‘I—uh—is it okay if I just say stop if I need you to?’

‘Of course it is. I’m not a monster. A woman says stop, I stop.’ He turns his lips and whispers into my ear. ‘She screams don’t stop, I keep going. Okay?’

I nod fervently, even if the mere concept of screaming at a man not to stop is downright surreal. I am not that woman.

Never have been.

‘Good.’ He slides his cold, condensation-laced highball down my upper arm, and I shiver. ‘Now, what do you like?’

I suppose this is part of his tonight is for you pitch. But honestly, it’s the least helpful question he could have asked me. I could give him a comprehensive list of my favourite tropes, microtropes, and bookish kinks, but he’s asking what I like in my real, honest-to-God sex life, and that’s a problem.

I can get myself from nought to sixty like nobody’s business, but I’ve never come with another person in the room. My first boyfriend, who I met when working in a restaurant after I finished Sixth Form, had no clue what he was doing, bless him. And with Joe, it was—I don’t know. It felt good—I had certain sensations as well as a whole lot of emotions—but it was usually just blow jobs or straight sex, and I just can’t come like that. What I liked with him was the intimacy. The attention. The praise. The experience of being worshipped, and the look on his face as he fell apart. I particularly enjoyed it when he got stern and professorial with me—after all, that was what had attracted me to him in the first place—but it didn’t culminate in any actual orgasms for me.

I can’t exactly tell a man who’s already forked out twenty-five grand for the privilege of fucking me tonight that I like intimacy, can I?

So I tell him the truth.

‘I don’t know, really.’

He laughs softly and drags his beard across my jaw. It’s a soft rasp, and it feels good. ‘Going to make me work for it, I see. I can respect that. Well, I’ll tell you what I like. I like good girls who do what I say and stand nice and still while they let me play with them. Can you do that?’

God, why is that so menacingly, astoundingly attractive?

‘Yes,’ I stammer. ‘Of course.’

‘Excellent. I think we’re going to get along just fine, Marlowe.’

He straightens up, inhaling my hair in a way that’s not remotely tender but rather proprietary. Assessing. Then he’s taking my drink and setting both glasses down somewhere while I stay good-girl still, watching the beautiful people laughing and flirting beneath us, and feeling the bass of the music downstairs thump through my body, and wondering what Brendan’s next move will be.