Still holding onto his shoulders for balance, she looked down and watched as Daniel slid a single finger into her. She heard a sigh of pleasure but wasn’t sure if it had escaped from his lips or hers.

A second finger joined the first and Eleanor began to pant as Daniel moved them in and out of her until they shone with her wetness against the light of the fireplace.

With his other hand he explored her clitoris, probing gently and slowly until he found her rhythm, the prefect pace and pressure that brought her to the edge of orgasm.

“I can’t...” she gasped. “I can’t stand.”

Daniel immediately took his hands away from her. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to his bed. It was dark away from the fire, and cold. She wriggled under the covers as Daniel lit a smattering of candles.

She saw now that his room was both masculine and elegant; dark wood furniture contrasted with the off-white linens and rugs. But as he stood next to the bed and started to undress, her appreciative eyes fell only on him.

Daniel’s naked chest was even more broad and strong than his clothes had hinted at. His stomach was a flat hard plane of muscle. Candlelight flickered over his skin, throwing every line and angle into sharp relief. Eleanor pulled the heavy covers to her chin, suddenly uncertain at the prospect of seeing all of him.

She rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness that hovered at the high ceiling as he discarded the rest of his clothing. She knew from the shifting of the bed that he had joined her. Then it was his face, his naked body that claimed her field of vision. He pulled the covers down her body, revealing every inch of her to his sight again.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered and it was, without question, an order. She heard the imperative in his voice, the tenor of command. She obeyed. She was trained to obey, trained to want to obey.

As she spread her legs, Daniel reached for one of the candles that burned on the bedside table. He brought it to him, careful to spill no wax. He settled between her open thighs and looked down at her.

“Use your hands,” he said. “Open yourself.”

Eleanor reached down and with trembling fingers spread the lips of her vagina as wide as she comfortably could. “Your clit,” he said. “Show me.” Eleanor blushed in the semi-dark, but embarrassment did not stop her from using her thumb and pulling back the hood of her clitoris. Now nothing of her secret parts remained hidden from his view.

She looked at Daniel as he looked at her. His eyes seemed to devour her. She’d rarely felt so exposed in her life.

“I’d forgotten,” he said quietly, “how beautiful this is.”

He moved the candle to his left hand and with his right he touched her. One by one he dipped every finger into her—his thumb, his index finger...sliding one in, pulling slowly out, and then pushing in the next as if he had to experience her from every angle. With a single wet fingertip he widened her tight entrance with spiraling circles. She was so wet she could hear herself.