“Are you sure this is all you want?” He moves in close, his heat warming my back, making my bare skin prickle with awareness. “No presents, no jewelry, no private tour of the Empire State Building complete with champagne and surprises? You know I like to surprise you.”

“I do. And I love your surprises.” My toes squirm into the thick carpet as my lashes flutter behind the blindfold covering my face from my forehead to the top of my nose. “But tonight, all I want is you.” I smile. “And your cock.”

“That’s good,” he says, the affection in his voice making my heart beat faster. “My cock and I are kind of a package deal. Especially where you’re concerned.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” He moves closer, but still not close enough.

I bite my lip, fighting the need to turn and wrap my arms around his neck, knowing better than to make the first move when we’re so close to the start of the game.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t move things along…

“That’s nice to hear,” I say with a heavy sigh. “But I’m not sure I believe you, babe. It feels like I haven’t seen your cock in forever.”

“It has been nearly twenty-four hours…” He hums in feigned dismay, making my smile stretch wider. “Then I’ll have to prove my cock’s devotion to you, Miss Fleming. Are you ready to play?”

“Yes, Sir,” I whisper, my head spinning with anticipation.

“Then close your eyes.” His breath is warm in my ear as his hands come to rest on my hips, making my nerve endings sizzle with a combination of arousal and relief because even twenty-four hours without his skin against mine is too much.

“Are they closed, Dakota?” His palms skim up my stomach to rest on my ribs, just below where I’m desperate for him to touch me. To cup my breasts and pinch my nipples and take me to the hot, hungry places I’ve only ever been with him.

With my man, my love, my Master.

Not too long ago, that word made me laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of grown people playing silly sex games. Now it makes me wet. Instantly, desperately wet, from the moment my Master tells me to get on my knees until the moment our game is finished.

“I’m serious, beautiful.” Garrett flicks a finger over my erect nipple, making me gasp and lightning-fierce desire surge between my legs. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“But I’m wearing a blindfold, Sir.” I arch my spine until my bottom brushes against where he’s hard, the feel of the thick ridge of his cock through his thin tuxedo pants making my pussy throb. “And maybe my eyes are closed. You can’t know for sure.”

“I know, Kitten. Because I know you and how you like to test me.” His palm flattens over my belly, his hand so wide his fingers span from hipbone to hipbone as he pins my ass tight to his erection.

And God, I can feel every inch of him, every thick, pulsing centimeter.

My jaw clenches, and my fingers curl into fists as I rock my hips, rubbing my tailbone against his cock. I would prefer to use my hands, but my wrists are already bound together in front of me, wrapped up tight with his tie.

Though, having him in my mouth would be good, too…

All night long, while we spun through a ballroom decorated with holly and mistletoe, dancing to syrupy-sweet carols and classic holiday songs crooned into the mic at the top of the Rainbow Room, all I could think about was getting on my knees with Garrett’s cock between my lips. I don’t know what it was about the warm, holiday vibe that made me desperate to have my mouth fucked hard, but I’m learning not to question things like that. I’m learning to go with what feels right, and being with Garrett always feels right, whether we’re making love slow and sweet or getting as twisted as I’ve ever been in the bedroom.

“Last chance, beautiful.” Garrett’s middle finger dips low, rubbing lightly over my clit, making me tremble. “If you don’t follow instructions, I’m going to assume you want to be punished.”

I shiver again, keeping my eyes wide as I whisper, “Oh, no, Sir. Anything but that…”

“Then bend over.” The words are dark and deep, and the rumble of his Dom voice is enough to make me wetter, even before he grabs my hips and pulls them sharply back.

The motion forces me to bend, bracing my joined hands against the back of the couch before I fall.

“You will listen, or you will suffer the consequences.” He jerks my panties down around my thighs, exposing my ass and slick, swollen sex. His warm palm caresses the curve of my hip as he adds in a thick whisper, “You’re not going to be able to sit down tomorrow without thinking about what a bad girl you were tonight, Dakota.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” My voice is breathy with desire and anticipation of the first blow, the first step in the dance I’ve been dying to dance with him all night long. “I’m so sorry.” But of course I’m not sorry. I’m trembling, aching, eager for his punishment.

“It’s too late for sorry.” The flat of his hand comes down hard on my backside, making me cry out with pain and relief.

Thank God he didn’t take my apology seriously. Thank God he knows exactly how I need the game to play out at moments like this, when I’m so close to him but dying to get closer. I’ve tried so hard, but I can’t get there on my own. I always pull away, slipping into the shadows before “I love you” becomes “I’ll die without you.”

Before Garrett, I assumed I was incapable of being truly vulnerable with a man, but he doesn’t take no for an answer. He pushes me, punishes me, hammering away at the walls surrounding my heart until they shatter. Until I shatter, falling to pieces at his feet, where he is always ready to catch me and put me back together.

“You will learn to listen.” He spanks me with hard, rhythmic swats that summon a soft grunt from the back of my throat each time his palm connects with my stinging flesh. “Or you will end your night, every night, with your ass in the air and my hand teaching you how I expect you to behave.”

“Yes, Sir.” My words end in a gasp as his next blow lands between my legs, slapping me where I’m so copiously wet.

I’m so turned on—arousal slipping down my thighs, leaving a trail of fuck me now, fuck me hard, fuck me deep in its wake—that there was a time when I would have been ashamed of myself.

But that time seems far away as Garrett nudges his knuckles against my dripping sex, humming beneath his breath. “Look how wet you are, Kitten. Look how badly you need relief.”

I whimper softly. “Yes, Sir. Please, Sir.”

“Please what, Dakota?” The sound of his zipper dragging down is enough to make me shake, and my voice turns husky as I beg—

“Please take me, Sir. Make me yours. Please.”

“You’re already mine.” He captures my nipples in his warm hands and twists them tight, making me moan and the tremors shaking my thighs grow even more intense. “You’re pussy is mine, your tits are mine, and your pretty blue eyes are mine. So the next time I tell you to close them, Dakota, what are you going to do?”

“Close them, Sir.” My breath comes faster, faster, pleasure and pain burning through my nipples as my pussy pulses between my legs, weeping fresh slickness down my thigh because I am still empty.

Still alone.

Still incomplete and adrift and lost until He decides I’ll be found.

“That’s correct.” He slaps the side of my breast, setting it to rocking on my chest. The sweet, unexpected sting makes my knees buckle, but he wraps an arm around my waist, holding me up. “You will stand. You will stay standing, or you will wait longer for what you need. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sir.” I bite down hard on my bottom lip, willing strength into my shaking legs.

“Yes, what?” He knees my thighs roughly apart, making my clit swell.

“Yes, I understand, Sir.” I arch my spine, presenting my cunt to him like an animal begging to be mounted, so wild for him my breath is coming in swift, shallow pants and my head is spinning.

“That’s good.” He caresses the burning swells of my backside. “You look beautiful like this, Kitten, bent over and trembling with my handprints on your ass.”

“Thank you, Sir.” I gasp, knees going soft again as his fingers push inside me from behind, granting me a far-too-brief moment of friction and fullness before he pulls away.

“You’re welcome, beautiful.” He urges me to stand, turning me to face him. “But you’re also mistaken.”

“About what, Sir?”

“You think this is almost over.” He kisses me softly as he cups my breasts, rolling my nipples oh-so-gently now, the gentleness it’s own breed of torture after being pinched so tight.

“But I haven’t even gotten started, Kitten,” he murmurs against my lips. “Tonight I’m going to break through every wall until you forget who you are, what you are, that you were ever anything but mine.” His mouth leaves my lips, and a moment later my nipple is warm and wet, leaving me struggling to breathe as he works his dark magic.

“Oh, Sir. Oh God, Sir…” My head falls back as he sucks and bites, writing love poems across my aching breasts with the tip of his tongue.

By the time he moves on, kissing the swell of my belly as if the evidence of my refusal to hit the gym is something worthy of worship, tears are streaming from my closed eyes, wetting the silk blindfold.

After what seems like hours of torment, he finally allows me to collapse into his arms, and he guides me to the floor, pressing my cheek into the carpet as he arranges my body until my ass is in the air and my bound hands are stretched in front of me like a penitent at the altar of some ancient sex god.

And he’s right. I no longer know exactly who I am.

But I still know what I am. I am a woman desperate for the person who has taught me everything I know about love.

There is love in everything he does to me. In the way he hurts me just enough to allow me to feel all the beautiful things I’m too afraid to feel without the fight. In the way he slips beads into my ass, needing no other lube but what he’s gathered from my thighs. In the way he drives his cock into me so hard and deep I swear I can feel him in my throat, catching there as I beg, “Harder, Sir! Please, harder, please!”

There is love in the way he makes me come again and again, until my neglected abdominal muscles cry out for relief and my pussy feels bruised. But he still doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop, until I’m sure that I’m going to be pinned beneath him, weeping and coming and crying out his name, until the end of time.

The thought streaks through my head like lightning, sudden and blinding, and then I’m slip-sliding away from this world, this Self, descending into a space apart from everything it means to be human.

Later, that’s the only way I can describe what happens in those final moments. That I slip-slide out of my skin/this dimension/this time-place-identity, until I am no longer Dakota or Dee, woman or girl, human or anything in between. Until I am dark material, matter and light and the raw building blocks of the universe, a primal fire burning so bright it’s blinding

Wickedly, wonderfully blinding.

---

It isn’t until much, much later, when the bathwater is starting to cool and Garrett asks if I want him to run more warm water, that I become aware of myself as a relatively whole creature once more. Vague memories of him removing my blindfold and bonds, unwrapping me like the most precious present under the tree before carrying me into the bathroom, dance through my head.

Slowly, I tuck back into my body, floating next to him in the tub with my cheek resting on his lightly furred chest, and I smile. “No.” I sniff, lifting a sluggish hand to pet his chest hair. “I’m ready to get out. Thank you.”

His fingers glide over my cheek, guiding a damp lock of hair behind my ear. “Have you come back to me, then?”

With considerable effort, I shift, propping my chin on his chest, meeting his eyes as best I can since my head still feels too heavy to lift. “Yes. That’s where I’m always going to go. Back to you.”

“Good.” Garrett’s dark eyes soften. “Sorry if that was more than you were looking for tonight. I thought you were ready.”

“I was.” I lay my palm over his heart. “Thank you.”

“Never thank me,” he says, voice rough. “It is always my pleasure and my privilege, Kitten. I’ve never felt luckier to be with anyone. You give me so much.”

“Not enough,” I whisper. I can’t imagine ever being enough for him, this superhero who swooped into my life and scattered all my jaded certainties about love to the wind. Even now that things are simpler, without any secrets in our way, I still find it hard to believe that in a few months this man will be my husband.

Mine. For keeps.

Or until he realizes he’s made a terrible mistake hooking up with someone so far outside his socio-economic and cultural sphere that I might as well be a different species altogether.

“Yes,” he insists, hugging me closer in the cooling water. “More than enough. I love you, Dakota Joy. And I can’t wait for you to have my last name.”

I press my toes against the wall of the tub, bringing my lips to his, telling him with my kiss how happy I am to be wearing his engagement ring.

A moment later, he flicks the lever on the tub, sending the water rushing from the basin as he lifts me into the air. He dries me off, and I let him because my limbs are still limp with orgasm-induced exhaustion and I’ve had so little of this in my life—of being nurtured and cared for and made to feel so safe—that I don’t hesitate to let him wrap me up like a burrito in his big towel and carry me wherever he wants me to be.

I hum with contentment when he lays me down by the Christmas tree we decorated earlier this week and moves to light a fire. “Yes. This is perfect.”

“Not yet.” He smiles at me as he arranges the kindling and lights it. “We need a fire first. And marshmallows. And you need to be naked.”

“I am naked,” I say, laughing softly.

“Naked where I can see you.”

“Oh, well then…” I lift my arm, casting off one side of the towel and then the other, my nipples tightening instantly in the chilly air.

The fact that Garrett’s gaze drops instantly to my breasts and lingers there helps things along, too. Just feeling his eyes on me is enough to make me ache all over again.

“I want you,” I whisper. “Just you, no game.”

“Me, too,” he says, his eyes glittering in the flames he has summoned with the excellence and efficiency he brings to all things. “So much.”

I open my arms, and he comes to me, his bare skin first warm against mine and then hot. Hotter. Hottest, as he settles between my legs and pushes inside me with a gentleness that threatens to shatter me all over again.

We make love slow and sweet in front of the fire, with the smell of pine needles lush and spicy in the air and the lights from the tree dancing overhead, and for the first time in my life I understand what all the Christmas fuss is about. I finally grasp the reason for the season.

It’s love—profound, unselfish, life-changing love that lifts you up, holds you tight, and never lets you go.

---

Until, of course, it does.

And then you fall, hard and fast, like the boy who flew too close to the sun. Because some things are never meant to be held close.

Things like stars, wild horses, and Garrett Dawson Lawler the Third.