In a second, he was trailing the crop down her chest, underneath her bra, and along her rib cage.

Then it was gone.

He must have lifted it in the air again, and she waited nervously for him to swat her. But instead, she felt something hard against the wet panel of her panties. He was using the riding crop against her clit, like a toy, turning something she hadn’t liked into something she enjoyed immensely now. He rubbed one end across her throbbing bundle of nerves, stroking her, sending the temperature inside of her through the roof. She sought more friction, more contact, lifting her hips closer. When he stopped, she heard a whooshing sound in the air, then a smack against the hardwood floors. He’d tossed it away.

Next was the weight of his body on hers, his soft voice in her ear, him whispering, “I never ever want to do something to you that you don’t like. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“You should only feel pleasure with me. You should never feel anything less than desire,” he said, and he was Nate now, the man she trusted inside and out.

The next thing she knew the blindfold was falling loose, dropping to her nose, giving her sight again. There he was, raised on his arms above her, and smelling like sex.

Tonight. God, she hoped he’d take her tonight. Reaching behind her head, he untied the blindfold all the way, then brought it to her wrists, wrapping it around them in a circle, and binding them together in a tight knot.

“I’m going to undress you now.”

He laced his hands around her back, unhooked her bra, and freed her breasts. Then he unsnapped her skirt, tugged it down her hips, to her knees, and over her ankles, laying it neatly on the couch.

His eyes roamed her body, drinking her in from head to toe.

“The panties must go,” he said, a clear command, now back into character.

She held up her bound wrists as if to say you’re going to need to be the one to take them off.

In one swift move, his hands were on her hips, practically tearing them off, like a hungry, greedy man eager for the prize.

He stood and stepped away from her. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to watch you spread your legs for me. Do it nice and slow. Like a tease. Make me so fucking hard, harder than I already am, from the way you open your legs.”

She breathed in deeply, letting the air spread all this electric fire to the far corners of her body. She was tingling everywhere, burning up across every square inch of skin. That burn narrowed between her legs, where it became an exquisite ache to be filled. Slowly, intending to torture him, she raised one knee, watching him as he dropped his hand to his crotch, stroking himself through his pants. She took her sweet time letting that knee fall to the side of the couch. He groaned, a rough and hungry sound. She lifted the other knee inch by inch, spreading for him.