She nods and pulls the chair that sits in front of her makeup table into the middle of the floor. “Sit,” she orders, pointing to the chair.
“Les, what’s this about?” I ask, getting comfortable.
“You said you trusted me. I’m going to prove to you that you can. Even with this,” she walks in front of me, holding up a satin blindfold. “You still trust me?”
“Les,” I say roughly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I go to a dark place and can’t control how I react.”
She lets it drop so it’s hanging from her fingers. “The goal is to replace that dark place. I want to replace it with pleasure, not pain.” She lets the tail of the blindfold trail across my legs, covered by my jeans, and I can feel my muscles tense. She walks around me, lettingthe material trail across my clothes, never touching my skin. “I want you to accept my touch and be able to touch me,” she says from behind me, close to my ear but not touching. I shiver and don’t know if it’s from fear or feeling her breath rush across my neck. She steps back in front of me, holding the blindfold in front of her again. “I won’t force you to do this, Dex,” she says softly.
I look into those blue eyes I’ve dreamed about for years and decide. I take it from her and tie it around my eyes. I let my hands drop and grip the edges of the chair. I refuse to do anything to hurt her.
“We’re going to start slow. I want you to listen to my voice.” She is behind me again, and I didn’t even hear her move. “Are you ready?” I nod, afraid to open my mouth. “I need your words, Dex.”
Shit. “Yes,” I croak out.
“Good,” she replies, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “The point of vision deprivation is that you have to focus on your other senses. Touch, smell, hearing.” I focus on her voice; she’s on my right side, the side with the scars. “What do you smell?”
“You.”
“Be specific. This is what I want you to remember when you go to that place,” she murmurs, moving while she’s talking.
“Your vanilla scent mixed with a man’s cologne.” Gage’s cologne, I figure out when I focus on it.
“Good,” she says, moving again. “What do you hear?”
“Your sweet voice, fabric moving.”
I feel her touch me before she ever does; it’s just a brush of her hand on my shirt, nothing I can’t handle. “What do you feel?”
“Your hand on my left shoulder.”
“Is it a bad touch?” she asks from my right side, running her hand across that shoulder; my skin bunches under her hand, but it’s bearable.
“No.”
“When you put all those things together, what do you get?”
“You. Your smell, your voice, your touch.”
“So, think of this moment when you sink into your mind.”
Her voice has taken on a hypnotic state. Soft, slow, seductive. Iwish she would touch me again, something I haven’t wanted. But I know she won’t when I expect it. The point of this is that spontaneous touch isn’t always bad.
I exhale and nod.
She trails her hand from one shoulder to the other, just a light brush of her fingers. Her smell washes over me like an aphrodisiac, calming my pounding heart.
“Dex,” she whispers in my ear, her lips barely touching the lobe. I shiver again, and I know it’s not because I’m afraid. I can feel my cock start to harden. Amazed, I shift my hips. “Are you okay?” she whispers again.
“Yes,” I say, nodding, letting my fingers loose from their death grip on the chair.
She runs her fingers over my back again, firmer this time. She squeezes my shoulder, and my whole body turns to stone. “Dex,” she whispers in the other ear. “It’s just me.”
Alessa. It’s just Alessa.
I force myself to relax, and she squeezes my shoulder again. This time, I don’t tense up as bad. I think of her smell, her touch.
Every time I tense up, she reminds me of where I am.
