The pinball of anxiety ricocheted through my stomach.

“What’s wrong with Auckland?” Oliver asked

“Past life baggage.” I’d yet to meet a man who wanted to hear about baggage.

“Elaborate.”

Until Oliver.

“You’re being nosy.”

He tapped my nose with his finger. “Because I want to know everything about you, Miss Darcy.”

“That requires trust.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t know you.”

“We’ve closed that circle quite nicely. Make me feel better by trusting I’ll take very good care of you in Auckland. If any monsters come out of the closet, I’ll slay them for you.”

If he only knew how much I wanted someone to do that for me. The wine that made me careless had to take some of the blame when I answered him. “I’ll come to Auckland.”

Oliver’s smile in response was almost worth the gamble I was taking. He shuffled down until he straddled my knees, and took hold of the hem of my dress.

“Lift.”

As I raised my hips he slid the dress up as far as it would go, then took my arm and sat me up, pulling the dress off me in a rough move and tossing it across the patio. “Back you go,” he said, laying me down with care. Then he backed right off me, taking my panties with him.

“Let’s have a little fun.” He was stroking my calf with one finger as he spoke and it was all I could do to remain still.

“You don’t come until I say you can.”

“Easy.” I grinned at him.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Easy?”

His finger slipped further up, circling behind my knee, the pleasure radiating up my thigh. Normally it would have been easy. It had been so long since Rob and I had decent sex I only came once he slept. That was if I could even be bothered rubbing one out.

“Sure,” I replied, even though my confidence was waning. “Easy.”

“Let the games begin.”

“Wait. What happens if I come without your permission?”

“I have ways to punish you.”

For a moment I wondered if I had bitten off a bit much. “I don’t think I’m into that.”

His smile was like that of a wolf who’d cornered its prey. “Then, don’t come until I say you can. Control, Darcy. I love it. You will too if you follow my directions. Take off your bra.”

He stood, and I stared at him as he went over to his chair and picked up his drink. I thought he was going to strip too so I sat up and unhooked my bra, putting it on the ground beside me. In that time he’d done nothing but watch.

“Lie back, let me see you.”

With the other guys I’d been with, it had always been jump on top and dive inside. I felt anxious and exposed, and as I lay back I crept an arm across my breasts.

“What’s wrong, Darcy?”

He knew what was wrong, surely? He was standing there, completely clothed, considering me lying naked on his patio. There was a distinct imbalance of power occurring. Fuck him. “I’m feeling vulnerable. Is that a surprise?” I could hear the defensive edge to my voice.

“You look beautiful, you should feel adored. Give me this moment to look at you. Move your arm and own that beautiful body.”

I shifted it slightly.

“All the way. Now.”

His command might as well have been his tongue on my clit. My pussy spasmed, trying to grip something that wasn’t more than an idea. I dropped my arm to my side and when I saw the look in his eyes I knew I was safe and adored, even if it was just for one night. The hardness of his cock was outlined in his jeans and he didn’t try to conceal it. That wasn’t the first time today and if anyone was owning their body, he certainly owned his cock.

Dammit, I could, too. I raised my arms and put my hands above my head, bent one leg and let my knee fall to the side.

He nodded. “Better. Much better.”

I breathed rapid and shallow. I closed my eyes and tried to slow myself down, pulling breaths long and deep into my belly.

“Eyes open, Darcy. Don’t go anywhere in that head of yours. Stay right in this moment. No thoughts of shopping or work or paying bills. No fantasies.”

“This is a fantasy.”

He shook his head. “This is very real and you’re going to stay right with it.”

His beautiful voice had lowered some and I shivered as if it was a fine mist covering my naked body. I don’t think I’d ever felt so turned on, and he had yet to touch me.

He came around and knelt at my feet, his fingers trailing up and down my calves. “I need you to communicate with me, tell me what you like, and tell me if I’m doing something you don’t like, okay? I’m attentive, but I can’t read your mind. Don’t hide, be honest.”

Normally I just disappeared into my own little world, waiting for Rob to finish. We’d tried a few things in the beginning, but his libido waned when I lost my place as the ultimate interest in his life. I’d never really connected with my sexuality and the trust Oliver asked for would be difficult for me to pull off.

“Darcy?”

I tumbled into his gaze and the way he looked at me made me feel like the only person in the world.

“Do you want me to undress you?” My voice wouldn’t amplify beyond a whisper.

“I want you to remember that you’re not allowed to come until I give you permission. You have a pass card. If you feel as though you’re going to come, tell me and I’ll stop what I’m doing. I also understand words like ‘don’t’ and ‘no’ and ‘stop’ and I’ll respect anything you say to break for a moment, or end what we’re doing.”

He leaned down and ran his tongue up the inside of my thigh. “I think you deserve to experience something different. I want to do that for you. I want to trace your curves—all of them—so that you and I both get to know your body, and what makes it tremble and beg.”

He shifted, his large hands parting my thighs, and the expected move, the dive to my clit, never happened. He was honest about what he said as he spent his time tracing me with his fingers, his lips and his tongue, and the part that moved me most—his eyes. I’d never been looked at like that before. Beneath him I melted. My arousal rose so fast under his attention that I thought I’d come before he got near any of the obvious erogenous zones. Between my thighs was plump and wet, my nipples aching to be sucked and pinched whenever he got close.

But he feasted instead, in little pieces, like I was a degustation meal and dessert would be taken ten courses later.

“There we go,” he muttered into the dip of my collarbone as he stabbed a finger deep inside me.

It took me by surprise so that my back arched and I made a sound, a long moan I’d never uttered before. His finger was such a shock after the soft caresses and butterfly kisses. “More,” I begged.

He kissed his way down my body, until his mouth nuzzled at the crease of my swollen lips and my thigh, and finally he took them into his mouth. I shuddered and made a grab for his head, and he pulled away.

“Can you handle it?” he asked.

His question might have sounded arrogant in another situation, but I nodded, yes, I could handle it.

His mouth returned to my clit, his fingers inside me, each press and suck working in counterpoint so that I was writhing and digging my heels into the ground to raise my hips. I was so close to coming, hunting down the orgasm when I suddenly remembered his order. “Stop…no.”

He sat back on his heels and I felt the loss of him intensely. “Well done.” He dragged his fingertips up and down the back of my exposed thighs.

“I want to come…please.”

“I know you do, but let’s edge it a bit more. You can come when I’m inside you, not before.”

This time as he mouthed my pussy, his tongue diving inside before running inside my lips to flick my clit, he ran both hands up my body and took hold of my nipples. He started to squeeze and little shocks shot through me. The pressure never relented until it almost became painful. I made a sound, a grunt and he lifted his head.

“Stay with it…it gets better.”

He was right. In no time I wanted more, harder, and he seemed to understand this as he twisted and… “Oliver, stop!”

He stopped immediately. I’d never been this close before and it was all I could do not to come with the afterwave of shattering jolts that rushed to my nipples as the circulation returned.

I was panting. “You win,” I said. “I can’t do this any more.”

“Said the princess who thought she wouldn’t come.” He stood, pulling his T-shirt free and flinging it to the ground.

I licked my lips in anticipation as I watched him unbuckle his belt, lower his zipper and step out of his jeans. His cock was magnificent, curved up to his belly and when he pulled out a condom from the pocket of his jeans I asked him to stop.

“I want to touch you first.”

“Darcy, if you touch me, I’ll explode. Like you, I know my limits and I’m right there. You can touch me later, but right now I need to bury myself in your lovely wet, tight, hot cunt.”

“If you put it that way, I guess I can wait.” Any man I’d slept with had taken my pussy for granted but Oliver made me feel as though it was the most precious reward in the world.

He rolled on the condom and was back between my legs. Leaning on one forearm he played the head of his cock up and down between my lips, nudging at my entrance until I was begging him again.

In an almost brutal shove he buried himself inside me, then lay across my body and cradled my face.

“Eyes open, princess.”

He flexed his cock inside me as he spoke. “I’m going to fuck your hot little pussy good and hard, and you’re welcome to come any time you like.”

He pulled out, a long drag and shoved back in until he hit the end of me. I’d never been filled this way before and he raised himself, moving a hand to the back of my thigh, lifting it high, spreading me open so that I thought he’d split me in two. Wanted him to split me in two.

“Say my name.”

“Oliver.” I was soaked, everywhere. Our perspiration mixed and made us slippery and the orgasm that had withdrawn to a safe place in my mind roared back to the surface.

“Once more.”

“Oliver.”

“That’s it.” He pumped harder into me now. “I’m right here with you, Darcy.”

He pulled out a little and slipped his hand between us, his finger circling my clit. I jerked against him.

“There we go. You come first.”

That was all I needed and the next time I cried out his name it rose unbidden from my lips with the rush of the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced.

“Fuck.”

That was all he said as he pumped hard into me, his sweat dripping from his forehead to my face as he lowered his mouth to mine, his words incoherent as we shared them with our breaths. He came with my name on his lips and I held him tight against me as he shuddered.

We’d nearly broken each other. I knew that, in the way we’d both come…together, and apart. I’d never felt this before, this tumbling through the spiral of a vortex. I hoped to god it wouldn’t hurt too much when I hit the ground.