He’d taken her body beyond the limits she thought they knew. Harper lost track of how long they’d been in his bed. The cover had long been pushed onto the floor. Sean had taken the length of the black silk flat sheet to create a complicated bind.

“Hojojutsu,” he’d said as he cinched the material behind her back.

“What?”

“Don’t question me,” he said sharply. “It’s the name of the bind.”

The cool silkiness of the sheets were softer than what he’d used before, the rough ropes and police-grade handcuffs. But the intricacy of it, the long ropes of material, made her even more aware of how vulnerable she was.

“Well?” Sean asked. He’d secured the last knot and stood beside the bed. He reached for the full-length mirror next to the bedside table and angled it toward her.

When she saw her reflection, she almost gasped aloud. The contrast of her milky skin against the oil blackness of the sheets, the ties, was almost unnerving. He’d slipped the material around the smallest part of her waist and it framed her breasts. He leaned over and spread her knees wider apart. On her lower half, the black sheet outlined her mound like crotchless underwear. “Do you see how fucking hot you look?” he asked, his voice low against her ear.

She shivered.

“Answer,” he commanded.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And it’s all mine,” he said. “Say it.”

“It’s all yours.”

“You’re all mine.”

“I’m all yours,” she repeated.

He straightened up before her and went to the closet. When he returned with a basketball, she raised her brows at him. “Sit on this,” he instructed. She struggled with her arms bound behind her back, but arched herself up so he could situate the nubby orange ball between her legs.

“Now,” he said as he opened the laptop. “Remember this?” He opened a folder and plugged the desktop speakers into the laptop. She heard her own cries of pleasure before anything showed up on the screen. It was deafening, her calls filled the room.

A video of them in the penthouse of the hotel weeks ago appeared on the screen. She blushed and looked away as the Harper on screen greedily dropped to her knees, her hands bound behind her back in handcuffs, and took his cock into her mouth.

“Don’t look away,” he said brusquely. “You’re to watch.”

He moved behind her on the bed. She could sense his heat behind her, but he didn’t touch her.

“You’re going to keep watching,” he instructed slowly, “and I’m not going to touch you. Not until you’ve covered that entire ball with your juices. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. On the screen, she watched the Sean of weeks ago stand her up and bend her over the couch. She’d quickly spread her legs and presented her ass to him. However, at the time, she hadn’t seen the way he’d gingerly trailed his fingertips along her curves, or the way he’d drunk in her body with so much desire. As the Sean on screen gripped her hips and entered her, he closed his eyes with an expression of so much ecstasy it was almost impossible to keep watching.

From behind her he leaned into her ear. “Look how badly you want me,” he whispered. On the screen, she called out his name over and over. He’d picked her up and set her on the couch where she opened her legs as wide as possible. Even on the small screen, and in that dark room, it was clear how wet she was.

Harper watched as the two of them on screen moved in an animalistic rhythm. Every time he drove into her on the screen, she felt it all over again.

“Good girl,” he said. She looked down and saw a series of wet trails lick down the basketball. “Watch this,” he said. “You’re about to squirt all over that twenty-thousand dollar couch.”

On the screen, she watched herself squeeze her eyes shut as she called out, “I’m coming! Oh, fuck, you’re making me come.”

“Come for me,” the Sean on screen demanded. “Right now.”

“Oh, fuck!” The stream of her come was evident even with the somewhat grainy footage. The on-screen Sean leaned back to watch. The approval on his face was unmistakable.

“That’s right,” Sean said behind her. “That’s a good girl.”

She realized she’d started to grind against the basketball, but she didn’t care. On the screen, Sean had reached down to work her clit as she orgasmed, and it forced a new stream of come from her.

“Almost there,” he said. She looked down and was shocked by the rivers of wetness that raced down the ball. It was nearly completely soaked.

On the screen, Sean bent down to lick up every last trace of her orgasm. She could nearly feel his tongue on her. “Are you going to come?” he asked. She’d started to bounce on the ball, and didn’t give a damn how desperate she looked. She wanted to be treated like an animal, like a bitch.

“Close,” she whispered. “I’m close.” The unfamiliar roughness of the ball between her legs excited her, but as the Sean on the screen buried his face between her legs and his voice in her ear urged her toward orgasm, it was almost too much to bear.

“Does my sweetheart need some help?” he asked.

“Yes,” she urged. “Yes, please.” A few more bounces and she’d come all over that ball.

“What’s your go word?” he asked.

“Gomorrah,” she panted. “Please help me.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her and gripped a length of the taut sheet in his hand. He began to circle her clit with his other hand, commanding an instant orgasm. Harper screamed out in unison with her image on the laptop, coming at the same time as her counterpart from another life.

“You did good,” Sean said. He gently pulled the ball from beneath her and held it up so she could see there wasn’t even a sliver of dry space. “Taste,” he said, and she dutifully licked its rough orange surface.

He set it aside but left the video playing. “Lie back,” he instructed.

Harper collapsed onto the bed while shakes from the orgasm still rocked through her. Sean leaned down and kissed one pert nipple, then the other, both pushed out and swollen from the tightness of the bind. “Tell me what you want,” he said.

“More,” she murmured. She couldn’t help the exhaustion in her voice. “I want more.”

“Greedy today,” he said with a smirk. “How are those ties?”

“Okay …”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, sir.”

“How about we loosen some of them a little?”

He withdrew a six-inch straight blade knife from the tableside drawer and her eyes widened.

“It’s alright,” he said. “You know your safe words.” He loomed over her and traced the tip of the knife around her breasts. Harper stiffened when the pointed end started to outline her areola, but she didn’t say a word. “Speak,” he said.

“Gomorrah,” she said, albeit with reluctance. Still, as the shining cold blade raked across her nipples, there was a fresh gush of wetness between her legs. Sean sensed it and quickly cut away one of the binds.

She held as still as possible as he teased the knife to her other breast, confident in her safety. He wouldn’t hurt her, she was sure of it. Just the finest of lines, not even a scratch, lingered where the knife had been. Within a minute, it would disappear entirely.

On her other breast, he was more languid, teased more. There was a moment, just a moment, when she thought he’d press too hard. “Eden,” she gasped out. He looked surprised, but moved the knife away from her nipple and lightened the pressure. Sean cut off another part of the complex bind, this one near her oblique muscle.

As he moved the knife downward, she grew even more wet. The danger, the coldness of the blade, all of it had her more ready than she’d ever been. He flicked the blade through the small strip of pubic hair at her mound. “Be still,” he cautioned as she opened her legs wider.

He dragged the knife slowly from her groin up her thigh to the inside of her knee. She wanted to wiggle, to ask him to bring it back to her center, but she didn’t dare. “Gomorrah,” she moaned, and hoped he understood.

Slowly, at a painstaking pace, he moved the blade back to her wetness. As he expertly maneuvered the blade around her outer labia, his other hand pressed her thigh open. Harper felt her clit swell, painful, as he started to explore her inner folds. “You need to trust me,” he said, “and hold very, very still.”

She gasped as she felt the tip of the blade at her entrance.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Talk to me.”

“I think so. Yeah. Gomorrah,” she said.

She felt the blade slip half an inch into her and wanted desperately for him to rub her clit to counteract the fear. “How about now?” he asked.

“I don’t … my clit,” she said softly, embarrassed.

“I need you to be really clear with me right now,” he said. The blade rested, barely inside her.

“It feels alright, but I need more. Something else …”

“You can’t have anything but this right now, it’s too dangerous,” he said. “Relax. Try to enjoy this isolated experience.”

“Okay,” she said. Harper’s eyes took in all the details of the ceiling. She counted the lights.

Sean eased the blade just barely deeper inside her. It didn’t hurt at all, though the fresh coldness of the blade sent a shock through her. “Eden,” she said quickly.

“You’re getting so fucking wet,” he said. “But I’m going to remove the knife now, slowly. You might come when I do, so try to stay still.”

There’s no way I’m going to come, she wanted to say. Her body was stiff, unnerved, and wholly aware of the deadly foreign object inside her.

Still, as Sean began to ease the knife out of her, the feeling of complete safety and trust overwhelmed her. She didn’t know why tears gathered at her lashes and spilled down her face. “Oh, god!” she called out when there was still half an inch of blade inside her. The orgasm rushed at her, fierce and hard. She didn’t expect it, but even as it rocked through her, Sean’s words echoed in her head. Stay still. She exploded just as he removed the last of the blade. He buried two thick fingers immediately inside her and gave her walls something hot and safe to clench and cling to.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly as the last of the waves subsided. Her cheeks were stained with tears, and she felt forever changed. Whatever had just happened, it bound them together.

He lay down beside her as he easily removed the remaining knots. “Yes,” she said. And she meant it, on every level. She burrowed into his neck and inhaled his scent. “I love you,” she said. The words just slid out, unbidden.

“Fuck, I love you, too,” he said as he pulled her closer. “So much I think I could die.”

Her mouth found his as her body gave out, exhausted, to the darkness.