Damn Him With Praise (Wriolette)

 Neuvillette dishes out a healthy dose of praise in bed.
  

~~~~~

 

It isn’t as though Neuvillette hasn’t praised Wriothesley before. 

He does it in the same way as others. A well-placed, “This tea is delicious,” or, “Your last budget report was well formed,” tends to go a long way. Wriothesley always responds well with a crooked grin pulling across his face. It is attractive. That grin. It’s the sort of expression that relaxes him, softens those rough-cut edges that he’s adopted over his long years. 

“This tea,” said Neuvillette earlier that day, sipping his cup politely. “I am not one for it but it seems to be delightful when brewed by your capable hands. Good job, Wriothesley.”

Wriothesley isn’t a child, Neuvillette reminds himself. Younger, yes, but not young, and so at first something like praise seems as though it may be childish. But then he noticed that Wriothesley leaned into it, red from the tips of his ears to those damnable collarbones on display underneath his open collar. 

He’d been slacked-jawed, mouth falling open in surprise. Then he’d rubbed at his neck and laughed it off nervously, but he liked it—the praise. It did not go unnoticed by Neuvillette’s keen eyes. So he’d sipped that tea, watching Wriothesley for the rest of their short meeting. 

An idea, he’d thought. I have an idea.

Which led to where they are now, Wriothesley underneath him in his bed with Neuvillette sitting astride. 

This is a common occurrence as of late. Neuvillette has lost count of the times they’ve fallen into the sheets together now that feelings have been laid bare. The kissing started it; Neuvillette is a greedy, greedy creature. The sight of Wriothesley prone underneath him, sweaty, pink-faced, begging for more is almost too much to bear. 

How can he not crave this? How can he not reward him? And so the idea that’s wormed his brain since their tea break earlier that day: Neuvillette leans forward slightly, hair falling over his shoulder in a silvery curtain. “Wriothesley,” he says, rolling his hips, grinding against Wriothesley's thick cock. “You feel good.”

Because he does. The drag of Wriothesley's length through his insides is something that Neuvillette now dreams of. He thinks about it in the quiet hours. In the showers. He wakes up to the thought of it, his cock hard and dripping in the sheets, bereft that Wriothesley rarely stays over in his den. 

Wriothesley should know. Wriothesley does know, he’s teased Neuvillette enough when he’s in the proper mood. Perhaps it is teasing back—no, no. Neuvillette wants to see that same look that creased his face, that expression of embarrassed adoration that warmed Neuvillette’s bones. 

“Beloved, you fill me so well. It feels good.”

“I—” Wriothesley chokes off whatever he says. That look on his face; the mild embarrassment, the affection, the way that his skin creases around his eyes and mouth—Neuvillette swallows it up. 

It’s easy to move like this, overtop him. Wriothesley holds Neuvillette by the hips, guiding him, and together they rise and fall like the ocean waters outside. 

“You,” says Wriothesley then. “It’s you. You should see yourself—”

“I am talking about you,” cuts in Neuvillette, stilling his hips until Wriothesley's cock is lodged deep, twitching in his ass. “This isn’t about me.”

“Neuvillette—”

“No mocking words? No absurd pet names?”

“Sweetheart.”

Oh, he sounds gone. Neuvillette is close enough that when he laughs, his breath fans over Wriothesley's face. He tips his chin up and gives him a sweet, lingering kiss. “Never another, as you know. You please me in a way that no one else has, or will.”

Wriothesley's fingers tighten against him in a bruising grip against Neuvillette’s hips, spurring him on. 

“What a sight,” purrs Neuvillette. His chest rumbles, hot with pleasure. A gentle roll of his hips leaves Wriothesley groaning in the sheets as he clings to him. “Big. Thick. You fill me in all the right places.”

“I’m—Neuvillette.”

“But not just that, beloved. You trust me, trust me to have you this way, to lay underneath me and let me ride you. You are not afraid of my… uniqueness.” Neuvillette leans back then, moaning as Wriothesley's cock slides through him with the change of angle. Drags a hand down his front, his belly. Fingers across the length of his blue-tinged cock. 

Wriothesley looks, gaze washing over him before locking onto his vent, and the slick cock that protrudes from it. 

He’d worried at first. Neuvillette is not human but Wriothesley does not care. He strokes his cock the same, swallows his cock the same, and avoids his vent at Neuvillette’s request with tender sweetness. He opens his ass up on thick, calloused fingers, and then fucks him into the bed until he can’t think, and Neuvillette loves that. 

“Yeah.” Wriothesley's voice is punched, hoarse. His throat bobs as he swallows, and he looks at Neuvillette as if there’s nothing else. They are the only two in the room, and Neuvillette does not just think, he knows that this is the sort of love he thought it’d be that first time they’d kissed, fifteen years too late. 

“You unmake me.” Neuvillette is not an unfeeling man, nor is he unsentimental, but rarely is he so free with his words in this way. Wriothesley is caught by the admission, his expression rapturous. “You unmake me, Wriothesley, and then you put me back together. These hands—” Neuvillette drags his fingers across the back of Wriothesley's palm, down the length of his knuckles. “—are the hands of not just a worker, but a master of his craft. You tinker, Wriothesley, yes, but with these hands, you pull me apart and remold me.”

“Neuvillette.” This utterance of his name is unlike any other. It’s heated, and rushed, and it falls from Wriothesley's lips and stings the both of them, charged in a way that Neuvillette wasn’t aware was possible. Wriothesley's grip loosens. He thumbs over his hip bones with a soothing touch, letting Neuvilllette know that he hears him. 

They don’t push at each other, they pull. They pull and pull and pull, and Neuvillette goes so willingly. 

“More,” he says, dragging himself along the length of Wriothesley's cock. “More of that, of your cock, of your everything. I want it all.”

“Yes, yes.”

The desperation is delicious. Neuvillette watches him through a narrowly slit gaze, a hand pressed against Wriothesley's chest. He holds him there against the bed, the pressure against his sternum just enough to weigh him down. Neuvillette is so much stronger. One second, one slip of his weight, and he’d crush him. Yet, Wriothesley doesn’t tense, he doesn’t flinch; he watches him as if Neuvillette hung the moon and stars, and he’s never known a love like this. 

Perhaps he hasn’t. Wriothesley is not a man who has known kindness in his past. Neuvillette craves giving that to him, and he craves taking it too. Wriothesley is nothing but patient; not new to feelings but their relationship is still shiny, still chromed over, that hasn’t been weathered by time and experience. 

Neuvillette wants to be together for so long that their love rusts, not from age, but from the years dragging along where they get to share tea in the morning, and stolen kisses during office hours. 

“Perfect,” he says. “So utterly perfect for me.”

“Can I touch your cock?” Oh, he’s asked him. Of course, he can, but Wriothesley is, if any, polite. “Neuvillette, baby, I want—”

Neuvillette pulls one of Wriothesley's hands to his length, curling his fingers around it. Just like that, he moves, sweeping those calloused, rough fingers up and down Neuvillette’s cock, thumbing over the spade-shaped tip, at the thick precome, murmuring how he loves that it glows softly. 

“You know what I like,” he praises. “Exactly what to do, how to touch me. Always so good—”

“If you keep doing that, I’m going to…”

“Do what, Wriothesley?” Wriothesley crumples at those words, underneath Neuvillette’s gaze. Neuvillette chuckles softly, sweeping a hand down the expanse of his chest, chasing his nipples, scars, the sharp angles of his abs. “Beloved, you can say it.”

He doesn’t, he can’t. Wriothesley bites at his lip and moans, clinging to Neuvillette’s hips and cock. 

“You love the praise, don’t you?” Cruel, wicked words, but Neuvillette is in the mood to tease, and so he does. 

“Fuck,” hisses Wriothesley. His hips jerk, driving his cock deeper. “Fuck, that’s, you’re—” Another keening moan as he arches, backing bowing so prettily in the silk sheets. 

“Let me lavish you,” Neuvillette tells him. “You feel good. You fill me perfectly, long and thick. I find myself thinking of your cock, ever distracted from my work.”

“Neuvillette—”

“And when I’m alone—” Neuvillette’s voice drops to a husky murmur, heated, lax, full of awe and adoration. “—I take myself into my hand, and I think of you. I am always thinking of you.”

That does it, he thinks. Wriothesley lets loose a sound he’s never heard before; it’s deep and yearning, a strangled gasp of his name. He thrusts up against him. Pulls at Neuvillett’s cock. His cock slides through Neuvillette’s insides, to his core, and he comes abruptly. 

There is little fanfare. Wriothesley sighs, sweat beading along his brow. “Sweetheart,” he says, still stroking Neuvillette’s cock, throwing tinder into the fire that fills his gut. “Come for me, please. I need to see. I want to see it, to feel you.”

“Yes,” hisses Neuvillette, fucking into the tight grip of his palm. Back onto his half-hard, softening cock. He clings to Wriothesley, rising and falling against him, delighting in those sounds, that look on his face, those sweet, sweet words whispered into the air between them.

And then Neuvillette is coming too, spilling wet against Wriothesley's palm. “Sovereigns,” says Wriothesley, remembering that there is to be no mention of Archons in Neuivillette’s bed. “Come here, come here.”

Wriothesley pulls him close, his free hand curled around the back of Neuvillette’s neck, fingers curled into his sweaty hair. He doesn’t kiss him, he just presses their foreheads together. He breathes deep, in and out, grounding himself, themselves, relishing this moment that they’ve shared. And then he bites at him, turning his face into Neuvillette’s neck, sinking his teeth into soft, pale flesh.

Like that. Just like that. Yes, yes— 

His baser instincts are something to behold. Neuvillette purrs as Wriothesley mouths at his neck, soaking in their shared high. Wriothesley has broken down and loosened so much that he now has to pick up the pieces. “Beloved,” he says, cupping Wriothesley's cheeks, his chin. He noses at him, scenting him, mouthing at his lips sweetly. “I do not want you to leave.”

No, no, he belongs here in his den. Wriothesley. His—

Neuvillette does not think of that word but he feels it, his chest yearning. 

Wriothesley nods against him. “Yeah, I—okay. Yes. Okay.” He pets Neuvillette’s hair as he winds down. And then, a little while later, he curses softly. “That was—shit.”

“Mhmn, a glowing endorsement.”

“No, I—” Wriothesley has the decency to look embarrassed at least. He shifts, his cock falling free from Neuvillette’s ass. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” promises Neuvillette. He still lays over him, bracing his weight against Wriothesley's broad chest. Warm, he’s so warm, and this moment feels soft, rose-tinted at the edges. 

“That, though…” Wriothesley is still pink-faced. He licks at his lips, thinking about it. “I rarely see you so bold.”

Neuvillette gives him a slitted gaze. “Is that a complaint?”

“No.” The word comes as a heated rush. “I liked it. Obviously. I—Shit, I’m not usually so… I like you doing that. The…”

“I wasn’t aware you had a praise kink until recently.”

Wriothesley groans, dragging a hand down his face. “Don’t say it like that.”

His embarrassment is endearing. Wriothesley is usually so put together, effortlessly so. He knows what he wants and though he is patient, and though he is prone to waiting decades to get what he wants, for him to be so bashful about something so simple is a keen reminder that he is, in fact, human. Neuvillette dips close and kisses the tip of his nose.

“That’s the sort of thing I do.”

“Yes. Is it not the sort of thing a partner does? Adopting the tendencies of others? With your newfound love of praise—”

“Oh, so you’re telling on yourself now?”

Neuvillette peels back with a wry grin. “I have never made such a thing a secret. To have you on the opposite end of it though…”

Wriothesley's expression softens. “The vulnerability of it… Yeah, it's—” Neuvillette makes no comment about how suddenly tongue-tied he is. “Let’s just lay here, please. I want to just… rest. With you. And I’ll stay. Over, I mean.”

Neuvillette reaches up to pet his fingers through Wriothesley's coarse hair, claws scratching against his scalp. A soft moan as Wriothesley relaxes against the sheets. And then, another tease as he says, “Good boy.”

Wriothesley's red-faced, sputtering is worth it.