“I’m going to lift you,” I tell her. “You’re going to breathe with me.”
“Yes.”
I guide her back onto the pillows. I stack two under her shoulders so her neck stays neutral. I slide my hand under the harness at her chest and feel the small give of skin, the clean hold of knots. My other hand cups her jaw. We just breathe for a count of eight.
In. Out.
“I have you,” I say quietly. “I don’t drop what I tie.”
Her eyes gloss. She blinks once, not to escape—just to steady. “I know.”
I kiss her again, deeper now, because the scaffolding is built. She arches under me, not to escape, but to follow. I let one hand trace the track of rope over her ribs and feel each hitch in her breath like a code path I can follow with my eyes closed. She’s warm everywhere. The harness warms in my palm.
I built it to hold her still; all I’m thinking about is how she’ll feel when she comes, shaking in it.
“What do you want?” I ask into the curve of her ear.
“You,” she says, and then adds, “your hands. Your orders. I want you to tell me I’m good when I listen.”
“You are my good girl,” I croon instantly. “You’re the best thing I ever learned to handle.”
Her laugh is quick, helpless. “Nerd.”
“Correct.” I kiss the sound off her mouth.
I go slow because I can. Because I’ve wanted this version of slow since the first time she looked at me with secrets in her eyes.
I map her with my mouth and my hands, circling the buds of her nipples until they’re stiff points and she’s squirming within the harness, licking and sucking at the crucible between her legs until she’s shaking with need. She opens for me like she was written in a language only I was meant to read, and God help me, I want to see how far she’ll come undone when I touch every place these ropes were built to worship.
I pause to ask, and she answers, and each yes folds another centimeter of tension out of her shoulders. When I feed twofingers under a strap to lift it a fraction, she gasps. Not pain. Expansive shock. The good kind.
“I’m right here,” I say. “Look at me.”
She does. Eyes open, pupils blown, mouth soft. When she starts to chase the rhythm we’ve made, I pull her back with a light slap against her pussy and a tug on the harness.
“Not yet. You come when I say.”
She jerks and shivers and resets.
We do it again. I make her hold on the edge, hot desire slicking her thighs and sweat flushing her body, not because I want to tease but because I want her to feel the difference between restraint and denial. I give when she asks. I ask so she can give.
“Please,” she says finally, barely there.
“Use my name.”
“Atticus.”
Every wire in me lights. I lower my forehead to hers and let her see exactly how much power that one word has over me. I’m hard enough to cut diamonds at this point, painfully ready to be inside her. “Anything,” I say. “Always.”
I free her wrists first—safety standard. I keep the chest harness; she wants the pressure. I kiss the red line at her skin where the friction sat and watch the color bloom and fade. I can feel the tremor in her thighs where the cinch held our rhythm in place. I flatten my palm to it and feel her steady under me.
“Color?”
She laughs again, breathless. “Green. God, green.”
I fit my hands to the harness and draw her into my lap, the rope tightening across her sternum as she rises for me. She feels every point of contact—every knot, every line—and when I push inside her, slow and deliberate, the whole structure shifts around us like it was engineered for this. Her inhale hits me everywhere; I feel it in my palms, in my cock, in the way her body closes around me like I’m the last piece she’s been waiting for.
“Eyes on me,” I say. “I want you to see what you do to me.”
