sensitive places that Kurt tried to keep hidden, sometimes even from himself. Blaine always knew how to zero in on them, though. Blaine knew better than Kurt what made him tick.

Blaine stood up then, and Kurt could see that although he'd taken his shirt off, his pants were still on. They bulged noticeably in the front. Another shudder ran though him. Seeing how much this turned Blaine on never failed to excite him.

He should probably have been tense, since he had absolutely no idea how Blaine planned to hurt him, but Blaine's stroking and kisses had lulled him into a place where fretting about what was about to happen seemed like a complete waste of energy and attention. Kurt closed his eyes again and concentrated on the happy throbbing in his cock. Blaine's mouth, he thought. He'd come in Blaine's mouth. Blaine's tongue was twice as talented as his fingers and there was very little in the world that could equal a Blaine blowjob.

He heard the sound first, familiar but not. He couldn't place it until the acrid smell of sulfur assaulted his nose. He opened his eyes to find Blaine standing over him holding a lit candle. Not one of his. This one he'd never seen before; it was fat and white and Kurt had enough experience to know what it was meant for. He shuddered again.

Standing over him with the candle, Blaine looked like a kind of kinky priest, about to perform an extremely unorthodox sacrament. Kurt couldn't take his eyes of him as he moved around the bed and up toward the headboard, away from all the truly sensitive places, Kurt realized. He wasn't sure if he was more relieved or disappointed.

“We'll start out slow,” Blaine said, and his voice was Blaine and yet not-Blaine, sharp on the consonants but dragging the vowels. Like a liturgy, Kurt realized. Like his very words were a prayer.

With his free hand Blaine stroked the fingers of Kurt's right hand, spreading them out against the sheet until his hand was splayed open. “I want you to hold yourself like this,” he said. “Don't move, don't clench. Keep your hand open just like this.”

“Okay,” Kurt murmured. He took a breath and watched as Blaine began to tip the candle over his palm, but he closed his eyes at the last moment so he didn't see the wax fall. He hissed as burning pain splashed onto his hand. His feet flexed against the ropes and his other fist clenched as he struggled to absorb the pain. It felt like fire, but only for a moment. Faster than Kurt had expected, the burn faded to a deep warmth that spread beyond the actual space covered by the wax to envelop his whole hand.

“Very good,” Blaine crooned, stroking Kurt's upper arm. “That was perfect. Keep that up and you'll be coming in no time.” His touch disappeared. Kurt opened his eyes. It took a few seconds to focus them properly and find Blaine at the foot of the bed, moving around to the other side. The whole scenario was repeated there and Kurt learned that anticipating the pain didn't make it any easier to endure. But this time when the soothing heat began to spread it traveled farther, past his wrist and into his forearm.

Until Blaine's hand stroked his forehead, Kurt didn't even realize he was sweating.

Back around the bed Blaine went again, Kurt once more forcing his eyes into focus to follow the movement of the candle's flickering light. This time Blaine set the candle in a holder on the nightstand and sat down on the bed next to Kurt's upraised arm. He smiled at Kurt, looking calmer even than he had before they'd started.

“Relax. This is the good part,” he told Kurt. He tapped Kurt's shoulders, which Kurt realized were pulled up tight around his ears. Kurt took another deep breath and let them fall.

Blaine leaned forward and carefully peeled the almost dry wax from Kurt's palm. He blew gently on the now-bare spot, then licked over it, and Kurt cried out before he could stop himself. Somehow the number of nerve endings in his palm had doubled, tripled; Blaine's tongue on them made his head spin.

Blaine's mouth pressed to Kurt's yet again, in time to swallow the last of his cry. The kiss was hard and fast and the Blaine leered at him, eyebrows wiggling. Dear God, Blaine needed to learn to control those eyebrows.

“Imagine how that's going to feel on your cock.”

He turned away to pick up his candle, so he didn't see Kurt gape and try very hard not to think about what it was going to feel like on his cock. Nor did he see Kurt's cock dance a damp little jig when he failed.

Blaine didn't go back to Kurt's other hand – he could feel the wax there tightening as it dried. Instead he stopped this time at the foot of the bed by Kurt's left leg.

“Turn your leg out,” he ordered.

Kurt whimpered but obeyed. The rope holding him had just enough give that he could rotate until his inner thigh was exposed and vulnerable.

“Same rules. Don't move,” Blaine said firmly.

Kurt tried to lock his leg into place. He knew this was going to be so much worse than his hand. He held his breath and clenched both fists tight.

Blaine drew a line of fire down his thigh, and Kurt's gasp at the first splash grew into a moan and finally a full throated cry. Everything moved except that leg; he pulled against the ropes with a strength that more than tested Blaine's bondage skills. His ass flexed and lifted off the bed; his right leg struggled impossibly to close and protect himself. But everything held and miraculously Kurt's left leg stayed put, exactly as ordered, presenting itself for torment. And by the time Kurt's body flopped back onto the bed the burning pain had again subsided to deep, penetrating heat and Blaine's face was against his, cheek pressing to cheek, words whispering against Kurt's ear.

“Perfect, my God that was beautiful. You're so good for me, Kurt. So perfect.”

Kurt was still struggling to catch his breath so all he could do was whimper and press his face against Blaine's. Blaine let him nestle while he reached down and stroked Kurt's cock, which was still hard despite the pain. Or maybe because of the pain. Kurt wasn't really in a place where he could figure that out. When Blaine moved away he tried to watch, but his eyes wouldn't quite focus. He saw two flickering flames instead of one, but when Blaine approached his right leg he turned it out without being told.

“That's right,” Blaine said, stroking a hand over his target area. “So good.”

This time Kurt didn't bother with gasping or moaning. He went straight to crying out, pulling, tensing, lifting, spreading the effect of the pain through his body and out his fingertips and toes like polarized lightning. But his right leg stayed open and still without him even thinking about it.

He thought Blaine made a sound, but he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything but heat and pain and the pressure of need in his cock and balls and the racing of his heart. Breathing was the only thing he wanted to think about, until sudden, unbearable pleasure overtook every other sensation. He forced his eyes open to find a fuzzy-around-the-edges Blaine licking at his thigh – he couldn't remember if it was the first or the second one but he didn't care. Pleasure was so much better than pain and so much stronger because of the pain he could now compare it to. He let his eyes droop again and surrendered to the dizzy swoops of Blaine's tongue, first on one side then the other, Kurt thought, it was all blurring together now and he didn't try to fight for clarity.

Clarity, though, forced itself on him when something rubbed drily over his right nipple. His eyes flew open and of course there was Blaine, holding the candle and staring down at him with the ghost of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

“Please . . .” Kurt managed to gasp.

Blaine's thumb kept stroking and God, it felt good, Kurt wanted to fall into the buzzing tease of it. He could feel his cock leaking in anticipation but he knew where it was going and it was too much. “Please,” he said again. “I can't.”

“Of course you can. Close your eyes.”

He didn't want to obey; he tried not to but he'd come too far and his cock was begging him to give Blaine whatever he asked for, anything to win the reward of Blaine's mouth. Whining on each shaky sharp exhale, Kurt did as Blaine had commanded.

Searing heat, impossible heat rained down on his sensitive flesh. He would have screamed but Blaine's hand covered his mouth, gently, just for a moment, but it was enough to keep the sound tight in Kurt's throat, a screeching moan that broke into a sob as the pain spread through his chest. He writhed against the ropes, pulled with all his might but they held fast and he was helpless to protect himself, helpless to do anything but beg, “Don't, please, no,” as his left nipple was tweaked and pinched then tortured with more dripping agony.

The pain carried Kurt, as the pleasure had done before, cascading through his body in ripples that searched out every secret place and infiltrated it, leaving no part of him untouched, no place safe from the heat and torment and rolling, undulating pleasure of Blaine's mouth on his nipple. Kurt mewled and arched up into Blaine's mouth, desperate for more, begging for more, harder, please as Blaine sucked at flesh that felt newborn and untouched. His nerves exploded under Blaine's sucking lips and flicking tongue, he cried out, lost to it, and he could come, he was sure he could come if only� Blaine would suck a little bit harder, but it wasn't enough, first one nipple then the other, never quite enough. He longed for Blaine to bite, devour, hurt him and make him come but Blaine was too smart, too good at this. He teased Kurt's nipples for what felt like hours until Kurt was shuddering under him, humping mindlessly into the air and moaning with total abandon.

When Blaine's mouth finally went away, Kurt managed to gasp, “Don't stop, please, please, please . . .”

Blaine rested his hand on Kurt's chest again, as he had at the beginning, right between Kurt's nipples. Kurt twisted under him, trying uselessly to force his hand one way or the other, to bring back the piercing bliss of his touch.

“You've been amazing, Kurt,” Blaine said, and even in his state Kurt could hear a breathless strain in Blaine's voice. “I can't even tell you how incredible you are. But there's one more place left before we're done.” His hand moved lower, down over Kurt's belly in a caress that would have been tickling again if Kurt wasn't so completely strung out on much more important sensations. When Blaine's hand wrapped around Kurt's cock, there was no whining or begging. Kurt was so far beyond that. He opened his eyes and found his vision suddenly crystal clear. Blaine stood by the bed, completely naked now, somehow, stroking Kurt's cock and looking so . . . decided. Implacable.

Everything was clear and simple in Kurt's head. The thought of the wax falling on his cock, its excruciating heat searing his balls, sucked all of Kurt's breath out of his body and left him dizzy and full of wrenching fear. He could safeword, he knew, asparagus, it was four syllables and everything would be over. Blaine wouldn't be upset, he never was, he wouldn't be; Kurt had already done so much for him tonight. He would never dream of blaming Kurt for being afraid.

But . . . but, there was a tiny, loud, and getting louder place in Kurt that was enticed by the sheer absurdity of it. It was insane but, could he? Was he strong enough? It was a test and Blaine wanted him to do it so badly and Kurt never backed down from a challenge and he wanted to see how Blaine would look at him, the wonder and awe in his eyes, the need, Kurt wanted that. Maybe he just wanted to know that he could. And, God help him, he wanted to know what Blaine's mouth on his cock would feel like, after. He wanted that even more than he feared the pain.

Blaine was still stroking, watching, waiting. Quickly, before he changed his mind, Kurt nodded once. “Okay,” he said.

Blaine didn't say anything and if he had any other reaction Kurt didn't see it because he closed his eyes tight, gripped the ropes holding him to the bed posts with sweaty hands, pressed his lips tight together, and waited.

“Here we go,” Blaine said.

His groin exploded in agonizing, searing heat, it was more than wax, it had to be, Blaine had lit him on fire and he wailed and twisted, trying futilely to shake it off, sobbing, gasping for air, he fought the ropes with inhuman strength but even that wasn't enough to break them. And still his cock throbbed violently and his balls pulled tight and he had to clamp down viciously against a burgeoning orgasm.

He had no idea how long he rolled through the pain, letting it spread, crying with relief as the fierce blaze on his cock and balls finally gave way to that warmth that was almost soothing in the wake of the misery that had come before. He found himself trembling, though he wasn't cold, pulling air into aching lungs in long gasps and trying to hump against Blaine's hand as it peeled the wax away from his still so hard flesh.

Blaine didn't speak, didn't even look at Kurt. He sank down on Kurt's erection as soon as it was clean and when Kurt pumped up into his throat – because it was worth it, so worth it, nothing had ever felt like this before – Blaine grabbed his ass cheeks and pulled him deeper, encouraging him. Kurt fucked into Blaine with abandon. Each long thrust in and out made him giddy, it tingled though his whole body and spiked with special intensity in the places Blaine had hurt: his palms, his nipples, his inner thighs. He swore he could feel every ridge of Blaine's lips, every bump of his tongue as he slid past, his cock felt twice its normal size, three times, engorged and infinitely sensitive. Blaine sucked hard and Kurt's balls clenched again, too soon, he wanted to feel this way forever, but the call was irresistible and he drove into Blaine as his orgasm grew and swelled and rippled, taking over his entire body before it peaked and broke in spasming waves of ecstasy, release, relief. They seemed to go on forever and for a final time Kurt pulled at the bonds that held him so perfectly and shuddered under Blaine. He was still shuddering when he felt something warm and wet splash his belly, accompanied by a cry of pleasure as piercing as any of his cries of pain.