I want that for us.
I want to feel like this forever. It’s a tiny place in my mind where it becomes okay to be vulnerable and powerless. Here, those states come with rewards, not punishments.
“You’re trembling,” he notes. His thumb strokes up and down the crease of my thigh. “Eight thousand nerve endings, and not one of them wants you to lie to me.”
“Lie?” My voice cracks. “I would never lie to you.”
“Is that so?” he murmurs, sliding two fingers under the soft edge of my underwear and brushing the damp heat beneath. “I suppose you’re right. If anything, you only withhold the truth. You’ve changed, my love.”
A helpless sound slips from me.
“Have you?” I ask.
He sets the needle beside my hip and drags his fingers along my slit through the fabric, slow enough to make me choke on air.
“I have,” he whispers, his breath brushing the dampness he just touched. “Before, I did bad things only when they served my agenda. Now I’ll do awful things if you so much as say the word.”
I’m soaked. Completely soaked.
“Nathaniel…”
“I’m at your beck and call, Skye.” A deep breath. A sigh. “What have you done to me?”
He presses two fingers more firmly into the heat between my legs, feeling how I pulse for him. “Sometimes, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
He slides his hand beneath me and pulls my underwear aside completely.
His eyes drop to my pussy.
“And I couldn’t be happier.” His gaze lifts to my face. “You are sweeter than absolution.”
His fingers glide through my wetness. I moan—pathetic, needy—and he smiles as if it’s a gift just for him.
“I will not touch your clit to make you orgasm,” he says as his fingers spread me open. “Prepare yourself for it.”
His words tear through me, like cold fire in my veins. I don’t know whether to beg or to scream. He reaches for the scalpel and presses the flat of the blade to my shoulder.
My entire body goes rigid, except between my legs, where heat blooms uncontrollably. My skin tightens, my chest rises and falls in desperate little gasps.
“Wha—?”
“We don’t need the clothes now, do we?” he murmurs, dragging the blade lightly down my ribcage. The sensation of that sharp metal makes my body shiver violently, my nipples aching to be touched, my pussy throbbing with longing.
His fingers slide between my thighs again, spreading me wider—closer, closer, never quite touching where I burn the most.
I can’t breathe. Every inch of me feels like it’s burning alive, like I’m about to snap apart at any second.
By the time I’m naked beneath him, I feel like I’m unraveling.
“I will make you feel real good,” he murmurs. “All you need to do is open yourself up to it.”
“Nathaniel…” I gasp.
“Are you afraid?”
His thumb brushes my swollen entrance. My hips jerk.
“I’m trying not to be…” I whisper. “But you terrify me… sometimes.”
