I caught her knees. Pinned them open. My hands on the insides of her thighs, the scarred knuckles against the soft skin, holding her where I wanted her with the kind of steady pressure that said this isn’t negotiable.
Her back arched. Her hands found the sheets.
“Ask me,” I said.
She didn’t. Her jaw set. The stubborn line I’d memorized—the particular compression that meant she was going to fight this, going to hold out, going to make me work for it because surrender didn’t come easy to her.
I waited.
My mouth an inch from her. Close enough that she could feel my breath. Close enough that every exhale was torture. I held her thighs apart and I waited and the waiting was its own kind of violence—patient, deliberate, the cruelty of a man who knew exactly what she needed and was withholding it until she used her words.
“Please,” she said. The word breaking loose. Small and wrecked.
I rewarded her.
My tongue found her—flat, slow, the full length of her in one stroke that made her hips lift off the bed. The sound she made wasn’t a moan. It was something more fundamental—a release, a pressure valve opening, the specific noise of a body that had been holding its breath and could finally exhale. My hands tightened on her thighs. I held her open and I tasted her and the world narrowed to this: her body under my mouth, her hands in the sheets, the small, desperate sounds escaping her like things she’d been keeping caged.
I brought her close.
I felt it building—the tension climbing through her thighs, the muscles tightening under my hands, her breathing going sharp and shallow. I knew the sound she made right before. The specific pitch change, the way her voice dropped half a register and then broke upward. She was there. Right there. The edge.
I pulled back.
“No—“ The word came out of her like something torn. Her hips chasing my mouth, her body arching, the frustration physical and immediate. Her hand found my hair — gripping, pulling, the scarred fingers desperate. “Don’t stop, don‘t—“
I did it again. Brought her to the edge. Held her there with my tongue and my hands and the steady, relentless patience that was costing me everything I had. Then pulled back.
“Daddy, please—“
The sound of it. Those two words in that voice—broken, raw, stripped of every wall she’d ever built. My body responded with a violence that nearly ended the whole exercise. I was so hard it hurt, the pressure concentrated and blinding, and for three seconds I almost lost control. Almost just pushed into her right then. Almost gave us both what we wanted because the sound of her begging was so fucking good.
I didn’t let her come. I kissed up her body instead—her stomach, her ribs, the underside of her breast, her collarbone, her throat. She was trembling under me. Full-body tremors. Her skin flushed, her eyes dark and wet and furious.
I entered her slow.
My hand found her throat first. Not squeezing. Holding. The weight of my palm against the column of her neck, my fingers resting along the side, the heel of my hand against the hollow where her pulse hammered. A reminder of who was in charge. Of who she’d given herself to.
She wrapped her legs around me.
I pushed in. Inch by inch. Slow enough to feel everything—the heat of her, the tightness, the way her body opened for me and then closed around me and held on. Her mouth fell open. A sound left her that had no consonants in it. Just breath and want.
I moved. Deep. Steady. The rhythm unhurried, each stroke deliberate, each withdrawal a kind of cruelty and each return a kind of grace.
“Good girl,” I said. Low. Against her ear. “That’s my good girl.”
Her nails dug into my back. The pain bright and specific and welcome.
“So tight,” I said. “So fucking tight. Like you were made for this. Made for me.”
She was close again. I could feel it—the tension climbing, her body tightening around me, her breathing going ragged. Herhips moved to meet mine and the rhythm we found together was the rhythm of something that had always existed and had been waiting for us to discover it.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Santo—“
I pulled out. She made a sound—animal, furious, the sound of a woman who had been denied twice and was running out of patience with the man responsible. I flipped her. Onto her stomach. My hands on her hips, positioning her, the controlled handling of a body I knew by touch now, every angle and curve and sound committed to permanent memory.
I entered her from behind. One thrust. Full. Her face pressed into the pillow, the sound she made muffled by cotton and the rabbit’s ear—the cream-colored witness still half on the bed where it had been knocked.
