“Go lie down.” His fingers release me but his gaze doesn’t. Right now, I remember that Finn is ten years older than me; I must look wide-eyed and naïve. I wonder if he has any idea the extent of my inexperience with lovers like him. “I’m gonna tie you up and kiss that sweet pussy for a while. I want to hear you say my name when you come on my lips.”

I back up to the bed and then turn, moving toward the middle. Having grown up on the beach, I’m used to being in bikinis around people, but Finn and I have only ever hooked up in the dark. It’s a little weird to be completely naked—with him mostly clothed—and crawling on my hands and knees on a bed in broad daylight.

When I kneel and wait for him to join me, he shakes his head. “Lie back. Close your eyes.” At my suspicious expression, he says in a quiet, deep voice, “You want it or not?”

Before I do what he says, I blink down to the worn button fly of his jeans, faded and soft over time and now distorted with the shape of him, hard beneath. He’s always made sure my body was ready, and I know that’s what we’re doing, but the threat of panic and fear lingering at the edges, and my need to get lost in something other than my own thoughts, makes me impatient.

He sees where my attention has gone and rubs the heel of his hand down the thick line of his cock, gripping it. “You’ll get it in a little bit. Lie back.”

The pillow is full and hard, but the cotton comforter is soft and warm against my bare skin. Between my legs, the mattress dips as Finn climbs up from the foot of the bed, his palms smoothing up my shins.

Finn drags the length of red rope up over my torso, coiling it around his hand. Reaching behind me, he slides the center of its length under my body and then crisscrosses it back and forth down across my torso. Looping it around one hand he coils it up one arm and then back over my chest to the other side. Wrapping it down around my other arm, he’s softly bound my arms so each of my wrists stays at the sides of my hips. In the center, just below my belly button, he ties an intricate—and beautiful—knot. I watch him the entire time; he’s focused and careful not to bind me too tight. I can tell, too, that he loves what he sees. When he’s done, he sighs, running his hands up over my hips and across my stomach, my breasts, my neck.

“I had no idea you were into this,” I whisper.