All things considered, Sebastian thought to himself as he crossed the 't' of Smythe and signed off on the document in front of him with an overly-extravagant flourish, he had things pretty damn good.
After all, there weren't many twenty-three year olds who could claim that they were singularly responsible for one of the largest estates in the Aldern Kingdom; a prosperous realm with bustling trade links and a depressingly high average life expectancy, at least as far as the socially mobile were concerned. Then again, Sebastian had never really been one to settle for anything less than absolutely everything.
As a second Dom of a recently elevated household, Sebastian's story should probably have been one of working day after day to finish the current year marginally better than the one before it - a valuable social connection here, an extra acre of land there. But Sebastian's ambitions had always been far too large to fit inside the claustrophobic boundaries of the Smythe holding, and over the years he had worked, bargained and yes, on occasion, flirted his way up the political ladder until he was comfortably settled in amongst the clouds with the birds, political advisor to the Worthington estate; it didn't get much better than that. Some would probably have called him mercenary - personally Sebastian prefered pragmatic.
And of course, if the stress of the high-flying life ever got too much for him...well that was why he had Blaine.
Settling back in his (expensive, mahogany) desk chair, he spread his legs slightly wider and reached his free hand down to tangle his fingers in curly hair, breathing softly in appreciation as hot lips slid further down his dick in response. "The farm-hands down Littlewoods Way have lost a rotation's worth of crops due to bad weather. I'll allocate them an extra furlong next rotation and let them make it up to us rather than take it out of their wages. Never let it be said that Smythes aren't compassionate. Do you think I'm compassionate Blaine?"
Blaine obediently slipped off his cock and tilted his head upward to address him, eyes shining brightly and tongue darting over his spit-slick lips as he replied. "Yes Master, of course you are. Please Master, may I continue?"
Sebastian did not respond immediately, taking a long moment to simply take in the view of his sub in front of him, kneeling naked in such a perfect position of submission between his legs. From his vantage point he could clearly see the way the muscles in Blaine's back flexed as he clasped his hands behind him, head tipped skyward as he waited patiently for Sebastian's response, only his laboured breathing and the quick rise and fall of his chest betraying his less-than-calm emotional state.
Sebastian sometimes caught himself wondering how differently things might have turned out if the Smythes had never formed that uneasy alliance with the Andersons all those years back; what would have happened if the obvious pairing between two childhood friends hadn't presented itself as mutually beneficial for the two socially-climbing houses? Would his family have still respected his orientation as well as his designation, and matched him with a nice boy from one of the neighbouring houses surrounding the Smythe holding? Or would they have simply seen his Dominant designation as a means to further their house connections, Sebastian's preferences be damned? In another life Sebastian could be sitting in this exact household, in this exact chair, desperately trying to get hard for the Duke of Worthington's perfectly pretty, perfectly unsuitable sub of a daughter. Or maybe he would still be unclaimed, spending his free evenings with men whose submission came by the hour and for a price. One thing was for certain though, none of his other lives involved as gorgeous a sub as Blaine kneeling by his feet, watching oh-so patiently as if his whole world revolved around Sebastian's next command.
"You may." Sebastian's fingers tightened in Blaine's hair as he guided him back to his crotch, pushing Blaine's head down, down, down until his nose was nestled fully in Sebastian's lap and Sebastian could feel the tip of his cock pushing against the back of Blaine's throat. Blaine, like the perfect sub that he was, didn't even flinch at the intrusion, hollowing his cheeks and sucking around Sebastian's length exactly the way he knew his Dom liked it.
"Good Blaine, just like that. I still have four more issues to attend to before I'm done."
As Sebastian drafted a letter to Earl Charlton, custodian of a neighbouring estate that had started encroaching upon their lands, Blaine's flat tongue worked up and down his length, flicking round the ridge of his head and teasing the long vein running along its underside. While he tried to focus on constructing a rebuttal to Duke Gratton who was insisting the Worthington estate join his ill-thought-out trade embargo, Blaine moved down to toy with his balls, one hand coming up to cradle the left sac as he suckled the right in and out of his swollen lips. By the time he came to organizing the estate's winter designation ceremony, Sebastian had to admit that he was paying more attention to the way that the hot wet heat of Blaine's mouth was slipping inch by inch down his dick, slowly engulfing his length, than the attendance calculations messily scrawled on the piece of paper in front of him. Eventually he gave up completely, leaning back once again and letting the sensation of his sub servicing him overwhelm him. Blaine, clearly noticing that his Master was no longer splitting his attention between work and pleasure, doubled his efforts to bring Sebastian to climax.
When he felt the familiar heat building deep in the pit of his stomach Sebastian pulled out of Blaine's mouth, one hand coming down on Blaine's shoulder as the other started palming his cock, using Blaine's spit as natural lubricant. When Blaine whined and started forward, chasing Sebastian's length, the fingers on his shoulder squeezed down tightly, holding his sub firmly in place. "Wait there Blaine, wait right ….aaaah, there." With one final sharp tug he was coming, his release shooting out and splashing across Blaine's cheeks, nose, mouth; spurt after spurt covering every inch of Blaine's flawless tanned skin. God, there were even some droplets in his eyelashes where Blaine had instinctively closed his eyes. The hand on Blaine's shoulder, the one not still grasping at his slowly softening cock, came up to trace across Blaine's lips, smearing his come across their surface, rubbing it into them before dipping between them and allowing Blaine a small taste of his Master's release. Blaine eagerly suckled Sebastian's fingers, eyes flickering open to focus on his Dom. The picture in front of him was almost enough to get Sebastian hard again right then and there.
"Blaine, Blaine, Blaine," Sebastian tutted, voice disproving even as his touch was gentle. "What did I tell you to do Blaine?" His fingers slipped out of Blaine's mouth, curling once again though his hair.
"You said-" Blaine's breath was stilted and uneven, like it always was when he was flirting with the edges of subspace. "You said to keep Master entertained while he finished his afternoon's work."
"I did. And have I finished my work Blaine?" A pause, then a small shake of Blaine's head. "No, no I havent. How many items do I have left to deal with Blaine?" Another pause, a small crinkle of the forehead in concentration. "I'm not going to ask again, how many more items do I have?"
"One...one more Master." Sebastian could see the effort, the concentration it was taking for Blaine to answer his questions, and he tightened his grip on Blaine's hair until Blaine whined softly at the increased pressure.
"That's right Blaine, and so now you're going to have to kneel here, covered in my release, until I'm finished. Because that's what happens to bad subs who don't follow orders."
"Sorry, I'm sorry Master, I'll be better next time." Blaine's eyes were glistening, the emotion rising high behind their surface. Sebastian reached out to stroke the pad of his thumb across Blaine's cheekbone, smearing his mark even further across his sub.
"I know you will, because you're mine, and everything of mine is perfect, isn't it Blaine?"
"Yes Master, oh god yes."
Sebastian made sure to take his time finishing off the last item on his agenda, enjoying the small moans that came in fits and bursts from underneath his desk. Blaine was far too good a sub to make any sort of large movement when his Master had clearly told him to wait patiently, but he couldn't quite help the short, hastily aborted whimpers that signposted to Sebastian just how desperate Blaine was getting. Once, just once, Sebastian broke his facade of casual indifference to take a quick glance down at his beautifully naked sub, kneeling by his feet with his cock jutting proudly in front of him and his Master's come slowly drying in streaks across his face. The sight was almost enough to make Sebastian throw the remainder of his work out the window. Almost.
Turning back to the piece of paper in front of him, Sebastian struggled to decipher the practically illegible scrawls he himself had written not fifteen minutes earlier. Damn, he really had been distracted. With a small sigh he dragged his mind out from underneath his desk, and forced himself to get his head back in the game. The winter designation ceremony was one of the biggest events of the estate's calendar, and if Sebastian got it wrong then the duke would have his skin, or worse, his reputation.
Officially, the designation ceremony was nothing more than a very special kind of aptitude test; one that drew a line in the sand with 'child' on one side, 'Dom', 'sub' and 'neutral' on the other. Of course, as with all big events, there was so much more to it than that.
For the lords and ladies of the larger holdings in the estate, it was an essential event in the year's calendar; the scandal of a highborn child choosing not to receive their designation would last for weeks, months if gossip was particularly slow. The ceremony was a vital opportunity to network, to investigate and determine potential matches between their offspring, and even a month before the event tensions were already starting to simmer between the twelve holdings under the guardianship of the estate. Sebastian had to be on top of any feuds well before they even hinted at getting out of hand.
"Staff of the Wandsby household have been seen riling up the Chatterington manservants at the castle market this week. We must make sure to keep an eye on those two," Sebastian spoke out loud as he jotted down a note to himself on a spare piece of paper.
"Yes, Master," he heard from underneath the table in response. Sebastian's hand stilled, and he waited for a long, definitive pause before speaking.
"Did I say you could speak, Blaine?" His voice was cold, completely devoid of emotion, and in the absolute silence of room he could clearly hear the sharp intake of breath that was Blaine's only reaction. He could practically feel Blaine teetering on the brink of subspace, desperate for the firm hand of his Dom to push him over the edge, and he made sure to play out his disappointment for just a beat longer than absolutely necessary. "That's better," he eventually responded coolly, before turning his attention back to his planning.
Now the baseborn of the estate, they were much easier to deal with. They rarely attended the ceremony, just as their offspring rarely bothered to discover their designation. Their children crossed the boundary into adulthood long before officially coming of age, and designations were commonly accepted throughout the lower classes as fanciful extravagances of the wealthy with nothing better to occupy their time. Good, one less sector of the population for Sebastian to have to worry about.
The climbers though, they were an entirely different matter; those of the baseborn who had come into a bit of money, or a small piece of land to call their own, and had decided that their children too would have their designation, and the status that came along with it. This, this was where most of Sebastian's headaches came from. He needed to accurately estimate just how many of the estate's six hundred baseborn occupants would decide to try and make the switch, and he needed to find a way to accommodate them without offending any of the lords and ladies who would rather pretend that the lower classes simply didn't exist.
Oh yes, the winter designation ceremony was the very definition of a logistical nightmare, an exercise that required keen observational skills and a near-flawless appreciation of the state of affairs within an estate. It was the event that would either make or break a political advisor, and break them it did, without compassion or mercy. Sebastian could almost hear the cries of despair throughout the land. But not him, oh no. Sebastian was good, better than good. Sebastian was a pro.
Even with the warm press of Blaine against his leg, even with the sticky sweet tang of his release in the air, for over an hour Sebastian managed to lose himself in the planning and preparation, in the numbers and the figures and the absolute focus on getting everything exactly right. And as Sebastian worked Blaine waited, his arousal only increasing as his Master all but ignored him in favour of his work.
Finally, with one last proof-read and a hastily scribbled signature, Sebastian was done. He plucked a damp towel from the pre-prepared bowl on the edge of his desk, and lazily handed it down to Blaine. "Make yourself presentable Blaine, then you may stand."
Blaine accepted the towel from his proffered hand with a quiet "Thank you, Master," and Sebastian pushed his chair away from the desk so that his sub would have space to crawl out from the footwell. As soon as Blaine was standing - on legs feeble from hours kneeling on the hard stone floor - Sebastian wrapped an arm around his sub and rewarded him with a deep, possessive kiss. He felt Blaine melting underneath him, submitting completely to Sebastian's onslaught. His tongue claimed Blaine's mouth just as the harsh pressure of his arm across Blaine's back claimed his body, his other hand coming up to grasp at Blaine's neck as he deepened the kiss. When Sebastian eventually drew away Blaine all but sagged in his arms. "Thank you, Master," he whispered again, voice fervent and honest.
Sebastian left Blaine to recover on the couch as he collected up his documents and took them to the House steward so that he could forward them on to the duke. When he returned to his quarters Blaine was bustling around the small table in the corner, setting a plate and glass in front of an impressive spread of cold cuts. When he heard Sebastian enter the room he straightened immediately, hands clasped behind his back and eyes to the floor in a picture of perfect submission. "I thought you might be hungry after working so hard, so I had the kitchen bring up some food," Blaine said demurely, still looking at the floor, but Sebastian could see the telltale signs of pride flickering across Blaine's features - the crinkle of his eyes, the flexing of his shoulders - honestly the boy was easier to read than a children's picture book.
"Good." Sebastian crossed the room and settled into the only chair set at the table, reaching across to grab a chunk of bread and some cheese. Without a word Blaine slipped into his usual spot kneeling next to Sebastian's feet, hands on his knees and head tipped upward to watch his Master. As Sebastian ate he quizzed Blaine on his day, curious about what his sub had gotten up to that morning while Sebastian had been tied up in a seemingly endless string of meetings. Blaine happily responded, telling Sebastian about the colt the stable-hands were attempting to break in, and the new cake recipe the kitchen maids were trialing for His Grace's ceremony ball. Every so often Sebastian would drop his hand down to offer a morsel of food to Blaine, who would dutifully eat it straight from his Master's fingers.
"...and of course, the whole village is buzzing about the news of his Royal Highness."
"Oh? And what news would that be?" Sebastian interrupted, vaguely curious about what story had slipped past his usually keen senses.
"That Crown Prince Kurt Hummel is coming of age next month, and is starting the search for a political consort." Blaine's brow crinkled in confusion, "I'm sorry, Master, I assumed you knew."
"I've been very busy with the affairs of this estate Blaine, I don't have the time or the desire to entertain idle gossip, you know that." Sebastian chided, withdrawing the hunk of cheese he had been about to offer Blaine and popping it in his own mouth instead, chewing slowly as he pondered this new piece of information.
"Of course Master, I should have thought," Blaine replied, pausing for a moment as if choosing his next words carefully. "Would Master consider applying for the role?"
Sebastian paused as he considered what Blaine was suggesting, taking a second to turn the idea over in his brain. Political consort to the crown was a huge step up from his current role as simple advisor to an estate - no matter how large or how esteemed that estate might be. It was the ultimate pinnacle of his career path; a role any advisor could reasonably be expected to work toward their entire life. Indeed, it was something Sebastian himself had daydreamed about on more than one occasion, but now? Now that there was the potential for this daydream to actually become a reality? Well, that made things far more interesting.
"Hmmm, political consort is a big decision. You know it wouldn't be like what we have now. I'd be committing myself to the realm, and the prince, almost indefinitely, and of course as my sub you would as well." Sebastian twisted to look at Blaine, one eyebrow raised questioningly. "Is that what you're really asking Blaine? Are you looking to get into our dashing Prince's pants?" Sebastian smirked as Blaine blushed and immediately lowered his gaze.
"I think that's what you really want, isn't it Blaine?" Sebastian continued, watching as his sub squirmed under the intensity of his gaze. "To be taken and used and enjoyed by the Crown Prince of the realm? Do you think you'd be good enough for him Blaine? Do you think you have the skills to pleasure the future ruler of our country?"
The pink flush had started to creep down Blaine's neck, blooming across his collarbone as he gave a strained cough. Sebastian could see Blaine's cock start to swell once more at the mental imagery. Eventually he looked up again, watching Sebastian through his eyelashes as he spoke softly. "If his Royal Highness desired it of me I would of course do my best to please our Crown Prince. Forgive me Master, I was only thinking of you. Political consort would be such an honour, such a position of authority. If I can contribute in any way to my Master achieving such a position ... I only want what is best for my Master, always."
Sebastian's gaze never left his sub as he reached across the table to pick up his wine glass, taking a long sip from it as he considered Blaine's words. The Crown Prince's sexual preferences were known throughout the realm, and as a gay Dominant/submissive pair in a legitimate bond, Sebastian realized that he and Blaine might have a unique appeal that many other advisors and their subs might not have. As much as he hated the idea of not being able to rely solely on his political skill set to win the position, he also wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
When he had fully drained the glass he bent down, looking deep into Blaine's eyes as he firmly gripped his chin between his thumb and forefinger. Slowly, he rose to standing, drawing Blaine up with him. "Needy as you may be, you make a good point. I will consider what you have suggested." With Sebastian's grip still tight on his chin Blaine couldn't move his head, but his gaze dipped to the floor in submission, and again Sebastian could see the pride clearly written across his sub's features.
With one quick motion Sebastian spun them both around, so that Blaine was now facing the chair Sebastian had been sitting on moments earlier, while Sebastian stood behind him, pinning both of his arms, crossed at the wrist, against the small of his back. Pressing forward Sebastian lazily rubbed his clothed body up against Blaine's naked form so that Blaine could feel his obvious hardness. Moving his crotch in slow circles against the swell of Blaine's ass, he took a moment to enjoy the full body shudder that ran through Blaine's frame. Reaching up with his free hand to grasp at the back of Blaine's neck, he pushed him forward until he was bent at a right-angle over the chair, chest flat against its wooden seat.
His movements were slow and unhurried as he draped himself across Blaine's back, taking in the sound of Blaine's increased breathing, feeling the soft thrum of anticipation coursing through his sub as he submitted and allowed Sebastian to do as he pleased with him. Sebastian leant right forward so that his voice ghosted across Blaine's ear, his hand leaving Blaine's wrists so that it could slip down, one finger lightly tracing across Blaine's crack in a teasing hint of what was about to come next.
"But first, I think I need you need reminding of who you you really belong to."