Pleasure crashes through me in waves that steal my breath and my thoughts and everything except the overwhelming sensation radiating from my core through my entire body.
Pure, undeniable, impossible pleasure.
My back arches completely off the bed.
My mouth opens but no sound comes out because I can't breathe, can't think, can only feel this incredible thing happening to my body.
Wave after wave of it, rolling through me, making my muscles clench and release, making everything inside me pulse and throb and sing.
It's too much.
It's not enough.
It's everything.
The sensation peaks, crests, holds for an impossibly long moment before slowly, slowly beginning to fade.
Leaving me trembling and gasping and completely undone.
Vaughn turns off the vibrator.
The sudden silence is deafening.
I lie there, my eyes still closed, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to understand what just happened to me.
My body feels strange.
Warm and heavy and loose, like all the tension I've been carrying for days—for twenty-three years—has suddenly released.
Like every muscle has been untied, every knot unwound.
I feel... relaxed.
No—more than that.
I feel good.
"Eden."
Vaughn's voice is gentle. Careful.
I open my eyes.
He's still sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, completely composed except for something dark and intense burning in his eyes as he watches me.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
How do I feel?
Like my entire understanding of my body just shattered and reformed into something new.
Like everything the Sanctuary taught me might actually be lies.
Like I just discovered a part of myself I didn't know existed.
Like I'm terrified and exhilarated and confused and so, so curious about what else my body can do.
"I don't know," I whisper, because it's the only honest answer I have.
