A muted rustling sound, like the scratching of sandpaper against balsa wood, pick-pick-picked away at Blaine's dreams, dragging him from his peaceful night's sleep and stumbling into the present. The sound wasn't loud, just a scritch-scritch-scritch, as if an animal were sharpening its claws against the bedroom door. He wondered, while clinging to his dream of him and Kurt having unbridled sex in the backyard, if Eva's cat Brian had slipped out of her room early looking for his breakfast and decided to summon Kurt, who was the only person willing to drag themselves out of a warm, comfortable bed to grant the bossy feline's wishes.

Blaine stretched bent arms and crooked legs, reaching over to Kurt's side of the bed to hold him and ask him if that's what the sound was, but Kurt was gone. It took only a second for the message to reach his brain that he was feeling empty space under his palm where Kurt's body should be and Blaine sat straight up in bed. Blaine blinked his sleep-drenched eyes and looked around the room, each blink bringing him closer to clarity, alternating between snapshots of the incredible dream he was leaving behind and the dark room around him.

The rustling noise became louder and his vision clearer every time he blinked his eyes. He didn't see Kurt, but the door to the closet was open - a cardinal no-no since Kurt insisted it be closed every night before bedtime. Blaine took a closer look and caught sight of Kurt's bare ass peeking out from beneath the row of hanging clothes. Blaine snickered, watching his dom's pert tush wiggle as he crawled backward, dragging out a box with him.

“Wh-what are you doing, baby?” Blaine asked, covering his mouth with the back of his hand to conceal his yawn.

“Hmmm?” Kurt moved aside a pair of leather pants to look over his shoulder at his sub on the bed. Kurt's usually perfect hair was rumpled, still mussed from the way Blaine had grabbed at it when they made love hours before; his face, left without its normal layer of foundation to even out his skin tone, glowed in the low light, revealing the natural beauty of the tawny freckles Kurt seemed to hate, but Blaine loved oh so much. Kurt was a different type of gloriously sexy during these early morning hours. This was the Kurt that no one saw, the Kurt that had yet to be photographed or his picture splashed across the pages of gossip mags all over the country.

This was Blaine's Kurt.

“Oh, I woke you,” Kurt said with a bit of regret, rising to his feet and lifting the box up in his arms. “I'm so sorry. I didn't think I would be that loud.”

“That's okay,” Blaine said, nearly unable to make the words pass his lips as he fought off another yawn. “What's in the box?”

Kurt's answering smile was distant, but not sad. It was the same smile that crossed Kurt's lips every time painfully sweet memories of the past popped into his head.

“Well, we're going to that fundraiser tonight…” Kurt walked the box over to the bed. Blaine climbed down to meet him at the foot. “And there was a scarf I wanted to wear with that new suit I made.”

“So, the scarf's in that box?” Blaine asked, rubbing his bleary right eye with the heel of his hand while Kurt smiled at Blaine's sleepy observation.

“Actually,” Kurt said, patting the sides of the box with his hands, a fondly grinning, “all of my scarves are in here.”

Blaine's waking brain considered Kurt's words for a second, and then his eyes opened wide.

“You mean…this entire box is full of scarves?” Blaine asked, sizing up the box in amazement.

“Yup,” Kurt said, tearing the line of clear packing tape off the seam and opening the flaps. Blaine helped pull the flaps back and marveled at the mass of colored scarves inside – not twined and twisted together like snakes in a messy knot, but each one individually rolled up and placed neatly, lined up what looked at least ten rows deep.

“Oh…my…God…” Blaine muttered in awe at the spectacle before him. “Are these all…designer?”

“Yup,” Kurt said again, smiling with smug satisfaction at the expression of surprise on Blaine's face.

“But…I don't understand…” Blaine reached a hand out, but only let it hover, not wanting to disturb the perfection of Kurt's collection. “You're usually so…thrifty.”

“I've always been thrifty, but before I had the kids to take care of, I could be thrifty and buy designer clothes,” Kurt explained, reaching for the scarves closest to him. “In fact, I had a closet that could rival yours.”

Blaine remembered snippets of that conversation, but the story of Kurt's once exorbitant wardrobe and its fate had never been expressly brought up, and Blaine wasn't going to pester his dom about it now.

“You definitely have a lot of them,” Blaine said, watching Kurt pull them out one by one and model them, holding them up to his neck and striking a pose.

“I kind of had a scarf obsession,” Kurt confessed. “I believe the right scarf can improve any outfit. Besides, they're fashionable and functional.” Kurt made this last point with a glint in his eyes as he carefully dug though his stash.

“Functional?” The word slipped from Blaine's lips without him even considering the implications of that word in the context of Kurt.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, his smile transforming into a grin that was as playful as it was wicked, and Blaine knew that his black swan had an idea brewing.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Kurt said, putting the scarves down and taking Blaine's hand, leading him off the bed to a nearby chair. “I'll give you a small demonstration.”

Blaine followed his dom, intrigued, watching Kurt cover the seat in vinyl and then obediently settling into the vintage-inspired wingback chair, not flinching when his bare skin touched the chilly upholstery or catching his breath when sitting putting him within eye level of Kurt's half-hard cock. Kurt didn't need to hear his sub gasp. He knew what his body did to Blaine, how it affected him, how much Blaine craved touching him. But Blaine was a good boy; he was obedient. He would not touch unless told.

“Let me introduce you to a few of my favorites.” Kurt left Blaine in the chair and sauntered back to the bed, hips swaying with his steps, eyes bright with thoughts of his brilliant plan. “This…” Kurt said, holding up a cerulean blue scarf decorated with a sprinkling of white polka-dots, focusing on the fabric more than on the reaction of his sub, “is by Dolce and Gabbana. And this…” he held up another distressed-looking scarf, grunge chic, in shades of dark olives and browns with hints of industrial yellow, blue, and white, “is from Oliver Spencer.”

He carried the scarves back to where Blaine sat and, without a glance at Blaine's face, without acknowledging the simmer of lust in his honey colored eyes, began tying Blaine's wrists to the arms of the chair. Blaine watched, silently obedient, trying to restrain the automatic response of his cock that longed to leap up at the thought of being bound, not by leather or metal cuffs, but by Kurt's favorite designer scarves.

Kurt checked the knots, knowing they wouldn't need to be too tight. Blaine didn't need the fabric holding him to the chair. He simply needed the mental boundary of the material and what it represented.

Kurt returned to the bed and the box of scarves. He lifted out another in blue, black, and grey flannel print.

“This one…” He slid the fabric between his index and middle fingers, and then pulling it taut to hold it out on display, “I bought this with my first paycheck as a dom. It's from Begg and Co. And this…” He brought up an ombre-painted scarf, the fabric graduating in hues of blue from sky to navy from one end to the other, “is Paul Smith.” He carried these two over to Blaine, not masking the smile he wore and staring straight into his sub's eyes, delighting in the way the perfect bands of gold that were Blaine's irises became narrow rings as his pupils opened wide. Kurt kneeled at Blaine's feet, maintaining that eye contact as he bound Blaine's ankles. He put firm hands on Blaine's knees and pushed them far apart, spreading his legs wide, watching Blaine's cock to make certain his sub was keeping his urges in line.

“Good boy,” Kurt purred, knowing that in Blaine's chest, his heart thrummed, in his brain, his sub side fought his body to remain obedient. Kurt enjoyed this battle that he knew raged inside his sub's body – not in a cruel way, but in a triumphant way. Blaine needed control, not just here, in the bedroom, but in his day-to-day life. Blaine had never realized how much stress and anxiety had been an issue with him. He dealt with it in other self-destructive ways. But having Kurt around, having his dom with him to teach him about discipline and the limits of his own body and mind, helped him exist in the world now that he was finally cutting free of all his safety nets and venturing out on his own as an independent artist.

He might never have tried if it weren't for Kurt. He would have tethered himself to Sing until it tanked, dragging him and any reputation he had down along with it.

“All of my scarves are precious to me,” Kurt said, tying off the knot on Blaine's left ankle, “each one unnecessarily expensive.” He stood and walked over to the bed, retrieving the scarf he knew waited for him next. “But this is, by far, the crowned jewel of my collection…” He held up a blacker than black scarf, silk screened with the suggestion of white skulls. “Alexander McQueen,” he said with pride. “Highly sought after, very much discontinued, the very first scarf I ever owned.”

This scarf he carried over to Blaine and held before his eyes so that he could have a chance to admire the delicate details. He saw Blaine swallow, gazing at the fabric with an expression that bordered on confusion and a touch of acceptance.

Blaine might not know what was going on, but he had given himself to Kurt – heart, body, and soul. It was expected that any moment could turn into a scene and Blaine's devotion to the man holding the scarf in front of his eyes was absolute.

That utter trust and devotion was all it took to make Kurt completely hard with want, and as he walked around naked in front of his sub, his erection on display, he did so without any shame.

Kurt needed to exercise control over his mind and body in other ways. This was not one of them.

He placed the scarf over Blaine's eyes, wrapping it around his head and tying it at the back. He stepped back to admire the view of his gorgeous Blaine, tied up in his favorite wingback chair using five of the most irreplaceable scarves he'd ever owned.

The urge to touch himself with this vision in front of him was pushing at the boundaries of his composure, the need to climb up on that chair and fuck Blaine's tantalizing bow-shaped mouth taxing every muscle in his effort to keep himself calm.

He had to turn away, had to return to his box of scarves and let his breathing come back to normal, or else this would be over too quickly. He pulled out two final scarves with much less ceremony than the others, eager to get his mouth on his sub.

“Now these scarves…the two that you can't see,” Kurt said, returning to Blaine's side and running the scarves in succession over Blaine's neck, sliding them smoothly across his skin. “I made these. They're nothing special really – one's blue silk, the other red, but for what I have in mind, they're definitely the most important of the bunch.”

Kurt heard Blaine swallow again, saw his mouth open, his lower lip tremble, his jaw working to keep his tongue from speaking when he was not yet given permission.

“Was there something you wanted to say, sweetheart?” Kurt asked, confident that he knew the question clinging to Blaine's lips. “You have permission to speak freely…for now…”

“Wh---what are you going to do with those, sir?” Blaine asked, chasing the sensation of silk against his skin as it trailed along his cheek.

“You'll see,” Kurt teased, dragging the scarves lower down Blaine's body, dropping them down his bare chest to pool in his lap, draping across his cock that ached to stand erect. “Or more to the point, you won't see,” Kurt added with a laugh.

Kurt knelt between Blaine's legs and picked up the scarves, removing all sensation for a second, letting Blaine simmer with the memory of silk against his skin. Blaine's cock hardened in anticipation and Kurt decided he would allow it. Watching it grow, Kurt helped it along, putting his open mouth to it, and without touching his lips to it, he blew a breath of hot air over Blaine's shaft.

“Nngh!” Blaine's breathing shuddered. His fingers moved restlessly, bending and straightening, and then drumming on the armrest.

“No, no, no, sweetheart,” Kurt said, speaking with his mouth beside Blaine's thigh so his sub could feel how close Kurt was, where his mouth was in relation to his bobbing cock. Blaine's fingers stilled, but Kurt saw the tension in his knuckles where they curled around the arm rest, at war with keeping from moving again.

“Perfect, sweetheart,” Kurt mumbled into his skin. “You are absolutely perfect. Now sit tight and don't move…and from now on, mouth closed…no speaking…”

Kurt brought the first scarf up Blaine's skin, sliding it slowly over his thighs one at a time then slipping it beneath Blaine's tightened balls. He pulled the scarf back and forth, letting the soft material caress Blaine's ball sack, then up to the thin, sensitive skin that connected it to his body. Blaine whimpered through pressed lips, straining to stay still per his dom's command as the silky scarf stroked him over and over with every pass, mercilessly trying to cull a moan from his throat.

“Good boy,” Kurt praised, not stopping for a moment to give Blaine any rest, moving the scarf a hair faster, sliding it smoothly but adding more friction.

Blaine's muffled groan of pleasure mixed with the frustration of having his lips locked by Kurt's command was the most delicious sound Kurt had heard in days.

“Now, that's scarf number one,” Kurt said, dropping the ends and giving Blaine a much needed breather before he began again. “Scarf number two I'll use like this…” Kurt picked up the second scarf, an end in each hand, and used it to massage Blaine's throbbing shaft. At the first touch of silk wrapping gently around his member, he squealed, trapping his moans deep in the back of his throat, resisting the urge to throw his head over the edge of the chair and arch his back, to thrust his hips up to get more than just the delicate strokes of silk lightly touching his trembling skin.

“Oh, you like that, don't you?” Kurt purred, watching the muscles on Blaine's inner thigh twitch as he struggled with himself to hold still while Kurt played. Kurt loved to play and Blaine was his favorite toy. Kurt leaned in close, inching up Blaine's thigh to lick at the spot where those muscles danced beneath Blaine's skin while he fiddled with the scarf right beneath the head of his cock.

Kurt heard the quick scrape of Blaine's blunt nails dig into the arm of the chair before he remembered himself and forced his fingers straight, to relax and follow the curl of the wood. Kurt continued to lick, his tongue moving closer and closer to the neglected base of Blaine's member.

When Kurt's hot, velvety tongue touched the tender skin between Blaine's balls and his erection, with the silk scarf coiling along his shaft, he nearly screamed.

“Good boy,” Kurt hummed between licks, occasionally lapping underneath Blaine's balls, taking them into his mouth one at a time and suckling gently around them. “Stay nice and still.”

Kurt sucked and licked and hummed, toying with the scarf, coiling it around Blaine's skin, pulling it quickly, pulling it slowly, and while he did, Blaine whined. Blaine mewled pathetically, like something helpless, suffering, which he was, but in the best way. Hiding behind Kurt's favorite scarf, his eyes squeezed shut, Blaine wouldn't sacrifice a single second of it. This was his life. This was what he wanted. Kurt liked to torment him, but Kurt also loved him – he told Blaine, showed him, every day – and this journey was for Blaine.

Kurt sat back on his knees and Blaine let out a huge breath, gasping for air, his aching cock leaking at the tip, the whole of his penis flushed a deep red – deeper than Kurt had even seen.

“That's my good boy,” Kurt murmured, dropping the scarf but licking Blaine's cock at the tip, gathering the pearl of moisture on his tongue before taking his sub down his throat. This was familiar, this was an agony that Blaine could relax into, no matter how much his body screamed to break free and fuck Kurt's mouth, to slam his cock down his dom's throat – something Blaine did rarely and gently so as not to ruin Kurt's beautiful singing voice.

Kurt pulled off, licking his lips and admiring the obedience of his sub, who sat quietly and took what Kurt dished out. But Kurt was about to up the ante, hoping that he could get his compliant little boy to break – and not the kind of break that let Blaine disappear into his carefully crafted sub-space, but the kind of break that Kurt and Blaine relished the most.

The kind that led to punishment…and more play.

All Kurt needed to do was get Blaine to say something, anything so long as it was a word.

Kurt looked at the two scarves and smiled.

“Now, this is the tricky part,” Kurt said, picking up both sets of ends together, positioning the scarves so that he could manipulate them both at once – one along the bottom of Blaine's balls, the other over the shaft of his cock. Kurt pulled the scarves left, then brought them back right. Blaine's bare feet came down flat on the floor, his whole body shaking, his wrists vibrating with the effort not to pull on Kurt's precious scarves. Blaine groaned, his moans desperate as Kurt slid the scarves, unable to talk or scream out loud, unwilling to break any of Kurt's rules. But the sensation of soft silk on his skin, the way it never stopped touching, never stopped moving, never stopped with its silken caress… all Blaine wanted to do was cum, but he hadn't been given permission. He was close, so close, but Kurt was a patient dom. He could kneel on the floor and do this to Blaine for hours, as long as he liked the noises Blaine made.

“You're so good,” Kurt murmured, licking long stripes from Blaine's knees to his inner thigh, making Blaine jump slightly. Kurt knew what Blaine wanted – to be bound up tighter in leather or metal cuffs, to be given no choice but to obey. These scarves were barely passable bindings. Blaine's bondage at this moment was more mental in nature.

It's something that Blaine had become better at handling, but that he still struggled with.

Kurt was going to make him struggle a bit more, make it harder, push his mind and his body with his need to obey.

Kurt stroked Blaine's skin with the scarves, looking up, wishing he could see his sub's golden eyes, dark from the pressure of trying to resist his body's urges, his need to move, to buck, to fuck Kurt in any way possible. Kurt saw sweat bead along Blaine's brow, the skin wrinkling as it furrowed.

“Okay, sweetheart,” Kurt muttered, planting kisses along Blaine's cock, brushes from his lips that followed the movement of the scarves. Blaine cried behind his clenched teeth at Kurt's sinful touches, each kiss different – one a peck of his lips, another followed by a swipe of his tongue, one almost entirely tiny circles with the tip of his tongue playing at the underside of Blaine's head.

Kurt watched Blaine fight not to squirm at the touch of his lips or the incessant smooth glide of the fabric back and forth, back and forth. Kurt was proud of his sub's restraint, but he needed to do something to get this moving along. He took Blaine completely in his mouth, almost entirely down his throat, and pulled back up, sucking hard.

It was a dirty trick, Kurt knew, but he wasn't trying to be cruel, not intentionally setting Blaine up to fail, though it might seem otherwise. Blaine always said that he was constantly looking to push his boundaries, to find his limits and exceed them.

How else would he learn to make his body ignore its nature and obey Kurt instead?

Blaine sputtered, reaching a point where everything inside him simply shattered, unable to handle the perfect heat of Kurt's mouth along with the constant attention to his balls and shaft. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out, but that did nothing to stop him from cumming down Kurt's throat.

Kurt pulled off quickly, not giving Blaine the satisfaction of taking him all the way. He held Blaine's cock against him, leaving his sub a mess and out in the cold.

“Oh, princess,” Kurt said, the mood shifting as he positioned Blaine's cock to empty all over his sub's stomach and his chest, “look what you've done. You know what you did wrong, didn't you?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Blaine gasped, stilling his hips, his body rigid as he tried to recover. “I'm sorry…I'm sorry…”

“That's a really nice apology, princess,” Kurt said, massaging Blaine's cramping thighs, focusing on the areas that sent sparks racing back up to his exhausted, flaccid cock, “but I didn't give you permission to speak.”

Blaine's breath hitched. He closed his mouth tightly to keep from slipping up and saying anything else, but the damage had been done.

In his mind, not letting it show on his face, Blaine smiled.

“I know that you're sorry,” Kurt said, not moving from his spot from the floor, not lifting a finger to untie the scarves that bound Blaine's wrists or his ankles, “and I know that you're trying so hard to be good.” Kurt grinned. Blaine could hear it in the sultry slide of Kurt's voice against his skin. “Since we have time and since you're already so gorgeously bound to my chair, I think I'm going to lick you clean…and then we can start all over again.”