Submissive Angel: A BDSM Romance Novella Read online

  Ange often called him sir, as if he knew the way it made things clench inside of Robert. He made it clear he was Robert’s, though Robert didn’t encourage that. Of course, he sure as hell hadn’t discouraged it, either.

  When he returned to the front door and unlocked it, stepping out under the eaves, he found the snow was falling even thicker now. The street was covered in it, virgin and unmarred.

  Glancing back, he saw Ange’s green gaze fixed on him. “Dance for me, out there. Show me how a male swan soars.”

  He reached out, intending to guide him through the door, but Ange bent his head, brushed his lips over Robert’s knuckles, leaving the electric tingle of moist heat on his rough skin. Then he leaped out into the night, almost hovering in the air for a brief moment, light as the snowflakes. The thickly curling red ribbon and bells made Robert imagine a reindeer in harness, awaiting the command to fly and the touch of the whip.

  Ange had given Robert very little of his past, but it had been easy enough to figure out he’d been a danseur before he’d been on the street. When Ange was pulling down stock from upper shelves in the back, Robert had seen him lift up on the balls of his feet with an odd sense of weightlessness, like he was levitating. He’d stretch one arm upward, his body remaining locked and upright, his back leg leaving the ground to create a rigid line from the tips of his reaching fingers to the point of his toe.

  If he thought Robert wasn’t looking, sometimes Ange would whirl down an aisle rather than walk it. He’d spot his destination, his head whipping toward that fixed point, strong arms locked in a precise oval before him. When he reached the back wall, he’d stop like an expert swordsman executing a lunge.

  Once, when a customer was waiting, Robert had asked Ange to bring him something from the back stockroom that would normally require a ladder. He’d followed him a moment later with another request, arriving in time to see Ange remove his shoes and execute a powerful spin in the air, catching the item on the turn. He came down into what Robert now knew was ballet’s fourth position. He’d been wearing a pair of faded jeans that fit him just right in the crotch and seat when he landed. Robert’s mouth had gone dry.

  Taking a break from his auction browsing one night, he’d called up some ballet sites. What he’d seen Ange do that day was a modified tour en l’aire. He’d felt like he was surfing porn, lingering on pictures of male dancers in their nothing-to-the-imagination tights, which made him think of Ange in such an outfit. When he was in that swordsman lunge, his cock would be erect and long beneath the straining fabric, the imagined shape of the testicles making Robert itch to close his hand over them.

  The tune now turned to Tory Amos’s wistful “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and Ange changed the pace. He was dancing barefoot in the snow, in the thin tank and sweats, but his skin was glowing. When he spun toward Robert, he spotted on him, every whip of his head coming back to Robert’s eyes, until he finished with one of those floating-in-the-air, bent-leg bounds that he completed on his knees at Robert’s feet. Staring up at him, face flushed. Lips parted.

  Robert reached down, intending to brush the long strands of hair from his forehead. Instead Ange pressed another kiss to his hand. Robert turned it, trailing his fingers over Ange’s mouth, the moist lips, to his chin. Ange dropped his head back. As Robert moved down to his throat, to his chest, Ange kept bending backward. Robert dropped to one knee as Ange’s head touched the snow between his cupped feet, the body in a perfect, severe arch for him. Ange’s arms were out, like a crucified swan. Or a man surrendering.

  As he held the pose, eyes closed, chest rising and falling, the bump of his nipples against the cotton drew Robert’s gaze. He’d given Ange that tank the first night. Ange had bought himself new clothes since then, but he still slept in Robert’s shirt. Robert’s burlier build made the armholes wider, inviting his fingers to creep beneath, caress naked flesh. He restrained himself, barely.

  “Ange.” His voice was thick, making him clear his throat. “Call me by my name.”

  Ange opened his eyes, his gaze a reflection of Robert’s desires. “Master,” he said.

  Had he wanted him to say Robert? He’d made the decision to cross the street, unlock the door, but now the fear that he was opening a well of pain in himself returned, compounded with a fear that the pain could hurt Ange. He started to rise, but Ange put his hand on his thigh.

  “Robert,” he said quietly. “Master.”

  The music selection switched to the a cappella stylings of Straight No Chaser, crooning “This Christmas,” one of Robert’s favorites. It was more upbeat, more hopeful. Giving him courage. He laid his hand on Ange’s chest.

  A breath escaped from Ange, a shudder like the first time Robert had touched him. “Master,” he breathed.

  Robert dug his fingers into that firm flesh and then let his hand glide downward, over Ange’s abdomen, waist, hip bone. The sweatpants made it easy to log Ange’s response, altering the fabric in reaction to Robert’s touch. That was no kid’s equipment, but a man’s thick and hard cock.

  “You stay still,” Robert ordered. He had to put himself on a short rein as well. He was testing the waters, still waffling on the block. When his hand closed over Ange’s dick, his sub made a little spasm of movement, but that was all, obviously keeping himself still at Robert’s command. Which brought him that much closer to making the dive.

  He traveled back up the same pleasing terrain, over that arch of muscle and bone, back to the point of his chest. Then he slid down the opposite slope, tracing the sternum to the collar bone, curving his broad hand around Ange’s throat.

  He saw it so clearly, what he wanted from him. Until he’d lost his nerve, Robert had always demanded a lot from his subs. Ange tempted him to grasp his desires again, follow his instincts as a Master.

  Once, feeling like he was taking advantage, he’d reached out to some of his acquaintances, set Ange up on a couple of dates. Ange came down with a twenty-four-hour cold the first time. The second time, he claimed he got lost and couldn’t find the restaurant where he was supposed to meet the prospect. Ange’s ingenuous expression had left Robert nowhere to go to call it an outright lie, but the little bastard had a stubborn side for sure. Robert didn’t arrange any more dates for him.

  “Let me be your Christmas present, Master. Wrap me up the way you want. And open me early.” His green eyes glinted. “Please.”

  It would have made Robert smile, if so many other emotions weren’t competing for the same constricted space in his chest.

  Sliding a hand under Ange’s neck, he brought him up into a sitting position on his heels, then kept going, compelling him to fold forward, to put his forehead on the welcome mat, flatten his palms in the snow. Robert cupped the irresistible butt revealed by the cling of the sweats. The cloth was damp from the falling snow, just like his shirt.

  The tail ends of the ribbon on his ankles had enough slack to tie them to one another, a hobble that allowed a foot of space between them. Robert touched the soles of Ange’s feet, noting he was too cold to be ticklish. Then he moved to his head.

  “Keep your eyes down,” he said. It was the same low voice he’d used to command Ange to come out here. He never shouted at a sub. He could deliver an order that resonated right down to the scrotum without lifting his voice a decibel. The power and pleasure of that skill washed over him now.

  He tied two of the curling tails on the ribbons on Ange’s wrists to each other, then grasped that line to bring him to his feet.

  “Dance for me like this. Stay within reach of my hands, as if you were tied to me by a one-foot leash.”

  Robert guided him back out into the snow and Ange obeyed, doing measured circles and lots of sinuous upper body and arm movements that never took him outside Robert’s reach. Though Ange might think it was a test of his dance skills with his hands and ankles hampered like that, it was to ensure Robert could catch Ange if needed. But he didn’t fall, and the longer he danced, the more Robert burned to
touch the body moving so close to him, run his hands over all that rippling, smooth muscle. He could tell Ange felt the same, the way he tailored those movements to simulate the contact he wanted with Robert. The connective heat in the small space between Ange’s moving torso and his own increased like fanned flames.

  But sexual heat, powerful as it was, couldn’t overcome Nature’s temperature. Ange started to shiver, and his feet had to be ice cold by now. Robert stopped him, bent his knees, and put his shoulder to Ange’s midriff. He wasn’t heavy, not the Irish brawler Robert was. He hiked him over his shoulder. Steadying his weight by sliding his hand into Ange’s loose pants, he was pleased to confirm there was nothing under them. As Robert stroked the peach-fuzz on his buttocks, Ange clutched his belt, holding on as he was carried back into the store.

  “Time to wrap my present,” Robert said.

  He let him down inside the threshold, closing the door and pulling the shade down, sealing in the warmth and privacy of the foyer. Ange stayed quiet beneath Robert’s grip on his forearm, but his anticipatory stillness made Robert think about what Ange had said, that holding one’s breath actually made a sound.

  “Stay there.” Moving to one of the lit Christmas trees, Robert brought back a sturdy wooden stepstool painted with a winter scene. Fishing out his pocketknife, he cut the ribbons hobbling Ange’s ankles and wrists. “Step up.”

  They kept mistletoe hanging in the entryway, a touch of whimsy that sometimes inspired couples married for decades to snatch a fond kiss. Teenagers, with a giggle or shy look, would lean in and press lips together. Mrs. Fitzgerald, who went nowhere without her toy poodle Horatio tucked in her large fuchsia-colored handbag, had kissed the top knot of the gray fuzzy head.

  Now Ange tilted his head back, studying the plant. When his chin came back down, Robert arched a brow at the hopeful expression. “You’ll have to earn that.”

  A tiny smile appeared on those sensual lips, the green eyes alight with something that made Robert want to kiss him senseless right now. But this angle also showed him the faded scar under Ange’s chin, an additional deep cut obscured that night by the blood of his busted lip.

  “Are you ever going to tell me who hurt you?”

  Ange’s mouth set in that stubborn line, the one that made him look all of his twenty-something years. It also made Robert want to put him on forehead and knees and paddle him until his ass was red. “I fought back,” Ange said.

  “Yes, you did. Will you tell me why you dance like you do, here in my store, and nowhere else?”

  “One day. Right now I just want to serve you, Master. That’s all I need. To dance for you, work for you. The world is so ugly…” He pressed his lips together, met Robert’s gaze. “Finding the right space is the only thing that matters.”

  Robert thought about that. “Ange, if you want me as your Master, you need to trust me to care for you. Understood?”

  Ange nodded. “Why aren’t you with anyone, Master? Not that I’m glad you’re not with anyone... Right now, I mean.”

  “How do you know I’m not?”

  The change in Ange’s face was surprising, but Robert had a feeling it was the expression his attackers had seen, albeit right before they’d kicked the shit out of him. “Because...I feel it. You come here...to be with me.”

  You’re mine as much as I’m yours. The ballsy kid didn’t say it outright—he was too much of a sub to do that—but Robert saw it in the set of his chin, the way his hand reached out almost of its own volition to curl in Robert’s shirt front, holding on. God, he really couldn’t wait to plunder that defiant mouth, give it a workout.

  “You better rein back that attitude, or I might find a way to deal with it.”

  Ange’s countenance eased, even as his grip on Robert didn’t. He had a firm, capable touch, one that never fumbled anything in the store, always sure and gentle in whatever he handled.

  “No,” Robert said. “I’m not with anyone. I was, for a year or so. When my parents got sick, it was more than he could handle. He bailed.”

  Freddie had turned out to be more of a bottom than a true sub. He’d talked a good game about wanting to be 24/7, but in the end, he hadn’t wanted the two-way emotional exchange or the work of a relationship. He wanted to be topped, overpowered and launched into subspace through extreme restraint and discomfort, then go out afterward to Starbucks with his real friends.

  Whereas, looking around his store, Robert saw a hundred things that proved Ange’s care and service for him, despite the fact he hadn’t so much as kissed him. Maybe that was why he’d just told him something he hadn’t told anyone else.

  Ange was staring at him, his green eyes warrior fierce.

  “He left you alone to watch your parents die?”

  Chapter Two

  Leave it to Ange to put it so directly that it was like getting punched in the face. Robert actually took a step back. Swallowing, he looked away. “Yeah, well, not everyone can handle…”

  The reality was no one could handle it; he just had, because that was the way it was. For every moment his mom and dad had been there for him, through every tear, every lesson, every smile, every gift of time, protection, or love, his care had been that debt come due. Not a debt paid out of obligation or resentment, but one paid in fervent honor of a job well done. To “handle” it, the heart had to break, no help for it, shattered like one of his porcelain dolls.

  His throat was too thick to continue. Watch my parents die... They’d each passed at home, under his care. When his mom had gone, seven months after his father, he’d sat alone, waiting for the hospice nurse to arrive, to confirm the death, to prepare the body for the funeral home. It was stupid to dress them up, given that they’d both wanted cremation, but when his father died, he’d put him in his dark blue suit. He’d dressed his mother in her yellow dress with lace at the collar. They’d worn those clothes to meet him at the airport when he’d returned home from his last tour in Afghanistan. His dad, a Vietnam vet himself, had saluted him, his mother hugging him like she’d never let him go again.

  “Fuck.” Those emotions he feared spilling onto Ange were threatening to swamp him. He shouldn’t have come here tonight.

  On the stool beneath the mistletoe, Ange was taller than him by half a foot. The kid reached out. Robert started to draw back further, but Ange leaned forward and Robert extended a quelling hand, concerned that he might overbalance the stool. Ange ended up touching his face, his fingers sliding along Robert’s cheekbone, his temple, up into his hair, stroking it. His other hand caught Robert’s outstretched one, linking fingers, then moved up his arm, to his shoulder, bringing them closer once again.

  I fix things people don’t think to fix…

  Ange made a soothing noise. Robert thought of him dancing in the snow as those still-cold arms enclosed him, brought him against his chest, his beating heart. Michael Bublé’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” had to be playing now, right? Shit. “Ange—”

  He really did have incredibly strong arms, because he wasn’t letting Robert budge, not without a struggle. “It’s all right. No one sees, Master. It’s okay. Just hold on until it passes. You can’t survive an ocean storm without a boat.”

  Another Ange-ism to file away. He had his face pressed between Ange’s pec and biceps, which meant he could smell the sweat he’d worked up with his dancing, but that was okay. It smelled real, earthy. The snow that had melted on his shirt was damp against his cheek. Robert realized his shoulders were tense, his hands closed into tight fists at his sides. Ange had wrapped both arms around him, one around his back, the other bent between his shoulder blades, fingers stroking the short hairs on his neck. Robert closed his eyes, a hard shudder running through him. He needed to set Ange back on his heels. He couldn’t open his heart. It had been shut too long. Prying open the doors would be too painful.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” Ange whispered. “I should have been here when you needed me.”

  For some reason, Rober
t recalled Ange getting on the floor with Mr. Dixon, an octogenarian and one of Robert’s premier collectors, as they raced 1953 “cars of the future,” friction motor drive cars that roared and had sparks shooting from the exhaust. His clients gravitated toward Ange and his childlike delight in the store’s offerings. Ange played with the toys—albeit carefully—showing people how they worked so they’d fall in love with them as well. Much like Christmas itself, the toys helped people rediscover a feeling or memory that had been lost. Watching Ange open up the hearts of his customers had performed the same magic on Robert. He’d felt outside the world, detached from it, but Ange had started to connect him again.

  Ange thought he should have been here sooner, but maybe he was right on time. For so long, Robert had had a perilous sense of falling, and yet Ange’s arms gave him solid ground again. It was okay for that door to his heart to open; Ange could handle what would come through it. Robert put his hands on the other man’s hips, fingers digging in.

  “You’re going to tell me who hurt you one day.”

  “Tell me the address of the bastard who abandoned you, and we’ll call it even.”

  Robert chuckled at the pugnacious note and pressed his face into that surprisingly solid body for one extra second before he lifted his head, pulled back. He could only do so much of that, but it had felt good. Maybe too good.

  “I want you to take off your shirt and reach above your head. Grab hold of the mistletoe hook.”

  Light burning in his green gaze like the electric candelabras they had in the store’s side windows, Ange slowly obeyed, stripping off the tank and putting it in Robert’s outstretched hand before reaching above him. The hook was a heavy grade, screwed into a support beam so he could tether the oak front door to it on windy fall days, when Robert liked to inhale the scent of seasons changing.