I had lost all sense of time and place.

It could have been minutes… or hours. Maybe I had slept and dreamed it all…

But when I opened my eyes, he was there. And he was still inside me. He sat on a deep velvet chair, and we were still hidden away under the staircase. I was draped across his lap, still naked, and our bodies were still joined. He swept the hair out of my eyes with a gentle hand and I felt sure it was all a dream. His touch, his voice, his scent… everything about him was exactly what I remembered and more. But he wasn’t my Will. He was a stranger I had given myself to. I reached up, desperate, but found my mask was still there. I had that, at least. I was still a woman without identity…

But I was completely unprepared for this moment.

Mattie and I had planned tonight. We’d talked, argued, debated. I’d been terrified, excited… sure and unsure. But I’d never thought it through this far. How do you say goodbye to a man who’s given you more than you ever dared hope for? A man without a name or a face… who just fulfilled every hope, every need, every single thing you thought you’d never experience again? Another man, with the same power to make me feel what I’d only ever felt with Will…

I rested in his arms, letting him touch me, pet me, all the while his cock giving my aching pussy something hot and hard to squeeze against…

“Do you always do this with your women?” I asked softly, staring into his eyes. They were brilliant even in the shadows and so strangely familiar. “Let them bask in the afterglow?”

His lips twitched and lifted at the corners. “My women…,” he said, drawing out the words on his tongue. “Woman, I think you mean. And yes… though it’s been many years…”

My mind raced. He’s married and she pushes him away. That’s why he comes here… to get what he needs from strangers…

“She was my angel,” he said slowly, looking at me intently. His cock throbbed like punctuation. “And I lost her.”

“So you come here…?”

“Not until tonight.”

My walls tightened against my will, and he smiled again in his familiar way. “Me, too,” I said in a tiny voice. “It’s my first time here.”

“But not being bound,” he shot back easily. “That’s what you came here for…” He rocked his hips ever so slightly.

“Yes,” I admitted, clenching my teeth. “It only happened once, and I… I…”

“And you needed the experience again,” he finished smoothly, nodding. “It was the same for me.” He ran his warm, rough palm over my breast, letting the nipple catch between his thick fingers. “It created a need I never forgot either.” He moved my legs apart with his other hand until my thighs rested outside of his. My back rested against his chest and his jaw was tucked into the crook of my neck. His breath was warm and heavy. His fingers drew lazy circles over my belly.

“Will you come here again?” he asked, kissing the curve of my neck. “For this… for me?” His fingers trailed downward and touched my clit like a whisper.

“No,” I answered honestly. “I can’t… I can’t ever again.” I was panting in time to the movements of his fingers. My pussy clenched tight, asserting its own demands. “This was only for tonight,” I said reluctantly. “This isn’t who I really am. And it’s not who I can be again…”

“We’re the sum of our own choices,” he answered, moving his hips against the swell of my ass. “We can be whoever… whatever… we choose for ourselves.”

I thought of Violet and felt him thicken, lengthen again inside me. “I’m here now,” I said, already losing my will to the power of sensation. “It’s all I can give you… the only promise I can offer…”

He turned me on his cock, pivoting me and forcing me to face him, the twisting motion almost unbearably intense. I straddled him, my breasts dragging heavily on his chest as he pulled me close. He pushed my hands down along with his, to where his cock filled me. For the first time, I realized how wet we were together…

So wet… too wet… and down my thighs. He pumped and I could hear the sound of us. Where I should have felt the rim of his condom there was nothing but slick, veined flesh. He had come inside me and I’d taken it all. His eyes glowed with pleasure as he pumped inside me.

“You’ll come back for me, angel,” he said, as my traitorous body was swept away by the current of promised pleasure. “I am your choice… And you may be my only chance…

You belong to me now and I’m not letting go.” He held my hips and thrust, licking and sucking my nipples as they brushed his face. “You need more just as much as I do…

You’ll come here again…

And so will I…”