Wow,” I say as Tristan leads me out of the elevator we just rode to the top of a huge skyscraper downtown. He let me get the best babysitter money could buy for Cole, even though this late at night they are just going to be sitting on the couch and waiting through the night to make sure he doesn’t need a cup of water or a bathroom trip.

The room is pure white, almost like something out of a futuristic movie. There’s a bright glow that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, making the walls look like flat expanses of pearl lit by a winter sun. I can see now why Tristan made me wear white. Even he’s wearing white, albeit with black shoes, belt, and tie.

A woman with her hair dyed pure white and shocking white eye-liner stands behind a sort of reception desk flanked by two tall doors. “Mr. Rivers,” she says professionally as we approach. “Welcome to Purity.”

Tristan gives me a playfully severe look, like he’s poking fun at our melodramatic entrance.

I smirk at him and wrap my arm around his a little tighter. As much as he can be intense and serious and sexy, he can be surprisingly gentle at exactly the right moments. I never thought of myself with such an intense kind of guy before meeting Tristan because I imagined it would feel so stifling, like every single moment was ripped straight out of a romance movie. Yes, that’s all well and good when you’re in the mood for it. But what about when you just want to be a goofball and do something weird? Or when you want to gossip about your co-workers or complain about a belly ache. It never seemed like the prototypical bad boy on a motorcycle who wears leather jackets would be compatible with those moments.

Somehow, Tristan is. He’s sexier than I could’ve ever imagined a man being, but part of that sexiness is how he is always thinking of me first. If he can sense that I’m uncomfortable or afraid, he knows exactly how much to tease me or what expression to make. Being around him is… It’s good. It feels right in a way I never thought I’d find. It feels so right it scares me, because nothing this good can possibly last. Can it?

When Tristan came into my bedroom to invite me on another date, I was pleasantly surprised. With everything going on between us, I still haven’t been able to get a real pulse of where we stand. I’ve stopped lying to myself, for my part. I know I want to be with him.

The only real reservation in my mind is the worry that giving in to Tristan is some kind of betrayal of Cole or even a betrayal of the memory of my little brother. On a logical level, I know that’s stupid. My little brother, if he’s still looking down on me, probably doesn’t care what I do so long as I’m happy. It’s my own mental construct to think that he would expect me to fix some other kid like him or that he’d want me to sideline my life to find a convoluted sense of redemption for how I let him down.

Still, logical or not, there’s a pit of doubt in my stomach. I can’t just look at Tristan and the amazing life he seems to promise as the blessing it probably is. Instead I’m stuck seeing myself as some kind of selfish creature who is spitting on the memory of her dead brother.

“You okay?” asks Tristan. He splays his hand across the small of my back, giving me the slightest tug toward him. It’s a subtle gesture, but it makes a warm sense of safety and happiness blossom inside me.

I press my lips together, nodding but not meeting his eyes because I don’t want him to see how much my mind is wandering. He pulls me even closer, kissing the top of my head in such a tender way that it melts my heart.

It has been almost a week since Arthur from child services came to harass us at Tristan’s house, and this date is the first real official outing he and I have had since. We’ve both been busy, but it’s not like it was that first week in his house. We may not spend much time around the house talking, and we’re still sleeping in separate rooms, but there has been a definitive change between us. It’s mostly just in the way his eyes follow me when we’re in the same room, or the way he seems to find any excuse to brush against me or touch me, no matter how innocent the touch.

There has been a palpable electricity hanging in the air between us, and I’ve known for days now that it was only a matter of time before a chance contact made that electricity spark to life. Maybe that chance will come tonight.

The club is not what I would ever expect of a BDSM club. Even the boat Tristan took me on last week didn’t quite fit my image of a dark, dungeon-like space full of whips and chains and dark music. This place though… The entire room is a sharp palette of white with small, crisp accents of black from men’s ties or the occasional extreme makeup on a woman. A faint mist rises from the floor so that it feels like we’re walking inside some sort of vision of the afterlife where an endless party rages inside a cloud.

I smile at Tristan. “I have to admit. Corny name or not. This is amazing.”

“I hoped you would like it,” he says. “Come, the atmosphere is only half the reason I brought you here. The food is actually incredible.”

He leads me through a much more tame, but no-less sexual, main lobby area than the one we saw on the boat. Instead of the overt nudity and touching I saw on the boat, this club seems to harbor a more restrained atmosphere, but the sexual tension in the air is so thick I can practically feel it pressing in on me. Men hold frighteningly intense gazes with women, hands roam bodies, and couples walk with purpose between rooms and hallways that are no doubt places where the sexual tension can come to fruition.

I thought Jamie would lose it over my stories of what the BDSM boat was like, but she’s not going to even believe me about this place.

We enter a restaurant where clear water runs down every inch of a white marble wall. It settles in pools that travel in a lazy current through the room. All the tables are positioned near the outermost wall, where I realize the current from the waterfalls runs through the center of every table. A small procession of bamboo baskets loaded with succulent plates of food float slowly through our table and along the channel running between tables until they reach a group of four who reach over and pluck their plates from the stream, leaving the baskets to circulate back toward the kitchen.

I raise my eyebrows, taking my seat across from Tristan. “Okay. That’s a little bit of a gimmick, but it’s cool enough that I give them a pass. For sure.”

He chuckles. “I thought it was clever.”

A waiter comes a few moments later. He’s tall and well groomed with a white dress shirt and pants. “Will you be dining with us tonight?” he asks.

Tristan nods.

“Very well,” says the waiter, who turns and walks back to the kitchen.

“Uhh,” I say, giving Tristan a confused look.

“Call it another gimmick. The chef picks for you.”

“Oh,” I say. “I guess that’s what all women really want anyway, right?”

He narrows his eyes. “This feels like a trap.”

“It is,” I laugh.

“If I’ve learned one thing about women in my life, it’s that there is no such thing as ‘all women’. Unless you want to say, ‘all women have a frustrating habit of being uniquely different and hard to figure out.’”

“Very diplomatic,” I say with a smile. “But not wrong, either. Still, I’d say you have some kind of telepathic ability when it comes to women. At least when it comes to… Well, you know.”

“Sex?” he asks. “And no. That’s just you. Since that first night, I’ve felt like I could read your pulse.” He leans in closer, lowering his voice. “Like I could feel where your orgasm is and exactly which buttons to press to bring it out, or which ones to avoid if I’m not ready to let you cum yet.”

I clear my throat and rub the back of my neck self-consciously. “I wish I could say I didn’t believe you.”

He chuckles. “Sorry. Where are my manners. We haven’t even had our drinks and I’m already talking about dessert.”

I make a startled, embarrassing noise deep in my throat and can’t help laughing at myself. I chew on my lip, deciding maybe Mr. Rivers shouldn’t get to be so cocky about his ‘dessert’. “I don’t know,” I say. “I was feeling pretty full already. I might pass on desert tonight.” I lift my eyes to his slowly to see how he’s taking my tease.

He matches my gaze with a fiery intensity, lips twitching with a hint of amusement. “I think I could find a way to work up your appetite.”

I’m saved from responding when a small convoy of bamboo baskets floats toward our table. Once they are closer, I see neatly folded papers in each basket that say “Mr. Rivers.”

Tristan plucks the contents from each basket, starting with the bottle of red wine and glasses. The next basket contains an assortment of bread from white to wheat and a multigrain style. There’s even a platter with a flat pad of butter dusted in thick particles of sea salt.

I regard the butter with appreciation. “Somehow the salt sprinkles make it seem so much fancier,” I say.

Tristan smiles. “I’ve always thought the same thing.” He dips his finger in the butter and licks it off without apparent thought.

“Did you just eat butter off your fingertip like some kind of barbarian?”

He laughs. “Is that barbaric of me?” He holds his finger over the butter again, daring me to challenge him on it.

“Stop!” I say, giggling. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

He takes one more swipe of butter on his finger and licks it off cockily, leaning back to watch me as he savors the bite in a way that is so confident and self-assured I can’t help swoon a little to watch it. I’ve never met a man like him, someone so sure and purposeful and deliberate. He carries himself like he knows how every detail of his day is going to play out and it’s all moving exactly how he had hoped, like he needs no fear because the future is already mapped out.

“Technically,” he says, ripping a roll of bread open with his hands and ignoring the knife. “You didn’t take me anywhere. I’m in charge here. Remember?” he asks, popping a piece of bread in his mouth.

I give him a dry look as I make a show of how to actually use silverware to open up the bread and spread the butter like a civilized human being. When I go to take a bite of the bread though, I am too focused on my little song and dance and end up smashing the buttery end of the bread into my nose.

Tristan covers his smile as I try to discreetly wipe my nose.

“What’s better,” he asks. “A purposeful barbarian, or an accidental one?”

“I’ll show you a barbarian if you keep teasing me,” I say, gripping my knife and pointing it at him.

He laughs. “That’s a butter knife. What are you going to do, butter me up?”

I lean my head back and make a pained sound. “Oh that was bad. You said you wouldn’t make a good father, but you’ve got the dad jokes down already.”

We both laugh softly, eyes meeting across the table and lingering for a little too long, long enough that it feels like my statement hangs in the air and gains meaning.

I start speaking after a few more moments just to break the silence. “Why do you think you wouldn’t be a good father, anyway?” I ask, mentally kicking myself when I realize it’s a very forward question and could likely kill the fun mood we had going so far.

He picks at his bread while his eyes seem to study the water running through the table. “Guess I worried maybe the apple might not have fallen as far from the tree as I’d like to think?” he asks.

“You know yourself though,” I say, leaning forward and wanting to reach for his hand but the small river running through the table makes it too awkward. “I mean, I think I can say I know you now, too. I don’t know your dad, but I don’t see the things you told me about him in you. I just don’t. You’re good, Tristan.”

He makes a dismissive sound. “I’ve been running from the idea of becoming him my whole life. Am I really different from him? Or am I just him, wearing a disguise I’ve spent my whole life creating?”

“Wear a disguise long enough and it’s not a disguise anymore,” I say. “Fake it till you make it. You know?”

He clenches his fist and I see something solidify behind his eyes, like he’s making a kind of resolution to himself. “I’ll never be like him,” he says quietly. “And what about you?” he asks. “I’ve basically told you my life story and all I know about you is that you’re a social worker and you want to adopt my little brother.”

“That’s all you know?” I ask. I try to put a playful note in my voice, but I know I’m just stalling for time. Feeling the conversation shift toward me and my personal life makes my heart feel like it’s about to start beating out of my chest.

“Not all of it,” he says. “But I want to know more.”

I push a hair behind my ear, wanting to duck under the table more than I want to talk about myself. “There’s not much to know,” I say.

“Start with why you want to adopt so bad. You never told me. You’re young. It’s not exactly normal for a young woman who isn’t in a relationship to want to adopt a kid.”

“I’m not in a relationship?” I ask.

He grins. “You wanted to adopt before things between us got complicated. Didn’t you?”

“I see,” I say, leaning back and making a pouty face. “So I’m not in a relationship. I’m just in something complicated with you?”

“You can call this whatever you want, Stephanie. All I know is I’m not ready for it to be over. Not yet.”

“When, then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not until you make it over,” he says.

“And if I never do that?”

“Like you’re never planning to answer my original question?” he asks.

I sigh. “I just don’t think my reason makes a lot of sense when I say it out loud.”

“Try me.”

I look down, tugging at my fingernail as I search for the right way to explain everything. I don’t want his sympathy. I really don’t. I just want to find a way to explain it all where he doesn’t think less of me.

“My little brother and I were really close,” I say after a long pause. “His name was Brian. He was six years younger than me and he always looked up to me. My parents were split up for as long as I could remember and my mom wasn’t in the picture. And my dad’s idea of parenting was making sure there was bread in the pantry and milk in the fridge. So it always felt more like I was Brian’s parent than his sister. I tried to take care of him as much as I could, but my dad… he wasn’t good to us.

“I was older, and I guess since I was a girl my dad always went easier on me. With me it was just getting shit for bad grades or he’d occasionally give me the belt because I talked back or sometimes he’d just make up the reasons. The thing that I remember most is how I’d always worry during the worst of it, I’d worry that he was just going to completely lose it one day, that he’d drop the belt and grab something worse, or that he’d just…”

I shudder, shaking my head and smiling uncomfortably. “It’s stupid, I—”

“It’s not stupid,” says Tristan. His eyes are so intense that I have to look away, like he isn’t just listening to me but he’s reliving his own version of what I’m saying. “Go on. Please.”

“I thought one day he’d end up killing me. But then afterwards I’d just have bruises and I’d convince myself it wasn’t really that bad. It was normal, even. I didn’t talk about it with other kids because I thought it was embarrassing. I thought I was too old to get hit by my dad. Then there was my little brother. My mom and dad split up shortly after she had him, and I think my dad always blamed Brian for it, even though he was just a baby at the time.

“When he’d beat Brian, it was always just a little worse, like he held back some of his strength with me but let it all go on Brian. With me, it felt like he was disappointed. With Brian, it was like he was getting revenge. I’d try to pull my dad off him or I’d try to talk to him about it, but it always just got me a beating of my own. I loved Brian so much, and at the time I always felt like I was doing everything I could. But one morning, when Brian was twelve, I found him dead in his room.”

The table blurs in front of me and a sharp stab of pain shoots through my hand as I accidentally dig too deep under my fingernail. I force my hands into my lap, shuddering as the vivid image of him hanging there flashes in my mind. “It was like the world crashed in around me. One decision and everything changed. My little brother,” I say, voice breaking.

Tristan steps over the divider where the water runs between tables to sit beside me, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. “You don’t have to tell me the rest, treasure,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have pried.”

“No,” I say, calming myself down with an effort. “It’s okay. You told me about your dad and your past. I can handle it.”

He nods, kissing my temple and giving me another squeeze.

“He killed himself. He didn’t leave a note or even tell me what he was planning.” My face tightens as I think back on it and can’t help squeezing my fingers into my knees until it hurts. “I didn’t do enough to help him. So adopting a kid… a kid who needs my help… it’s my way of saying sorry to Brian. I’ve haunted myself by thinking of all the things I could’ve done differently before it was too late with Brian, and the only way I can imagine starting to forgive myself is if I can find someone who needs me just as much as he did and help them.”

Tristan looks troubled. “I’m not going to say it wasn’t your fault. You’ve probably heard that. Hell, you’re a social worker. You know the lines people are supposed to recite, don’t you? Here’s what I’ll tell you. People are shit at figuring out what they need to heal. Know what I thought I needed? Money. Power. Influence. I thought if I stacked up enough evidence that the world thought I was something important, I could look back on all the times my dad made me feel like less than nothing and I’d somehow be over it. None of that helped. Not really. It was just a distraction. Only one thing has actually helped.”

“What was it?” I ask.

“You,” he says. “I can’t stop coming back to you because every time we’re together it feels right. I feel right.”

“I feel it too,” I say. “But I know I want to adopt. People may be bad at figuring out what they need. I know I want that though. This isn’t something that will pass with time.”

“I’m not saying it is. I’m just saying you can fucking forgive yourself, Stephanie. You don’t need to prove it to the world or to Brian. You bet your ass he forgives you. You were just kids. Parents have an entire lifetime to manipulate their way into seeming invincible and unstoppable. No one could blame you for how you handled it. So let yourself off the hook. Adopt Cole because it makes you feel happy to, not because you think you have to do it for your brother. If I was him, I’d be pissed that you thought I expected that.”

I laugh. It’s a sad, sniffling and pathetic kind of laugh, but I feel a real glimmer of happiness in it. Even though his words haven’t magically cracked through the anger and guilt I’ve spent so many years building up, I feel like they formed the first cracks in the shell, like some great, ugly building is showing its first signs of weakness and that in time, it might even come crashing down.

After we’ve finished our dinner, Tristan takes me into a private room and closes the door.

“How much do you trust me?” he asks. The look on his face doesn’t do much to comfort me because I can clearly see he’s planning something.

“Why?” I ask.

He grins. “See, asking why is already undermining your trust. Do you trust me or not?”

“I do,” I say. It comes as a slight shock that I really do. Everything Tristan has ever done has been right for me. Even when he’s pushing my limits to the edge and past where I thought my comfort zone was, he’s always right. He gives me what I didn’t even know I wanted and I’ve never felt like he was doing any of it for himself. He just wants me to feel good.

“Good. Then put this mask on.”

He hands me a white plastic mask that covers my eyes and nose but with a thin white screen over the eyes so I can still see. I give him a curious look, but do as he says.

“Good,” he says. I hear in the tone of his voice that he has already begun the subtle shift from the casual, more lenient Tristan and the exacting, demanding Tristan I’ve started to think of as my Dom.

I never put much thought into what a BDSM relationship would be like before this, but I think if I had, I would’ve thought it would be overwhelming. I’d have thought the dom would always be demanding perfection and ordering his submissive around. I don’t know if they normally are, but with Tristan, he leaves that part of his personality behind when we’re not in the right setting, and I’m glad for it.

I realize I just thought of myself as a submissive, too, which also comes as a shock. I guess it shouldn’t though. I’ve been thinking of Tristan as my Dom, and I guess that makes me his submissive by default, doesn’t it?

He takes me outside the private room and leads me through the crowded lobby to a hallway lined with doors. He chooses a set of double doors that take us inside a cozy room that is just as bathed in white and light as the others but where the smoky mist is thicker than everywhere else. Men and women sit gathered around a stage where a single piece of equipment sits—a large wooden structure in the shape of an “X.” Straps and restraints are positioned all over the structure and leather pads back it, which lets me immediately figure out what it’s meant for.

It looks like someone can be strapped to the structure, which would force their legs open and their arms to be spread over their head. I even see hinges near the point where the bars cross each other, which makes me imagine the whole thing can be bent in half, which would force whoever was strapped to it to bend over if they were facing the right way.

Based on the way the crowd in the room is situated, it looks like there’s going to be some kind of show. I try to figure out how I feel about watching somebody use this thing as Tristan leads me closer and closer to the front of the crowd. I’m not crazy about the idea of half-naked or even naked women being paraded in front of Tristan, I realize. He hasn’t done anything to even remotely indicate he’s interested in looking at any woman but myself, though, so I’m somehow able to stomach the idea more than I would’ve expected. Everything he does seems to be entirely focused around my pleasure, so I can actually believe if he brought me to watch some kind of crazy sex show, it wouldn’t be because he was going to enjoy watching a woman getting off. It would be that he thought it would turn me on, and he’d enjoy watching me get turned on.

But all my mental preparations for what I might see are in vein, because I start to notice the way people in the room are watching us get closer and closer to the stage. I also notice no one else is wearing a mask like mine. It doesn’t take long to put two and two together.

“Tristan, you’re not taking me up there, are you?”

“Just trust me,” he says.

My stomach turns to a tight ball of ice and feels like it might drop to the floor. “I don’t know,” I say quickly, tugging at his arm.

“You’re anonymous, treasure,” he says. “No one here knows who you are or will ever recognize you.”

“Why though? Why like this?” I ask in a hushed voice.

“That’s the part where you have to trust me,” he says, giving my hand a little squeeze as he guides me up the steps and onto the stage.

White mist swirls around my feet, cloud-like and ethereal. I can’t tell where it comes from, but it carries the slightest chill with it, just like real mist on a cold morning. When I look out over the crowd, the mist makes them seem dream-like and vague, little more than illuminated shapes in the swirl of churning white mist. It all has the effect of making Tristan seem impossibly clear and distinct from where he stands right beside me. I can see every perfect feature of his face, down to the flecks of gold in his brown eyes and the thickness of his eyelashes.

He undresses me reverently, like he’s performing a kind of sacred ritual. He starts with my dress, which he unzips slowly and then slides over my shoulders, rolling it down my body inch by inch. My nipples immediately harden against the cold and the scrutiny of the crowd. I expected to feel embarrassed and exposed, but I feel the most electric sense of life buzzing through every atom in my body. Tristan is displaying me like a prized possession, and instead of making me feel objectified and cheap, it makes me feel precious. Loved, even.

Before he removes my bra and panties, he circles me with slow appreciation, running his hands over my body where he pleases and igniting me from my fingertips to my toes until my body is practically begging for more. By the time he slides my panties down, I can feel the chilly air against my already-wet pussy. I shiver, craving the warmth of his body more than ever. He undoes my bra and lets it fall to the ground, where it disappears in a puff of mist with the rest of my clothes—the rest of my armor.

I let that thought linger for a moment. In the strangest way, it feels like stripping naked in front of this crowd is a sort of fresh start, like I’m shedding all my baggage and problems. I laugh at myself a little on the inside for trying to assign so much meaning to this. Tristan probably just thinks it will be hot, and here I am trying to make a sort of existential crisis out of it.

He puts a hand on the small of my back and turns me until I’m facing the strange wooden structure in the center of the stage. I don’t need to be told what to do next. I step forward, spreading my legs and raising my arms so he can strap me in. He rewards my submission with a warm kiss on the nape of my neck and a whispered, “Good girl.”

The quick praise gives me an unexpected rush of satisfaction and happiness that distracts me from how compromising the position I’m assuming in front of so many strangers is.

He tightens the straps around my wrists and ankles until I can barely move. The constriction is both claustrophobic and a confusing kind of freedom. I can’t move, but that also means I don’t have to move. I don’t have the power to decide what’s next, but I don’t have to decide what’s next. It’s the drug I’ve come to crave. Surrendering myself to Tristan is an escape from all the responsibility of the real world. More than that, each time is a test of trust that builds my belief in him. It helps to create the kind of trust I never thought I’d be able to give a man, the kind of trust that lets me believe he would be a good father.

When he plants a firm hand on my ass, all sentimental thoughts are banished from my mind. With a single touch, he’s able to bring my brain to a place of pure sexuality, where the only thought or concern in my head is where his hands will go next and how good it will feel. He squeezes, letting his fingertips slide into the crease of my ass and dip down to slide in the wetness of my pussy. He eases one finger inside me, drawing an involuntary gasp from my mouth.

“So good,” I breathe.

“We’re just starting, treasure. Let’s show them how fucking sweet this body of yours is.”

His words remind me that we’re not alone, which is surprisingly easy to forget, especially when I’m facing away from the crowded room. My view is just a solid white wall with mist lapping away at the bottom like a churning tide. I feel sexy and powerful knowing that the eyes of so many anonymous people are watching. A dirty part of me wonders how many of them are getting off to the sight of us together.

Instead of making me feel distant from Tristan, the fact that we’re together in front of so many makes me actually feel closer to him. None of these people have faces to me, and I don’t have a face to them. They are nameless and shapeless, little more than an atmospheric twist to the sexual experience that adds a level of thrill and excitement.

My body tries to arch backwards when he slips a second finger inside me, massaging my walls with each movement of his hand and finding a way to let his knuckles brush my clit with each thrust. Within moments, my knees feel weak and my cheek is pressed hard into the crossbeam of the device he has me strapped to.

He pulls his hand away, moving beside me so I can see his face as he brings the fingers he just had inside me up to my mouth and motions for me to suck them clean. I take them into my mouth, wrapping my lips around him and swirling my own wetness from his fingers.

“You’re doing very well,” he says to me. “To reward you, I’m going to taste that sweet pussy of yours. Hold on tight.” He reaches around to the back of the structure and pulls a lever that makes my upper body lurch forward with the top half of the “X”, forcing me to bend over with my ass toward the crowd.

He moves behind me, hands gripping my hips at first and then sliding down my ass as I feel him kneel behind me. My breath comes rapidly now in anticipation of his mouth on my most sensitive and private of places. I feel the heat of his breath before his lips reach me and goosebumps break out all over my body. I want his mouth there so badly. I always thought I’d be too self-conscious to enjoy a guy going down on me, but now I’m doing it in front of a crowd, of all places. It would almost be funny in any other circumstance, but right here and now, nothing seems funny. The intensity crackling through the air robs the moment of anything but pure, electric passion and sexuality.

He kisses my pussy in a slow, deliberate way, letting his lips linger before he tilts his head up and brushes his lower lip along my folds, tongue flicking out against my clit at the last moment. Everything inside me explodes at the sensation. His lips. His tongue. Even the stubble of his face brushing the inside of my thighs is euphoric. My Dom is eating me out, and from the sounds he’s making as he works, he’s enjoying this as much as I am.

The idea that he could enjoy licking and kissing me there turns me on as much as the physical sensations themselves. I can feel his enjoyment from the way his hands squeeze my calves and roam my legs hungrily and the gradual but relentless increase of his pace and intensity. It’s not long before he’s moving with an almost frantic, out of control speed that has me feeling like I’m at the center of a storm, where every moment is filled with potential energy and a raging sort of reckless ferocity.

Moans spill out of my mouth on their own. I couldn’t stop them any more than I could stop my rapid heartbeat or my gasping breaths. The white mist, the room, the cross-like structure I’m strapped to, even the people in the crowd behind me all become insignificant dust next to the impending orgasm that threatens to rip through me and leave nothing left in its wake. My entire body shakes, pussy clenching around his talented tongue and body flexed tight as his hands roam me.

“I’m going to cum,” I whisper.

He says nothing, but the vibration of his satisfied groan of pleasure rumbles through me from my core to my stomach, pushing me over that final precipice, driving my climax to life and making me shake against my restraints, ass and pussy pressed hard into Tristan’s face. He doesn’t stop though, mouth still working to summon every ounce of pleasure from my climax that’s possible until I’m left shaking from the aftershocks, body feeling spent and lifeless.

The sound of Tristan’s hands clapping together echoes through the room, shocking me enough to make me jump.

“Out,” he calls in a loud, commanding voice.

To my surprise, I hear the sound of many bodies shuffling and feet moving. It sounds like everyone in the room is actually obeying him. Sure enough, within a minute or two, I can’t hear even the faintest hint of another person in the room. Not a cough or a shift of fabric as someone moves in their seat. “They’re gone?” I ask.

“Just you and me now, treasure.”

“They just listen to you like that?”

“It’s the dom’s choice. Everyone here knows that. A dom can choose to share his submissive as long as he likes, and for as little as he likes. I allowed them a taste, but the rest is all for me and me alone. You are all mine.”

A wave of warmth spreads through me at the sound of his voice. I’m his. I want that to be true. It hits me with a force like a punch to the stomach. I want him. I want everything he has to offer. I…

“I love you,” I whisper. My voice comes out so quietly I think he must not have even heard me, but he freezes where he stands.

“What did you say?” he asks. He leans into my view, eyes intent and mouth open as he waits. “Tell me what you just said.”

“I said... I love you,” I say, shaking my head. It sounds so crazy to say aloud I can barely believe it myself. “I love you,” I repeat. “I don’t know why or how or—”

He silences me with a long, tender kiss. “I love you too. I didn’t admit it to myself at first, maybe not until now even, but I felt it the moment I saw you at the auction.” His hands start to move across my bare skin while he talks, almost as if he’s massaging the truth of his words into my skin where it will linger and blossom. “I knew I had to have you. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to let you go but I risked it anyway. Then you just stuck in my head,” he says with a soft laugh. “You got a hold of me and wouldn’t let go. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself I was bad for you or that you were bad for me, it just wouldn’t stick. All I ever seemed to know was that I needed to see you again. To touch you again.” He brushes a loose strand of hair away from my eyes and behind my ear. “I fucking love you, Stephanie, and I’m done pretending this thing between us isn’t real. It’s real. Every bit of it.”

I nod my head. “It is.”

“I don’t want to fuck you this time,” he says, reaching to unstrap my hands and ankles.

A stab of hurt pierces through me. “What?” I ask shakily.

“I want to make love to you. The BDSM stuff… It’s fine. It’s good, even. But I’ve used it as a bandage to fix something for too long. I want to be with you without any of the pain of the dominance. Just me and you doing what feels good. No weird shit to mask old wounds this time.”

I nod my head, putting my hands to the sides of his neck and standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Okay,” I say.

He strips off his jacket, tie, and undershirt. He kicks off his shoes and the rest of his clothes shortly after, putting a hand to my chest and walking me backwards until I bump against the wall at the edge of the stage. His eyes bore into me with more intensity than they ever have before, like he’s looking straight through to my core and seeing me for me. I see him, too. I see the kind man beneath all the strength and power, the man who has been running from his past but is tired of running.

When we kiss, it’s like we’re kissing for the first time. His lips crash into mine with a buzz of heat and cold all wrapped together, hands tangling in my hair as we stumble and collapse to the ground together. He pins me to the ground in a puff of white mist that rises up, swirls, and then settles in around us, each tendril of white gradually blending where he stops and I begin.

He takes his time. Tristan’s mouth moves from mine to my jawline and the place just beneath my ear, making me giggle and bite my lip when he nips at my earlobe with a deep chuckle. His strong hands move up me, driving his heat beneath my skin and banishing the chill of the mist and the cold floor against my back. His hips and hard cock move with a slow, driving purpose against me, but he still hasn’t slipped himself inside, as if he knows the anticipation of his penetration is going to make the moment that much sweeter and he has all the patience in the world to let it build.

He kisses my nipples slowly and tenderly, taking the swollen nub of my nipple into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue and lips. His mouth trails down from my breasts to my navel and even the inside of my thighs until I think he’s going to go down on me again, which isn’t an unpleasant thought. But it seems his patience does have a limit, because when his lips brush the swollen flesh of my mound it’s almost as if he remembers how badly he wants inside me and he can’t hold himself back any longer.

He plants his hands on either side of my head, lifting himself up until I feel the hot head of his cock between my legs. I’m about to reach down and help him find his way inside me when he skillfully moves his hips and lines his cock up perfectly with my entrance, pressing himself into me in just the right way to ease himself inside.

I dig my nails into his back, breathing out my pleasure while my body responds by arching up to meet him, ass pressing off the ground and driving his cock even deeper, filling me in a way I desperately crave.

I’ve had him inside me twice before and thought those were the most wild, incredible moments of my life. But this is different. Where before I felt almost like I was on a ride meant for thrills and enjoyment, now I can feel the passion in every movement of his body. He’s not fucking me like we’re animals in heat. He’s making love to me. His eyes are locked onto mine as he glides in and out of me, stretching my walls and plunging so deeply into me that it takes my breath away, but that’s not even the best part of what I’m feeling right now.

I don’t know how else to describe it, except to call it love. I can feel the love in the way he moves and looks at me and in the way he lets his head dip to kiss me impulsively, lips held against mine while his body still works in a smooth rhythm.

I spear my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer to me because I crave his closeness, his warmth, his touch. I can’t get enough. All the emotions wrap together with the physical sensation of the sex to form an intoxicating cocktail I can’t imagine ever wanting to put down. When he tied me up and made me his submissive, I felt how pleasure and pain could blend together to form something entirely new. Now I see how pleasure and love can do exactly the same thing.

I lose track of time. All I know is the movement of our bodies, the smooth rhythm of slick skin rocking against slick skin and the taste of our mingling breath. I wrap my legs tightly around him, urging him deeper into me. Harder. The rasp of his voice is in my ear when he tells me he’s going to cum. I feel him start to pull himself out but I lock my legs around him, heels digging into the small of his back.

“Fuck, I’m going to fill you up,” he groans.

“I want it,” I whisper. “I want all of it. Cum inside me, Tristan. Please.”

His entire body tenses and for the first time in my life I feel the heat of a man’s cum deep inside me. It’s subtle, but with every pulse of his cock, I feel more of that spreading warmth and know even now his seed is making its way to my innermost core.

I wrap myself around him, hardly even noticing how my body shakes with an orgasm of my own. Every moment since he laid me down in this mist has felt like a continual, never-ending climax.

“Thank you,” I say.

“All I get is a thank you?” he asks. I can’t see his face but I can hear the smile on his lips. “I was hoping for a tip.”

I slap his shoulder. “Don’t ruin the moment with your bad jokes.”

“Sorry,” he says, sinking back down to cover me with his big body. “I thought that one would get a laugh.”

I gently lift his face up with my palms so I can look into his eyes. “Doesn’t the sex master know I’m not looking to laugh after something like that? You’re supposed to say something so sweet I’ll never forget it, not crack a joke.”

He smirks. “I apologize. Consider it a testament to how much I enjoyed you that I made such a horrible mistake.”

I pull him back down so I can kiss him. “Forgiven.”