AN: Written for a prompt on livejournal
Neal tenses as he feels the tip of the brush meet his stomach. He's wearing nothing but silk sleep-pants as he lies on Peter's bed, and with the blindfold Peter tied on him, he wasn't prepared for the cold wetness, the soft tickle of the brush as it pressed into his flesh. The brush is firmer than it looks, the bristles pushing down as Peter glides the brush across his skin, and Neal arches up just slightly into the touch.
"Stay where I put you, Neal," Peter says, quietly, but roughened with some small edge, something on the outskirts of hard and threatening. He has removed the brush from Neal's skin, and he won't return it until Neal complies.
Neal does his best to stay perfectly still, tries to imagine that he is bound with ropes he can't untie, wills himself not to move a muscle as he keeps his hands crossed above his head, his body still and obedient.
Peter moves the brush back to Neal's skin, slides the paint up Neal's chest, and the feel of the brush makes Neal moan even as he struggles to be completely motionless. Like he's made of stone, even as everything inside is heat and motion.
He had asked for this, Neal reminds himself. The wet sticky texture of paint, the soft splattery feel of it on him, the brush coming down on him moving unpredictable circles and lines across his body, an explosion of sensations on some small piece of his flesh that could move anywhere, at any time.
He has always loved this, with Kate, with Alex, with everyone he's been brave enough to ask for this.
But Peter is the first one to insist on using the blindfold. He said it was a dealbreaker.
But the image... Neal wants the image of the brush, dripping in Peter's hand. He wants to see Peter leaning over him, making his body his work of art, covering Neal with beautiful splatters. Marking him, and signing his name like he is Peter's favorite piece.
Neal shifts slightly, just a bit, to see if he can get the blindfold to slip, just an inch.
Peter stops painting immediately.
"Neal."
"Sorry."
"The blindfold stays."
Neal wonders for a second how Peter could have known his intentions, but as usual, he realizes that's just something Peter always figures out. He answers, "I'll stop if you do it again," and Neal knows he means it.
Neal tries to relax his body, to look as pliant and submissive as he can, and he's rewarded by Peter's brush, trailing a curve down his hip to the thigh.
He wants to see it: the paint, the brush, Peter's face as he does it. He needs so badly to see it.
"What color is it?" he finally rasps.
A pause, then: "Neal, you don't get to see."
"Just the color. Please, Peter, just the color."
No answer. Just the brush, its thousands of fine hairs swirling their way around his lower abdomen, teasing him, or maybe just making him suffer.
"Is it black?" he asks, and still gets no reply. He imagines the lines of black paint, dark like ink, elegant as calligraphy. He tries to picture precisely how they look based on the motions he can feel, and his concentration on the sensations only makes them more acute.
"Is it white?" he asks then, and still no answer, just the brush moving up his neck and then a dab - surprising in its suddenness, though soft - on Neal's chin, just edging into the bottom of Neal's lower lip.
"Red?" he asks, wondering how that would look, bright and terrifying in its vividness across his body. Peter just moves the brush to his chest again, and again Neal has to try so very hard, has to put everything he has into not moving, as Peter sweeps the bristles against his nipples.
"Please, Peter," he begs, and he's begging for sight and for motion both, and Peter knows it.
"Almost done," Peter says, and his voice is so happy, so teasing, that for a second Neal hates him for enjoying this torture. But then he hears the sound of a brush rattling in water, getting the paint off, and Neal, for a second, is disappointed. But then the brush, wet and warm with water, on his balls, and he can't help it, he bucks off the bed in pleasure before he feels Peter's hand on his chest, gently pushing him down, calming him. And then he hears the sound, the light smack, of Peter's hand lifting off the paint on his chest, and he knows Peter's handprint is on him, impressed into the paint, and he loses it, he loses everything, and he grabs for where he knows Peter is, and pulls, and he doesn't care if he's ruining Peter's clothes or ruining Peter's game, but he just pulls and then he feels Peter's mouth on his, Peter's tongue pressing in past his lips, moving their careful circles, and then finally - finally - Peter moving so that his hands could lift Neal's legs, the weight of Peter climbing to position himself so he could enter.
He pushes his fingers in, two of them with lots of lube, and Neal feels it even as he tries to act like he didn't. But Peter is slow then, moving in and out, loosening carefully, until Neal wants to tell him to just start, wants to push right onto Peter's dick without waiting, but he knows - from experience - that the game isn't over, and Peter is still in charge, that Peter would expect him to be still and obedient, and so he lies there, pliant under Peter's hands, and putting his own hands above his head again.
When Peter finally enters him, it's slow but intense, and when Peter reaches the hilt, they both let out a low moan. But as Peter starts to slowly move in and out, as Peter's left hand holds Neal's hips up, Neal again feels that sensation, that stimulating more-than-tickle on his stomach, moving up then to his chest and his neck.
Peter is painting on him, Neal realizes. During.
The powers of concentration Peter had, Neal thinks.
But then he isn't thinking at all as Peter drops the brush and grips Neal's dick, pumps it lightly but firmly.
When he comes, Peter follows shortly after, Neal's orgasm setting him off.
When Neal has recovered enough to head into the bathroom to clean up (it always takes Peter longer to recover), he turns on the light is surprised to see his body covered in paint of every color. He had almost forgotten how badly he wanted to know, he realizes with a smile as he runs his fingers across the mostly dry splatters and lines, lush and vibrant in their oranges and yellows and purples and blues. And he sees them, just where he knew they would be, the mark of Peter's hand right across his chest, and the claim of Peter's white in a line across his stomach.