Ron ascended the spiral staircase to the loft, anticipation tightening in his chest like the skin of a drum with each echoing step. He reached the landing and stared at the unmarked door for a few minutes, trying to catch the breath that the cold air had stolen from his lungs on his way there. Abruptly, almost reverently, he pressed his lips to the door's steel finish. The cracked skin felt doubly hot against the cool veneer, and the redhead balled his hands into hard fists to keep from clawing at the door like some hedonic beast.

"Malfoy? It's me. Ron--Weasley," he added dumbly.

Several torturous seconds passed he heard footsteps softly padding their way to the door, and then it opened with a slow creak. Draco stood in the doorway, his shirt open and trousers slung low at his hips, revealing the curve of pelvic bone Ron had grown to love lazing his tongue along. Wintry blond hair was tussled, hanging on his shoulders and framing his face perfectly. "I should hope it's you -- no one else knows how to get up here," he said.

The throaty voice sent a current of heat coursing through Ron's body, and the man had to bite his lower lip to suppress the urge to moan on the spot. "I'm here for my appointment."

Draco yawned and scratched the side of his neck. "You certainly took your time."

Ron shook his head. "I do have responsibilities, Malfoy. We can't all live on artistic whims."

He shrugged and leaned on the doorjamb, and one of the plackets of his shirt fell open, revealing more of his bare torso. He brushed his fingers over his navel. "Are you going to come in, or are you going to continue to let in a draft?" Draco stepped forward into Ron's space, until only the tiniest of gaps remained between them. He curled the fingers of one hand over the back of Ron's neck and drew in closer to his mouth, darting his small, pink tongue forward and flicking it into the small opening between Ron's lips. "Well?"

Ron pulled the smaller man tightly against him, jerked his chin up to gain access to his mouth and planted his own wet kiss. Their tongues quickly met somewhere in the middle, winding together hungrily and Ron relished the warm, wet mouth warring with his own. Draco's erection nudged against his thigh, and a moan escaped Ron's throat as his hands moved up into the tangles of his fine hair.

The energy radiating between them was hypergolic, charged with a fervour that Ron hadn't realised he possessed until now. If he'd merely teetered on the edge of rationality before, he was beyond any hope for reason now. He lapped at Draco's lips eagerly, savouring the taste that was too much and not nearly enough. "What draft?" he breathed.

"Indeed." Draco was stepping back into the loft; his hands clenched into bits of Ron's jumper and he used the leverage to pull the redhead inside.

~*~*~

"How many does this make, Weasley?"

"S-seven... you know th-that as well as I do." Despite the balmy temperature in the room and the thin sheen of sweat that glossed over Ron's lanky frame, his teeth were chattering, and he clenched them tight in an effort to make them stop.

Draco noticed it, too. "Are you cold? Do you need me to turn up the heat?" The last word was whispered hot and wet against Ron's reddening ear - he guessed the blond had done it on purpose - and another shiver trilled down his spine at the innuendo.

"N-no," Ron replied, a light stutter betraying him. "Just g-get on with it."

"I only want you to be comfortable." Draco's pierced tongue slid over Ron's bare, pebbled nipple. The redhead keened in the restrictive chair, relishing the dichotomous sensation of warm flesh and cold steel against his skin. "You know I don't like to rush -- it's not my style."

Ron knew it perfectly well, and his agonisingly slow ways consistently warred with his impatient lust, but the blond's unconventional - and devilishly inventive - manners of foreplay were among the reasons he put up with the pompous bastard. As much as it wounded his Weasley pride to admit such a thing, Draco had become an expert at playing his passions, at teasing and testing the limits of his body in ways Ron could never have imagined in his wildest and most searing sexual dreams.

"Besides," the other man continued, leaning across Ron's chest to share his breathy affections with his other nipple, "this is kind of a special occasion, isn't it? I mean, seven..." His mouth clamped down, teeth dragged across the sentry nub and Ron cried out in the guttering candlelight. "Do you know the significance of the number seven?"

Draco moved away, and Ron's eyes followed his naked body as he padded to his worktable -- the blond was hard, intensifying his own arousal -- until he was out of sight. He craned his neck to see further, but the ribbons Draco had used to tie his arms behind the chair and link his wrists together made it impossible. Ron licked at his already wet lips. "No," he breathed, "but I'm sure you're about to enlighten me."

"Of course I am. Don't I always?" There was a shuffling sound, and then the clink of glass bottles being pushed into each other. "In Hebrew," Draco began, "the root of the word for seven means full, or complete. Complete and spiritual... perfection."

The redhead scoffed. "You really believe that load of bollocks?"

"It's not bollocks; it's recorded fact. You'd be amazed at the things you can learn by simply splitting open a book once in a while, Weasley."

"I'd rather split you open," Ron said in a low voice.

The other man came back with a small pouch and a glass bowl of what looked like whipped cream, setting it on a side table before climbing into the reclining chair with Ron and straddling him, the inside of his thighs warm and moist as they pressed against his hips. Draco leaned forward and canvassed Ron's bare torso with an artist's hands -- his fingers stretched wide to skim over his skin, as if to study his every line, curve and freckle. He flicked his tongue over a smooth pink scar along Ron's clavicle - the redhead swore he could feel a smile blossom on the man's lips when he moaned in response.

Ron strained at the red silk ribbons around his wrists again - the tips of his fingers were itching to touch Draco's milky skin - but it was no use. He supposed that with a simple spell and a little concentration he could've unwound himself, but...something kept him from doing so. "Are these really necessary?" he asked, tilting his head back to gesture at the ties.

Draco gave him a coy look. "Are iwhat/i necessary?"

"These things. I mean, I don't plan on going anywhere..."

"It makes it easier to do my work," the other man explained, "...and to watch your body react as I do it. I enjoy watching you a great deal."

Ron turned his head to the side, hoping to hide the flush that had ignited in his cheeks at the answer. He had never been quite so aware of Draco's grey eyes on him.

"Time to prep you," Draco announced, interrupting Ron's brainwork. He reached over for his pouch and the movement pulled him forward, just enough for their cocks to skim against one another briefly before they separated again. Ron did his best to swallow the moan that bubbled in his throat from the contact.

Draco unzipped the pouch and placed its contents on the table one by one, each of which Ron had seen before: his marking quill and ink, a bottle of clear rubbing alcohol, a handful of white cotton balls, and a silver steel cut-throat razor -- he'd told him once that he preferred it to the disposable ones because it was sharper and more efficient and, while that may have been true, Ron suspected that Draco got a kind of wild thrill from wielding an object with such dangerous potential.

He squirted a line of alcohol into a cotton puff and swabbed it against Ron's sternum; the liquid was cool and its fumes heady. Draco puckered his lips and blew the wetness away before scooping out a dollop of shaving cream from the bowl and spread it over the centre of his chest. He pressed the blade to Ron's skin, shaved the barely-there patch of reddish fuzz between his pectoral muscles and then used another piece of cotton to wipe away the leftover cream. After a final wipe of alcohol, Draco retrieved the bottle and quill he'd set on the table beside them.

"Are you ready?" he asked, tongue-in-cheek, twirling the feather quill deftly between the index and middle finger of his right hand.

The redhead rolled his eyes. "I've ibeen/i ready," he complained. "Why are you always so fucking slow?"

"You can't rush genius," Draco replied smugly, complacent in his ability. He dipped the end of the quill into the ink and lifted it out again over Ron's chest, letting a few drops of the inky black splatter on his skin before he began his work. The ink was chillier than Ron expected and his back arced in response -- puddles of it skimmed down his torso and pooled in his navel.

"Be still, or it won't come out right," the blond commanded as he pressed the tip of the quill to Ron's chest and began to draw. It didn't take long; he had scrawled only a few swirls and swoops with the quill before he pulled back and smiled at his handiwork.

"That... didn't feel like a lion," Ron remarked, and tucked his chin to his chest in an attempt to look at the design Draco had made, but to no avail.

"It's much better," Draco told him. He set his tools back on the side table and curled a hand under Ron's head. "You're such an inspiring muse," he purred, playing with the tendrils of hair that curled along the base of his neck before grabbing a fistful of it and tugging, making Ron cry out as his head was pulled backward. "And I am bloody brilliant. Accio gloves and needle."

Ron barely heard him over the roar of blood in his ears, but he could see the summoned items floating towards Draco's waiting hands, and he moaned.

Draco caught both items, set the needle on the table and pulled a glove onto each hand, letting the latex make a resounding pop! against his skin.

Ron's erect cock twitched in the air at the sound. He was already imagining the not-quite-there sensation of Draco's gloved hands on his mottled skin, and the anticipation of sublime pleasure mingled with stinging pain incited a low growl in his throat. "Come on."

"You know, with all of the whining you've been doing, I should make you wait for it." Draco pinched both of Ron's nipples between his layered fingers.

"Whatever," Ron challenged. "You want it just as much as I do. I saw your prick just now -- if that thing gets any harder, it's gonna fall off."

Draco leaned down on the redhead's chest, manoeuvring his body to avoid the patch of skin he'd made ready. "That may be true, but I am not in your present condition." He gestured to the ribbon around Ron's wrists, and the other man looked away. "Unlike you, I can wank to my body's content." Draco slid his tongue over Ron's lips. "Maybe I will," he mused. "Maybe I'll pull off right here on top of you; would you enjoy that?"

Ron's heart picked up speed at the prospect of Draco stroking himself, of watching the dark pink head of his prick disappear and reappear from the snug enclosure he'd make with his hand until warm spunk splattered on his chest and, if Ron was very fortunate, his lips. To his credit, though, he managed to keep his expression one of reasonable composure. "You could do that, but you won't -- you like my arse too much."

The blond's smirk faded, and the small but ever-adolescent part of Ron's personality couldn't hold back the bit of glee it felt at knowing he'd struck a nerve. Merlin, he loved being right.

Draco straightened himself in the seat of Ron's lap and reached over for his tools. He held the bottle remarkably steady, considering the redhead's squirming, and dipped the thick steel sharp into the ink, letting it siphon into the glass reservoir.

"I do enjoy pummeling your ever-tight arse, Weasley," he said, emphasising each word with a soft snap of his hips. "But I also know what stirs iyour/i blood."

With his thumb, Draco pushed the switch on the base of the needle and the instrument hummed to life; its frenetic buzzing set fire to Ron's nerves and, to his chagrin, his hips jerked without his consent.

"See what I mean?" Draco's grin was so feline that Ron thought he would have licked his whiskers had he had them. "Now." As the tool whirred anxiously in his hand, the blond leaned over his subject and whispered something about ideep breath/i before pushing the vibrating needle to Ron's heaving chest.

Reflexively, Ron swallowed a short gulp of air and nearly choked on it when the sharp pierced his thin skin. "Oh fuck," he gasped, lacing his fingers together in their binds.

The pain was blinding, hot and cutting into his flesh, but he knew it was only temporary -- a gateway that had to be breached before he could embrace the pleasure of being marked. Ron got a special satisfaction from the sharp pricks and drags and digs against his skin: it pumped his adrenaline to exhilarating levels, and the release of the hormone quickly threaded into his bloodstream. He could already feel it thrumming just below the surface of his skin, a sensation of aliveness that washed through him during the process, and he let himself slip into the technicolour surreality of it.

Draco stopped periodically to dab away the tiny drops of blood that welled up from his newest wound, but Ron was so ensconced in pleasure that he barely noticed the pauses. His insides were starting to feel unreal, warm and syrupy, as the sharp pushed deeper to create the lines of the newest tattoo that was still a mystery to him. A frisson of excitement buzzed up the spine of his cock and the organ throbbed against the blond's -- even in his haze, he could feel drops of slick fluid running down between their shafts.

"Nngh," Ron whimpered and pressed his chin to his shoulder, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth. His body was a jumble of nerve endings, twisting and pulling in response to every prick of the sharp. Ron was well in the throes of an aching so thick it was almost sweet and he curved his back into it, ignoring the bolts of pain that shot into his strained shoulders.

"Be still," Draco scolded, carefully etching another line.

"It can't be too much longer." In truth, Ron had no cognition of how long Draco had actually been working on him. That had often been the way when they did this: time seemed to slip through his fingers like so much loose sand.

"No. As a matter of fact," the blond answered as he made another swirl into the skin, "I'm finished with you." The last was deeper than the rest and it burned down to the muscle, making Ron cry out in a strangled mix of torture and rapture.

Draco switched off the needle and set it back on the side table. He tilted forward and pressed his lips to Ron's temple. "Was it good for you, too?" he murmured, the words silky as they wound their way into the other man's ear. The redhead moaned again, but Draco paid it no heed. "I should bandage this," he said instead, nodding gently at the new tattoo emblazoned on the centre of Ron's cinnamon-spattered chest.

"Never mind it -- it's fine," Ron managed, trying to ignore the salty, stinging trickles of sweat running down his embellished skin. Every tendon in his physique seemed to plead, iI just want your hands on me/i, but his willfulness wouldn't let the thought be voiced. He clamped his mouth shut.

The blond turned his head slightly, running his mouth along the smooth slope of Ron's shoulder, and then bit down -- not hard enough to draw blood, but certainly with enough force to elicit the enticing pain that Ron had come to crave. Draco settled his lean frame fully on top of the other man, moving one of his gloved hands into the narrowing vee of Ron's shaky thighs. He eyed him carefully. "Playing the stoic again? It doesn't suit you." His nestled fingers ventured upward until their tips were stroking the dusky skin of Ron's perineum. The redhead pushed back into the touch.

"Why don't you stop running your mouth and do it, Malfoy? I can tell you want it just as badly; your dick's hard enough to cut glass."

"Not until you tell me," Draco replied, pressing his fingertips against Ron's already grasping anus.

"Tell you... what?" Ron choked out.

The tip of one of Draco's fingers pushed into his hole, but only just. "How badly you need me inside of you. I want to hear you say it."

Ron's impatience seethed. "You can fuck off, ferret--"

Draco wasn't swayed. He pushed his free hand between their sweat-slick bodies. "I could do that, but where would that leave you? I mean--" he smirked, "besides tied up and utterly frustrated? I can do it, you know."

Ron's cheeks burned with fury and no small amount of arousal. The idea that he could be so angry and so wanton all at once gnawed at him like small teeth. "Untie me," he growled, his fingers scraping uselessly against the back of the chair.

"What's the magic word?"

Again, his obstinate nature got the better of him, and Ron gritted his teeth. "NOW."

"That's not it." Draco slid his rubbery thumb over Ron's stomach while two fingers from his other hand pressed hard into his anus, stretching him open. "Come on then. What's the magic word?" His voice had taken an oily, condescending tone -- the one Ron remembered so well from their childhood.

"You can't make me say it," the redhead balked, licking his warm and swelled lips. "I won't."

"No?"

Fingers pushed deeper, and Ron clenched his muscles around the intrusion, marveling at the tiny needles of heat pricking into his lower back and thighs. "No," he affirmed. The word, however, didn't have the defiance he'd hoped for -- it carried an aching, broken quality that made Ron cringe even as his lower body pushed back to let Draco's fingers penetrate him.

Draco sniggered. "Are you sure? Your body is telling me something ivery/i different." He swivelled the digits inside of Ron, and the redhead responded with a thick, sated groan. "There, see? Why deny yourself what you so obviously want? You only have to say the magic word," he purred, dotting the corners of his mouth with kisses. "Say it."

Merlin. He hated losing to Draco more than almost anything, but the bastard was right, and even if his imind/i didn't want to admit to it, his body was certainly more than willing to acquiesce. Ron broke inside as its lusty demands won out over his resolve. "Please," he heard himself say.

The blond sat up and took his talented fingers with him. "Was that really so difficult?" he asked. He had that look of feline satisfaction again, and Ron got the distinct feeling that he was suddenly covered in feathers.

"iEverything/i is difficult with you, Malfoy."

"But I make it all worth it in the end, don't I?" He walked his fingers to the underside of the seat and pulled the release lever, sending its incline backward until the chair was completely flat.

Draco circled Ron's cock with both hands and gave it a tug. The organ made a light ithwap/i against the redhead's stomach before it eased back up and waved in the air - a plain declaration of his lust. Desire had turned it an angry shade of pink, and Ron's arse clenched and relaxed, pushing him up from the chair and back down again. He didn't even realise it was happening until he felt the smack of moist leather against his backside.

"Don't I?" Draco inquired again.

"Yes," Ron admitted truthfully, helplessly. His long fingers stretched and clawed at the chair.

The other man rubbed the pads of his thumbs over the head of Ron's penis and the redhead shuddered audibly under him. Draco moaned softly and did it again, swirling his covered fingers around and around the ridge, coating it with a sheen of the thin fluid that had seeped from the glans.

Ron's heart beat in his chest like a wild thing. Draco's touch was maddening and he could feel his brain slowly winding its way out of his ears; his legs had been hanging on either side of the chair, and now his toes curled and scraped against the polished hardwood floor. "Let's do it," he pleaded breathily.

The blond gave a light tap against Ron's sac with his hand. "You can't get something for nothing, Weasel, and I intend to collect payment." Draco raised up and knee-walked along Ron's torso, careful not to make contact with Ron's tender skin. He hovered over his chest, his turgid prick stood out from its nest of silvery-blond curls, and Draco tilted forward, pressing it to Ron's mouth. "Put your mouth on me," he breathed.

Ron felt his entire body flush at Draco's tone of voice. There was a rawness and honesty in it so unlike the blond he thought he knew inside and out, and he felt something engage within him. He had to swallow back a sudden rush of saliva: Ron's mouth was literally watering.

The redhead licked his lips in anticipation of getting his greedy mouth around Draco. His mind automatically flashed forward to the idea of Draco pulsing inside of him, and a warmth tingled in his scrotum because of it. He kissed the tip, closing his lips over its small slit and drinking down the dribble of clearish fluid that bubbled out. Draco gave a thick guttural moan, and Ron sucked him into his mouth hungrily, making vulgar slurping sounds as he moved, as best he could with his straining neck, over his length. Saliva dripped from his mouth in rivulets down his chin.

Draco wasted no time pushing himself into Ron's mouth, muttering low curses under his breath while he carded his fingers through dense auburn hair.

"Fuck, Ron... nngh... yes... take it all."

Ron groaned back around his sloppy mouthful, directing all of his energy into sucking him boneless as he marveled at the velvety slide and pulse of icock/iagainst his tongue.

"Oh fucking God." Draco's head fell back while his hips drove forward, and his hands gripped so hard into Ron's hair that he felt the dig of his fingernails against his scalp. Ron imagined crescent-shaped lines glaring white-hot in his skin.

Bolstered by the other man's response, Ron carefully dragged the edges of his teeth against the shaft. Draco made a sharp hiccup that sounded vaguely like 'no' just before he forced himself out of Ron's mouth with a shout.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, with a hint of what sounded like awe.

Ron licked his lips and savoured the exotic, citrusy taste of the fluid he'd left behind. "What? Couldn't keep up?"

Draco glanced down at his weeping erection -- Ron caught the raging blush in his cheeks. "Shut the fuck up."

A prurient smile decorated Ron's mouth. "Heh. I'd tell you to make me, but I don't think you could hold out--ahhh fuck!"

The blond laid his warm, gloved hand over Ron's marks and pressed down hard, succinctly shutting him up.

"You, you fuck!" Ron spat. "That hurt, you little shit!"

"I know; I thought you'd like it." Draco carefully climbed over Ron and out of the chair. "And I'm not little," he corrected. He pulled off his gloves with his teeth and spit them out on the floor. "You know that better than just about anyone."

"I..." Ron croaked. "Why'd you--"

"Because I can," Draco answered plainly. He traced his now naked hand down Ron's stomach and twined his fingers into his thatch of pubic hair. Ron's organ responded automatically, arching upward once more to make contact. Draco didn't tease this time: he curled the palm of his hand around the shaft and proceeded to tug at it, hard and quick -- the smack of skin on skin made the redhead's blood simmer.

Pleasure tucked in around him like a warm blanket as Draco pulled, and Ron lifted his head as best he could to watch the skilled hand work against his prick. He bit mercilessly at his lower lip, afraid to make a sound and distract Draco from the task he seemed to be enjoying so wholly.

Really, he wanted to cry to heaven - and hell - at its perfection and then melt into a puddle and ooze out of the seat. Draco's intense strokes over his cock were almost poetic in its ecstasy. All too quickly, the familiar warmth of orgasm bloomed at the base of Ron's spine, and he whimpered a plaintive 'not yet' into the still air.

If Draco heard the half-hearted plea, he didn't heed it. In fact, he doubled his efforts, pulling him with near breakneck speed.

"Fuh--oh--bloody fuck," Ron moaned amidst hard thrusts into the man's dry grasp. His expression twisted into one of intense concentration; he knew he couldn't hope to stave his orgasm for much longer. He opened his mouth to cry out, but a trickle of saliva slid down his throat, making him cough and the sound was strangled. "Nnngh!"

Draco pulled harder, faster -- he seemed to be hell-bent on making Ron come, whether he was ready or not. "Gods. I can't wait to fuck you, Ron."

Ron's tenuous control was shattered, and he reached its breaking point, yelling and cursing as he climaxed: thin, whitish fluid fountained out of his cock and sprayed all over Draco's slowing hand.

After he'd milked a few last drops of semen from him, Draco took one of his coated fingers to his mouth and licked it away as if it were icing.

"F-fuck," Ron stuttered while he watched the other man, his body flushed and racked with shivers.

"As fetching as you are, all strapped down to the chair like that, I've got something else in mind. Finite." The ribbons unwound themselves and slipped off of Ron's arms to the floor. "Turn over -- hands and knees."

Ron, still dizzy and warm from his orgasm, obeyed, but it took more effort than he'd anticipated. Once he was on his stomach, he tried to pull up, but his arms were too limp to support his weight and his torso collapsed against the surprisingly sturdy chair, leaving his arse still raised in the air. He could only imagine how obscene it all must have looked and, unbelievably, he felt the dull thump of his erection reawakening.

A wet finger skimmed over his anus and Draco muttered a Cleansing charm. Ron stilled immediately at the sensation of cool rushing inside of him, cleaning his channel. He lifted and wriggled his hips to grant Draco admittance, and a decidedly unmanly squeak leapt from his throat when the blond's tongue swiped over his anus.

"I... you don't have to... ooh." A kernel of lingering self-consciousness made Ron try to back away, but Draco's arms were suddenly wrapped around his thighs, holding him in place. His mind went bibbledy as the tricksy muscle flicked at the edge of his perineum, peppered with hot kisses and breathy moans at his most private of places.

A not-unpleasant prickle ignited in the small of his back, and Ron felt his limbs relax as he settled into the pleasure that was being eagerly offered to him. He writhed in the chair, unapologetic about the spittle that had leaked from the corner of his mouth and down the chair.

The wriggling muscle pushed into him, and Ron howled in pleasure, and a small bit of frustration. "Mmph. Fuck me... no more playing, just you." His limbs were shaking. "I want you." He managed to prop up on his elbows and turned to watch Draco behind him. He was standing up, wiping his swollen mouth with the back of his forearm while stroking his own erection with his other hand.

"I know you do. Back up a bit."

Ron readjusted himself, pushing back until he could feel the tip of Draco's prick nudge against him and he whined, pride completely thrown over in favour of sensual satisfaction. "Come on!"

Draco set two fingers against Ron's sphincter and whispered, "Lubricus." A trickle of viscous, musk-scented lubricant seeped from the puckered ring, and Draco rubbed it over the twitchy muscles, sliding his fingers up and down the dusky crack of Ron's arse. He didn't bother to prepare Ron -- he simply pressed the wide capped head of his prick to Ron's anus and pushed himself in all at once.

Ron hissed as the other man sank into him, his thick cock stretching him to his limits and sending a band of heat into his bowed lower back. "Nngh, Merlin, fuck." He wriggled against Draco, senses drowning in the incredible notion of being filled by him.

The blond set his hands on Ron's narrow hips as he slid out and then back in again, the thrusts coming harder and faster as he moved.

Ron pushed back to meet Draco's every thrust with one of his own, until he was fucking himself almost as much as Draco was fucking him. His head lolled between his now-aching shoulders and ginger fringe smacked lightly against his forehead as his arse was pummeled.

Draco dipped forward and pressed hasty kisses to Ron's back as his right hand reached around his waist to take hold of his cock, stroking him in time with his thrusts.

"Oh God. Ohgodcomeplease," he grunted in hot, moist breaths against Ron's sweaty skin.

Heat clawed up Ron's thighs and into his prick, making it spasm in Draco's clutch. The aching muscles in his shoulders finally won out, and he fell back to the chair. The need in Draco's voice, coupled with the mind-bending sensation of being fucked from the inside out, was bringing him to the edge yet again. He stopped moving, allowing Draco to pound into him as hard and fast as he liked.

The heat building between them was mind melting, almost electric in nature -- indeed, Ron felt like his entire body was one large circuit, conducting and sparking and buzzing with limitless amounts of energy. His mind went blissfully blank, thinking only of how right Draco's cock felt, splitting him in half and then pulling him back together again.

Draco sobbed somewhere near his ear that he was coming, and suddenly it was all too hot and too strong and just too fucking much to bear. Ron shut his eyes as a second orgasm barreled through him, a long string of indiscernible curses pouring from his mouth as ejaculate spurted out of his cock and on Draco's hand, his strokes hot and sticky-wet with fluid.

The blond jerked forward once, maybe twice more -- hard -- before filling him with what felt like a copious amount of his seed. Ron heard the other man cry out sharply; the sound made his toes spread out wide, and then Draco was falling on top of him with a great, shuddering sigh and pulling them both back to the cradling chair, stacked like spoons. The blond held him him tight to his body for several moments, rubbing his hip with a sweaty palm and whispering something into his back.

"Huh?" Ron sounded fuzzy in his own head, as though he were speaking through cotton.

"I asked you if you were pleased with the work."

It took a moment for Ron to realise that Draco was referring not to the sex, but to the tattoo, and he couldn't help but laugh. "Can't say -- I haven't seen it yet, remember?"

"There's a full length mirror just over there." Draco nudged his head in its direction.

Ron wriggled out of Draco's damp hold and moved, albeit slowly, to the mirror, turning around to admire the finished work, and gasped.

With everything else that was happening, he'd forgotten the pain, but it came back to him now -- his skin throbbed and blazed so red that the mark was, initially, too difficult to see. After he stared for a few moments, however, Ron could see his mark surfacing: a small snake coiled on his chest, ready to strike.

"What the fuck is this?" Ron asked sharply.

Draco chuckled softly, rising from his seat. "My own mark."

"What? You mean like a brand? You branded me?"

"Well, yes. That's exactly what I did." The man had levered from the chair and now stood behind Ron, rubbing his thumb against his waist. He kissed the back of his shoulder, and the snake's small whip of a tail swiped at him.

Ron wanted to be livid with the other man, but he was simply too tired to put forth the effort. "But why?"

Draco smoothed a hand up Ron's back and tugged into his hair, pulling his head back. "Because you're mine, Ron Weasley. I decided it was time people knew that." He pulled again for effect. "Mine."

The redhead's mouth went dry, making it difficult for him to construct a complete sentence. "I... you..."

The other man didn't wait for him to work the knot out of his tongue. "I'm going to take a shower, and afterwards I'll bandage you up." Draco's image grew smaller in the mirror as he walked away. "I don't think I have to tell you, it's going to itch like the devil, and the worst part of it is that you won't be able to scratch."

Ron refocused on the mark on his chest, contentedly winding in and around itself. It's going to itch like the devil... and you won't be able to scratch. Draco's words rambled in his head, and he ran a hand through his damp hair.

That's what Draco was, he realised now -- an itch that he could never hope to scratch away.

What bothered him the most was the idea that it didn't bother him at all.