Magnus wants to reach down and run his fingers through Alec’s hair, but he can’t. His wrists are tied together with a length of silk rope that connects them to the headboard. They both know it’s only an illusion of control - Magnus is more than capable of getting out of the bonds with just a single thought and slightest push of magic - but it’s still a nice fantasy, having Magnus helpless like this. “Fuck,” Magnus whines, his hands straining against the rope with the overwhelming urge to touch, “Alexander, please!”

Alec would have thought that asking for things would get easier in time, and it has—it’s so much easier now—but it’s still not easy. “Could you keep my hands there?” Alec presses his hands deeper into the mattress to point out what he means. “With your magic, I mean.” Magnus arches his brow. “I didn’t know you were into bondage.” Technically Alec doesn't know that yet either, but he's very willing to find out. “I’m into you,” he says. “And your magic.”

Alec doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows that Magnus knows he doesn’t know, which kind of makes it better — there’s no expectations, just the smile on Magnus’s lips when Alec surges forwards to kiss him — but somehow it makes it worse as well, because he’s following his instincts and his instincts, apparently, involve letting Magnus do anything to him. And, okay, that idea is unfairly hot (there is nothing Alec wouldn’t give to have Magnus pin him down and just take, but his boyfriend is far too nice and too conscious of Alec’s apparently soon-to-be-gone virgin status to even try to) and unfairly unattainable, but Alec’s first response to being pushed onto Magnus’s bed is still to get his wrists up.