“Hold this,” he said, handing me a second loop that was now fixed to the bed.
I’d no sooner grabbed it than he’d lowered himself to the mattress and his mouth was on me, tongue licking up my core until he found my clit. I flexed my hands with the urge to sink my fingers into his hair, but remembered I wasn’t supposed to let go of the makeshift handle that kept my arms above my head.
For much of my life, I’d thought that I couldn’t get off from oral sex, but it was really just that the partners I had couldn’t stimulate my clit with their tongues the way I needed them to.
Zane knew how to tease, how to build the sensation deliberately, but that wasn’t what he was doing. He assaulted me with pleasure, driving me close to an orgasm within minutes. But it was never that easy with him.
I wouldn’t want it to be.
As soon as I started thrashing my head, he pulled away and turned his back as he opened the container he’d brought over. He turned back around and started laying out objects on the nightstand.
He would never deliberately hurt me, but fire wasn’t the easiest thing to control. I was tense and shaky with nerves, but it was the kind of nervousness I experienced meeting my first clients. I hadn’t been pushed this far out of my comfort zone since then, and had forgotten just how intense the rush could be.
“Turn over.”
I flipped onto my stomach, holding my head up to watch what he was doing.
Zane lit a stick on fire that was shaped like a Popsicle and set it on a stand, then he pulled a matching stick out of a container of fluid and held it in front of him.
He didn’t ask if I was ready, but he paused for a brief second to give me a chance to change my mind. Like hell I wasn’t trying this with him.
I squeezed the handle harder and tried to steady my breathing.
He swiped the flat stick over the skin of my shoulder, leaving behind a fine trail of liquid. Then, he looked me in the eye…and touched it with the fire stick.
Fire flared on my shoulder where he’d put the liquid and my whole body jerked, but he swiped it out with his palm before I could even properly process that I was on fire.
I smiled, gasping as my heart rate skyrocketed, adrenaline flooding my system.
Zane kissed me like he was proud of me. “Only the fluid burns if I swipe it out fast enough, but your brain doesn’t know that. It sees fire and feels the stinging heat and sends panic signals.”
He picked the fluid stick back up. “You’d think the first one would be the most intense, but it’s the opposite. Now, you know what’s coming and have to convince yourself to let me do it again even though your fear response is building.”
He swiped my upper arm on the other side with liquid, put that stick back in its container, and touched the fire stick to the slick mark he’d left behind. Flames ignited on my arm and I yelped this time even though I knew it was coming.
It didn’t hurt, didn’t burn, but even though I objectively knew that, I couldn’t slow my heart rate or breathing. I could smell the slightest hint of burnt hair where he’d singed the fine hair off my arm, which only sent another flood of alarm signals to my brain.
He put both sticks down and slid his hands along the surfaces of my back. “Some skin is more sensitive. Your outer arms are one thing. Just wait until I get to your inner thighs.”
I was trembling and he’d only done it twice. I felt completely out of control, hanging on his every word as an anchor, clinging to his confident touch as a reminder that I was safe and cherished.
After three more across my back, I was jerking each time he did it, but kept hold of the handle.
He laid a stripe of fluid across a spot he’d already covered once. “A funny thing happens if you do it in the same place. The skin is more sensitive and a little bit of that top protection has been stripped away, so the risk of it burning increases each time.”
I closed my eyes and panted, waiting for the fire to flare.
I whimpered when he didn’t do it, then squealed when he blew on it instead of lighting it.
This was the biggest head fuck I’d ever experienced.
He lit it and it stung, but not as bad as my physical reaction suggested. I whimpered and thrashed, digging my nails into the cord I was holding with the effort not to let go.
“Turn over,” he said.
I flipped onto my back, readjusting my grip on the handle, gritting my chattering teeth.
If he’d tied me up, it would’ve meant submitting to him once and then sinking into the knowledge that I couldn’t physically stop him, so I just had to take it, even if I technically could’ve stopped him with a safe word. I would still have been able to hide behind the illusion of powerlessness. Like this, I had to make the choice to submit to him over and over and over again, forcing myself to choose him, to trust him.
