Her freckles don’t taste like anything. I know that, but I can’t stop kissing them. Can’t stop following the reckless trail across her cheek and below her jaw. I swear there’s stardust in them, something elemental and bright. They singe my lips, my tongue.

She makes a sound of surprise, a strangled little gasp in her throat. “Is this regular? I thought it would be more like…”

“More like what?” I don’t pause to give her time to answer. She must find the wherewithal even while I move my body closer to hers. Her hands flutter against my shoulders, not pushing me away, not pulling me close. They are confused, those hands.

“Like the movies.”

That makes me stop. I pull back so I can look into her pale green eyes. Jade, I realize. They’re the color of jade, the kind of stone you would hang on a gold chain. “What movies?”

This level of red, it’s an emergency. Her cheeks burn. “You know.”

“Do you watch porn, darling?”

“Only for instructional purposes,” she says, too fast.

I do not laugh. I think I should get a medal for not laughing at this. “And what did you learn from the porn movies you watched?” I ask, quite seriously.

“Usually they…you know. The clothes come off.”

Naturally I am desperate to know what sort of clothes came off. Was there a nurse’s uniform? Or perhaps a man dressed as a burglar, come to tie her up? “Do you want to take off your clothes?”

“No,” she says on a squeak.

Of course not. Because she isn’t ready for that, despite the dubious education porn movies have given her. She’s practically vibrating with nervousness. “Then you’ll keep your clothes on. For now. For as long as you want them. You’re safe with me.”

Her eyes focus with puzzlement. “Safe?”

It’s the reason she stays in this tower, this princess with red hair. Because it’s safe. And that’s what I must be, if I’m to be allowed to stay. “Safe,” I say. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She looks reluctant, biting her lip.

“No matter what you say, I won’t be angry. Cross my heart.”

“I’m worried you aren’t really aroused,” she says, fast. “That you’re faking it.”

It’s not the first time a woman has ever worried about that with me, but it is the first time I’ve been as desperate to get a woman naked. That she doubts me now is a great irony. “What makes you think that?”

“In the movies, they always show the— the—”

“You don’t think my cock is hard?”

She flushes. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be.”

Now I can’t help but laugh. A full belly laugh. When is the last time I had one of these? There are tears at the corner of my eyes. I turn her around, making her face the small countertop with its fancy espresso maker. She’s right up against it, her tummy pressed to the curved stone ledge. Then I cover her with my body, my throbbing cock between her sweet ass cheeks, the only barriers her clothes and mine.

She stiffens with a small gasp. “That is—”

“Do you see what you do to it? You make it hard. So hard it hurts.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no,” I murmur. “Never apologize for that. It’s all a man can dream of, a woman making him so hard it hurts. Only letting him touch her over her clothes. Dying for a glimpse of bare skin.”

She moans a little. “This isn’t like the movies.”

I press my lips to the small patch behind her ear. “No, it’s not like the movies. This is real life, and that’s why you called for me, isn’t it? Because the movies were not real.”

“Yes,” she agrees, breathless.

“When the women come, and they squeal and shake, it isn’t real. It isn’t right. You know that, don’t you? They fake it. You won’t fake anything, darling.” I turn her to face me, because for the first time, this is the right way. The only way.

“What if I don’t—”

“You will,” I assure her, which only seems to worry her more.

A shudder runs through her delicate frame, making her hair vibrate like dew drops on a pretty little flower. It only looks fragile; in truth it can withstand this earthquake. “It would be easier if it didn’t feel so good,” she says, her voice plaintive and pleasure-dipped.

“One day you’ll tell me why you want sex so badly, without feeling anything.”

“I won’t,” she says, but she’s only cross with me because I’m rubbing gentle circles on her back, because it feels so damn good. She arches into my touch, the same way her cat would.

And then I move my hand lower, to the upper curve of her ass. It’s a beautiful ass, which is saying something. I’ve seen more than my fair share. Enjoyed every single one of them, but the picture of her heart-shaped behind, from when she bent over the dresser, is emblazoned in my mind. So perfectly wrapped in black silky fabric, thick enough to ward most men away. I’m not most men. The challenge only makes it sweeter, as I stroke the slope of her, as I feel her gasp in response. I’m the first man to ever traverse this land, something I hadn’t thought to find pleasure in. What a barbarian I am. A Viking, to find such deviant delight in taking a young woman’s virginity. It has nothing to do with seduction, the palm I place on her, the squeeze I give her. That’s pure indulgence on my part, knowing I am the first.

She shifts closer to me, making tiny sounds I’m not sure she hears. Her body is out of her control; it’s in mine now. “I don’t even know your favorite color,” she whispers.

I laugh softly. “Red.”

The color of my Bugatti.

“Mine’s blue,” she says, but she doesn’t explain why.

I reach down to the lace hem of her dress, pulling the fabric into careless bunches, until I touch bare skin. It’s a godsend, the satin of her. Like opening my mouth to the sky after years of thirst. With a firm grasp I hitch her leg up to my hip, spreading her. “Any other questions?”

Her eyes are hazy. I can see the struggle behind the green curtain, the valiant attempt to string words together as her body comes apart. “Favorite food.”

“A tagine,” I tell her, not adding that it’s my mother’s I dream about. The spice of it on a hot night, making me sweat in the dark. This isn’t about revealing secrets, not truly. It’s about making her feel like she knows me. I won’t lie to her, but I won’t rip apart my skin to set her at ease either.

That clears enough of the arousal from her eyes to ask, “A tagine?”

It makes me wonder what other foods she hasn’t yet experienced, trapped in this gilded prison of hers. Even the richest of foods can be punishment if they’re all she can eat. “A stew. Spicy. Do you like spicy food?”

“I don’t know,” she says, confirming my worst fears.

I want to book us a flight to Thailand or South Africa, to show her a thousand buildings and give her a million new tastes. Like most penthouse suites, this one is large—for a visit, not for a lifetime. “What’s your favorite food, darling?”

She pulls back, looking me right in the eyes, proving that though she is untried, she is far from naive. “I haven’t found it yet.”

Her words travel straight to my groin, a challenge I’m desperate to accept. “You think these questions make it easier? We could talk for hours and hours, darling. And still you would be nervous.”

“Then how do people do this?”

I grasp her small hand and place it flat on my chest. “These are your questions. So what do you wish to know?”

Awareness sparks in her eyes. She moves her hand in the smallest circle, testing, asking about the solidity of my body, wondering at the reality of this encounter. I can’t let so eager a question go unanswered; I bend my head to capture her lips.

Her other hand flutters against my shoulder before settling there. A butterfly I must be careful not to spook if I want to enjoy its beauty. I dart my tongue against her lips, letting her think about the presence of it before delving into her mouth.

She startles for a moment, and I think, this is it. This was all I’ll have of her, this taste. It’s shocking the depth of my disappointment. I can walk away from any woman. We enjoy our time together. And then we part. I have never wanted more, never needed another taste like I do now.

She moans in sweet acquiescence.

I’m overcome with relief I don’t want to examine, and I slide my tongue against hers in quiet insistence. The physical sensations are a tidal wave, they drown out any thoughts or worries. They sweep over the both of us, making her breath come faster. She’s excited, and hungry, and needy, and so I can push aside the realization that I am, too.

If my response to her is stronger than I expected, so be it. I can use it to be a better tutor for her. Because that’s what I am right now, as experienced as I am, with a virgin—her teacher.

I press my forefinger to the small furrow between her eyes. “You are thinking too hard. Feel, instead.” To illustrate my point, I bite her plump bottom lip. It’s only a small nip, but enough to make her jump. “Only feel.”

Her eyes spark with a lovely rebellion. “Like this?”

I know what she’s going to do before she leans forward, before her white teeth peek from between peach-colored lips. There are one, two, three seconds when I could jerk out of reach. And it wouldn’t be awkward; I would be too charming for that. I would laugh and cajole and coax her into the most pleasure she’s ever known.

It would be a beautiful performance, that. Instead I let her get close enough to hurt me, the sharp pain a brilliant counterpoint to the thrum of anticipation in my veins. It’s only a pinch, but I have to close my eyes against the raw force of it.

“Yes,” I say, and my voice is lower now. My accent thicker. “Like that.”

“What else?” she whispers, and a dark current of arousal runs through me at the hope in her voice. It wasn’t only me who was jaded, I realize. It was the women. The women who would call me, because they were tired of selfish, cheating men in their lives. I was happy to give them a reprieve from their loneliness, to take a reprieve from my own, but this is different.

Bea is full of hope, like a curved tendril of green splitting the earth in spring. She makes me want to breathe in deep, to stretch my limbs. To watch her rise.

What else? she asked. This is what else, my hand falling down her side to the indent at her waist. And lower, lower. She sucks in a breath, leaving only cool air against my collarbone.

And still lower.

My hand stops in the space below her stomach, well above her mound. A place that isn’t on its own sexual, but a place a man would only touch if he’s about to have sex.

“You have practice, yes? You touch yourself.”

Her lips form a perfect “O” because of course she has. She isn’t experienced, but she is curious. “That’s not weird,” she says, a little defensive. The voice of one who has to convince herself.

“But no. Very sexy, that’s what it is. I would love to see it.”

Her cheeks flame. “I couldn’t.”

“Maybe later,” I say, and then I do something a little forward. I give her a wink. That would not be an introductory lesson on flirting, on foreplay, but I find myself out of my depth with this girl. As if I’m desperate to impress her, instead of a hired professional with a job to do.

She bites her lip. “Could I watch you do that?”

God, the mouth on her. She can’t even say the words, but she manages to say them anyway. So much courage and so much fear. My body tightens with the image of her, leaning forward, lips parted, while I pumped my cock. I would become desperate, sweating and swearing, but still I would not come, not until she had looked her fill.

“It would be torture,” I tell her honestly. “Exquisite.”

She studies the top button on my shirt like it’s an elaborate puzzle. It would be so easy to open it myself, without even removing my gaze from her. And it’s so much sweeter to watch her struggle with herself.

Then she takes a deep breath, as if steeling herself.

Her small fingers brush against my chest through linen, uncertain with the stiff fabric. She pushes the button through the hole, tugging the fabric apart no more than a centimeter.

Another button and another.

She opens my shirt down to my navel before spreading it apart.

I look down, trying to imagine what I look like for her, dark hair and tanned skin. My body is acceptable. I work out enough to keep myself trim, to bulge a few muscles for the clients who like such things, but that is not my strong suit. There are weight lifters and ball players on the payroll for women who prefer men like that. Myself, I am tall and somewhat spare. It is my smile that makes them choose me, not my body, but Bea looks at me with awe.

“Do you like what you see?” I ask, my voice pure gravel.

I expect her to be demure, to shake her head and avert her eyes, what any well-behaved ingenue would do. Instead she meets my gaze with an impish smile. “Feeling insecure, are you?”

My laugh comes out full-bodied. It takes me by surprise. “A man does like to feel wanted.”

“I do want you,” she says with a candor I’ve come to admire from her. An eagerness I’ve already learned to crave. “But I’m not sure I should have you.”

“Do you think I’ll hurt you?” I don’t think that’s her worry, but I have to be certain. It would break me if she thought I would force her to do anything she didn’t want to. “We can call the service right now. They can send someone else.”

“No,” she says, a little too loud, turning pink. “No, not that. It’s just that I’ve spent so long here in these four walls. Seeing the same group of people. Doing the same things.”

I hear the starvation in her words, the darkness that closes in on her. “You’re afraid because I’m new. Because what we’re doing is new. So we will only do what you’ve already done.”

“Do you mean watch me…”

“Masturbate? Oui, I could watch that. I would gladly, but I would also love to make you come. It would be a feeling you’ve had before, only with my fingers instead of yours.”

She likes that, I see the excitement brighten her eyes. Her fear recedes into the night. “Here?”

I look around at the small bar and the sofa beyond. “Where do you usually do it?”

“In bed.”

My hand links in hers, and we go there together. This is the room where I began this journey, the dresser still slightly ajar from the wall. The mismatched furniture at odds with the sleekness of the penthouse suite. The bed neatly made in anticipation of what’s to come, white ruffles in neat alignment. The thought of her wet and horny under this spread is enough to dampen a spot of precum on my boxers. Already my cock hurts with how long I’ve been hard, but I will wait as long as she needs. Forever, if that’s what it takes to make her comfortable.

She turns off the lamp, and I let her, but only because she would normally do this in the dark. There is only the light spilling in from the doorway, barely enough to see her by.

I pull back the bedspread, messing up her ordered work. The sheets are cool beneath my palm, and I smooth them, smooth them, making them warm and ready.

When I turn back to face her, she looks up at me with luminescent eyes.

Every thought of teaching her, of tutoring her, of remaining aloof from her disappears from my head. There’s only the need to kiss her and the physical movement to make it happen. Her lips yield under mine, softer now, quicksand, and I’m sinking.

This time when I touch her, she sighs into my mouth, a sound of infinite relief. I give in to my baser impulses and touch her plump ass, knead and mold her, and then it’s my turn to sigh in relief. She is everything warm and vibrant in my arms.

I know a move for every situation, practiced and choreographed to maximize her pleasure, but it’s clumsy hands that press her back to the bed, that lift her heavy lace dress in pursuit of ecstasy. I slide my palm up the inside of her thigh, and her hips lift, shocked and seeking.

“Spread for me, Bea.”

She does, wordless, her eyes wide moons. There is enough mystery there to make me uncertain about my reception, but then I touch her—ah, there. And she’s wet for me, drenched and swollen for my cock. It isn’t my cock that she’ll get though, only the stroke of my forefinger, making her cry out.

“Tell me what you feel.”

“I feel wild,” she whispers. “And so good. And it hurts. Why does it hurt?”

Beautiful. She’s goddamn beautiful. “Because your body knows what it needs.” I press my thumb in front of her clit, hovering there in the slickness. “Reach for it.”

And then she does, lifting her body in a timeless rhythm. She doesn’t need my lessons, that much is clear, not the way she writhes in relentless time, pressing her clit against me.

She could come this way, but I want more. Not only for her.

For me.

I slip my finger inside her. God, she’s tight. She would be a vise around my cock, and I feel myself flex inside my pants. I have one knee on the bed, the other leg still planted on the floor. I’m bent over one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, but I’m still fully dressed.

Part of me wants to open my pants and release myself. To slip inside her heat and take what she’s already paid for. But something holds me back.

“Please,” she whispers.

Then I’m helpless except to kiss her, to thrust my tongue into her mouth with the same steady gait as I slip my finger inside her. And still she fucks her body against my thumb, the friction making her gasp against my lips.

There is no longer a spiral to the top; she’s hovered there, trapped in suspended agony.

Afraid, I realize with a terrible dread.

It’s the first time I’ve ever wondered if I might not make a woman come. Her body is with me, but her mind is afraid. I bite her lip once more, and her attention focuses on me. “Nothing will happen to you,” I tell her, even though I have no ability to protect her. No right. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Let go for me, Bea. Let go.”

She comes with a glorious rush of arousal, her body jerking in wild abandon. I pet her clit with firm strokes of my thumb through her orgasm, and then stroke her sex softly as she comes down, pressing kisses over her nose and across her forehead, telling her how beautiful she is, how sweet. My brave girl.

Everything is perfect, in this moment. Her body and its response to me. Even the fact that I’m rock-hard and suffering beneath my suit cannot mar this.

Until her gaze snaps to mine, and everything changes.

All the fear rushes back, tenfold. I see it march in like a thousand pinpoints of darkness, blotting out her bright arousal. And then she bursts into tears.