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It turns out that, for all the fuss that was made about it, this dance is actually very boring.
This is only just barely a surprise; any event that requires chaperones is an event that Lindsay generally doesn't look forward to. But it is true. Lindsay has had maybe a bit too much to drink, by now — he's accustomed to Bacchanal rites; the feeling is hardly unfamiliar — and successfully slipped away from his chaperone, and yet it is still boring.
"The moon is very beautiful tonight."
The man is obviously a dom. If his height and his broad shoulders weren't enough to confirm it, his bearing would be. Every aspect of the way he holds himself speaks of being accustomed to command, of the quiet expectation of obedience.
Lindsay glances over him, then adjusts the way he's standing, tilts his head to bare his throat — he's small and soft and narrow-shouldered and very obviously a sub, from the way he stands and the set of his shoulders to how he keeps his hands.
"It is," he agrees.
He sits next to Lindsay, just close enough to be proper.
"What do you say, the worst ball of the year?"
"What brings you here? I'm dodging overbearing mothers with submissive children they assure me are as accomplished as they are beautiful. "
"Oh, the usual. Dance partners as skilled as they are handsome, that is, not at all. Dominants who would rather address my chaperone than me.
And the moon is beautiful."
His smile goes softer; he lets his eyelashes flutter, tilts his head a little more to show off the line of his neck.
"Thank you.
May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"
"Captain Ashley Burton." Ashley captures Lindsay's wrist in his hand, turns it up, presses a kiss to the place where his blood pulses. "And you?"
Captain Burton is as notorious as a rake as he is for his heroism in battle. If Lindsay were minding his reputation, he'd make his excuses and find his chaperone.
He could make his excuses and find his chaperone, mind his reputation, go back inside to the party he'd worked so hard to escape from. Perhaps he should.
Or he could stay here, with a handsome, charming, interested, interesting man.
"Lindsay Michaels," he says. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
The words are exactly the same as he's heard from everyone he's been introduced to that night, but the tone is — different. He feels warmer, when Burton looks at him like that. He doesn't take his wrist back.
Burton presses his lips to Lindsay's wrist again. It's subtle-- he's good at this, it's nothing that would startle anyone even in a crowded ballroom-- but this time he bites.
— oh.
Lindsay's posture goes even more submissive, somehow, and softer, more natural.
"I — should go back inside," he says, reluctantly.
"Perhaps you should. I am, after all, a dangerous man."
Ashley lets go of Lindsay's hand and scoots away from him and shifts a bit and it is suddenly very obvious that Ashley is much taller than him and much stronger and could pick him up easily and do whatever he wanted to him.
Oh, that's — attractive.
"So you are," he says, a little bit breathless. He doesn't move, doesn't take his eyes off of Burton's shoulders.
"I'm sure a chaperone is looking for you."
He smiles. His smile has quite a lot of teeth.
His smile — or, the one he's using right now — is soft and sweet and a little nervous with no teeth at all. "I'm sure," he agrees.
He doesn't suppress the soft high-pitched sound he makes at boy. It's a touch forward, but it isn't like Burton hasn't been.
He could go. He should go.
"Yes sir," he says, very softly, and stays.
"Good boy. You're very pretty, you know."
There are bounds of propriety even here. They never know who might be watching, even if they can't hear precisely what they're saying. But Ashley is sitting a little bit closer than he should be.
"Thank you, sir." He actually can't bare his throat any more than he already is, but he looks up at Burton through his eyelashes.
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