“Say it again,” I gasp. There’s a ribbon blindfold lying untied on my forehead, and a cloth gag loose by the side of my mouth. Declan tore it off seconds after he started. He said that the way I moan is too delicious to stifle.

“Isn’t that my line?” Declan whispers, trailing a feather down the curves of my stomach. He’s standing by my hips, and as I lift my chin to watch him, I see the way my stomach muscles ride and twirl like there is a creature living under my skin.

In a way, there is: it’s called desire.

“Please …” I whisper, as sparks crack across my skin. I feel like an electrical storm is brewing, and breaking off my body, and that I might burn to a cinder.

"… I need to hear you say it.”

I watch. As Declan leans down, my eyes are entranced by the shock of silver hair over his temple. He does everything slowly: entirely in control; so unlike my life right now.

He plants a kiss on my inner thigh, and as I flinch, my restraints jingle against the leather chair. I’m tied down, entirely at his mercy, and I’ve never felt this excited. He’s made me into his explosive , primed and ready to explode. I’m just waiting for his order to ignite.

He twirls the foot long feather across my naked skin. I’m clothed only by a pair of black lace underwear, so he’s got a whole world to play with. My eyes follow the feather’s strands as they dance across my skin.

“Please, Declan.”

I don’t know why I need to hear it so badly. Maybe because hearing it means that all of this is somehow – I dunno – something more? Does that make any sense? Maybe it doesn’t have to make sense. Maybe all that matters is that right now, he’s fanning the flames of my lust, and those seven words are all the key elements that’ll make this whole thing explode.

Even now, he takes his time. He drags his face up my body, plowing a delicious furrow up my chest with the stubble on his chin. “I think,” he growls, holding my gaze with his glittering, multicolored orbs, “I’m starting to love you.”

I arch my back as his lips meet my chin, and as they walk upward to meet mine. He kisses me, pressing my head back against the leather, and the feather disappears and it’s replaced by his hands. His skin is burning up, or maybe that’s mine – or both. I can’t tell and I don’t care.

The words rain down on me like a patchwork of kisses, but he’s doing that too. I wish I could kiss back, but I’m tied down, and it’s all I can do to watch as his lips descend onto me, kissing my lips, my eyelids, my forehead, and then down, down my body…

He takes my right nipple in his mouth and twirls his tongue about it. I close my eyes and a moan escapes my mouth.

Declan lifts his mouth from my skin, and I’m suddenly bereft of his touch. I need him inside me, now. I’ll do anything to get it back.

“Do you trust me, Casey?” he asks. I haven’t taken my eyes off him this entire time, and right now is no different. I’m sure I see a shadow flicker across his face as he says the word trust, but I dismiss it. It’s the last thing I care about right now.

“Of course…”, I whisper.

“How far are you willing to go?” he asks, trailing his fingernails down my stomach. “How far are you willing to let me go?”

My body jerks at his touch, and I bite my lip. “Anywhere,” I breathed, “everywhere.”

He leans over my restrained body and plants a deep, hungering kiss on my mouth. It is the kiss for life, like he is a drowning man and I’m breath, life and salvation all wrapped up into one. I hang on as he drags his mouth away from mine.

“If you want me to stop –”

“I won’t.”

“You might,” he growls, “and besides, I’ll feel better if I know you trust me. If you ever want me to stop just give me a safe word. It can be anything; you choose…”

My mind runs dry, and I scan the room for inspiration. Nothing my gaze touches will work. Vibrator? He might just think I want more. Whip? I sure as hell don’t want to go down that road … It’s the same for the roads of “chains”, “gags”: everything I see.

In fact, the only damn thing that might work is my handbag, discarded on a neat counter. It is lying completely open, the way I left it, and there’s a tube of lipstick –

“Lipstick,” I say.

He nods, and it’s the last thing I see. After that, everything moves so fast. He picks up the two ends of ribbon still resting by my head and ties them tight over my eyes. I’m blind, and the silk licks at the skin on my eyelids like a fevered lover.

“Lipstick,” he nods. At least, I think he does, because I can’t see a damn thing. The loss of sight is new to me, and every other sense begins working overtime. Suddenly I can hear everything in the room. My ears are straining, picking up the way that his stubble brushes against his skin when he turns his head, and the rustle of his jeans. I can smell him, too – the sweat on his skin, layered over his spicy, musky aroma.

I flinch as a cabinet opens and closes somewhere in the room – and I wait.

And wait.

I can hear him moving, and my nervous anticipation reaches fever pitch. He’s coming towards me, I know it, he’s –

I hear a click, and the strike of the match, and the smell of burning phosphorus fills the room. A thousand scenarios fill my mind. Maybe he’s going to touch it against my body, or drip candle wax over my skin… I turn the safe word over in my mind, even feel my lips begin to form it –

But I wait.

And then something sears against my skin. My entire body goes tight with tension, my back arches and my ankles and wrists tug against their restraints.

“It burns,” I cry out in a breathy, shocked whisper. “You –”

“Do you trust me, Casey?” Declan says hoarsely. “Wait! Feel it.”

Against all my better instincts I bite down on my lip and wait. Declan runs the flame up my inner thigh, and a shiver ran through my body. There’s no smell of burning hair, nor singed skin, it’s –

“Ice.” Declan whispers into my ear.

He trails the ice cube across my thighs, and rivulets of water flow off it like tributaries, each one tickling and licking at my skin. I feel like the water’s going to start bubbling on my burning skin and disappear into steam. All I want is the one thing I know Declan’s not going to give me. Not yet, at least. His cock, inside me. My body’s crying out for it – begging for it.

He moves again, and I turned my head towards him even though I know I’ll see nothing. I hear him rummaging – but this time he comes back quicker. I hear the click of a switch, and then a buzzing fill the room.

A vibrator. No – more powerful.

A Hitachi magic wand?

I’ve only ever seen them in porn, but the second I hear it, I know what it is. He doesn’t give me a second to get ready. He runs it up my thigh, and even from inches away, it feels incredible as the powerful vibrations travel through my body to a clitoris that’s begging for attention. The sparks and fire that were already licking at my skin erupt into a maelstrom.

“Please…” I moan.

I need him to press it against my pussy. I need to grind my hips toward it, need to feel the waves of pleasure overtake me that I know my body’s capable of producing – that it’s begging to give me.

His fingers trail across my skin, and he inches the vibrator closer to my pussy.

“What do you want?” He asks.

“You,” I moan.

“No,” he growls. “What do you want?”

My mind strained to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. Doesn’t he understand that he is what I want? He’s all I want.

“You, Declan,” I say.

He brings his palm down on my thigh and the sound of the slap echoes around the room. It doesn’t hurt, not really, but it stings – and sends a jolt of pleasure vibrating around my body.

“No, Casey,” he whispers – his lips an inch away from my ear, “tell me what you really want.”

And then I get it. I know. He wants me to be coarse, to tell him my real desires, not just romanticized platitudes. So I do.

“I want your cock,” I say – and it’s my turn to growl, this time –, “in me, now. I want you to grip my thighs and pulled me in and fuck me as hard as you can, Declan. I want you to do it; and to not stop this time; so I”m crying out your name so loud your neighbors hear.”

I can’t believe the words that are pouring out of my mouth, but it’s all true: every word.

“Better,” he murmurs, and he strokes the vibrating wand across my pussy and I grind against it, and little shocks of desire flood through my body. He holds it there, and my head falls back and –

He pulls it away and I let out a moan of frustration.

I hear a snick, and a clip, and my underwear falls away – cut right off. He grinds his palm against my pussy and finds it wet and ready, and then shoves two fingers roughly in my mouth. I taste my own juices, and even that builds my desire.

He tosses the vibrator aside and it falls to the floor with a thud, still buzzing. He undoes his belt and his jeans drop; I hear the sound of falling cloth puddling on the floor. Then I have to bite my lip, because he’s in me.

He fucks me hard, in deep, long thrusts. After the long, testing foreplay, I’m already on the edge. It won’t take much to send me over, and the way Declan’s hips are crashing against my inner thighs, I doubt it will for him either.

“Jesus, Declan,” I moan, the words coming out in between thrusts. It sounds like the wind’s catching them, but it’s just my own lungs betraying me.

He pulls one hand off my ass and places it on my throat and squeezes. I can breathe – just, and yet somehow the lack of oxygen seems to drive my orgasm to heights I didn’t know it could reach.

“Fuck,” I moan. “Jesus, Declan, oh my gosh –”

And it happens. Stars explode behind my eyelids, and my entire body goes weak, as little shocks of electricity seem to explode into life and disappear all at once, and everywhere, at random. My nipples feel like little balls of fire, and I lie back against the leather, spent.

Declan pulls his huge cock out of my body, and I moan with disappointment. But it’s only so that he can reach forward and unbuckle the restraints holding first my arms, then my ankles. He pulls me loose, and my entire body feels like jelly.

He holds me to his powerful, muscular chest, and as we lie together, exhausted, my breath tickles his skin.

“Say it,” I whisper, still blindfolded.

For a long second, I don’t know whether he’s heard me. And then, just when I’m beginning to wonder if he has, and he’s just ignoring me – he does.

“I think I’m starting to love you, Casey,” he whispers, playing with my hair.

A phone rings, and I jump, startled out of my sleep.

We’re still naked as the day we were born, and I’m just about to tell Declan to smash it to pieces so we can go back to sleep when he moves.

“Crap,” he groans. “It’s my burner. I’ve got to get this.”

A little shadow of disappointment crosses my face, and I pull the blindfold off, only to see Declan’s naked ass as he bends back up with a little black Nokia in his hand. It’s a good ass. The phone beeps as he touches a button, and he presses it against his ear.

“Whatever this is,” he grumbles into the speaker. “It better be good.”

Then there is a pause.

“They fucking did what?” , and there’s another pause, but shorter.

“Today?”

I start to worry, because that didn’t sound like a real question…

“After I looked that asshole in the eye?”

And now I’m left thinking that maybe someone is going to die…