SOMETHING was different.

I’m what the Americans call a dominant, but I don’t dress it up in fancy terms or over-analyze it like they do. I command. She obeys. Simple.

I love normal sex, too. The feel of a woman’s body as she thrashes in ecstasy beneath you, breasts stroking your chest. The changes that you can feel come over her as you drive your cock into her. I love the give and take of sex. I don’t need to tie her up.

But sex like that is the sex of people in love. And love is a weakness. If I had sex like that, with the intimacy and the cuddling afterwards...I might start to feel something.

So ever since my life was torn apart, I’ve made sure sex is just physical. A release. And the best way to separate it from anything more intimate is with these games. I tie her, I pleasure her, and I take her. I maintain absolute control at all times.

But now, something had changed.

Christina was always happy to be tied up. Enthusiastic, even. She played along. But it was just that: playing. Her orgasms were real enough but I could tell she wasn’t getting off on the idea of being restrained.

But now...where the old Christina would have boldly thrown off her clothes, sticking out her breasts and posing like a stripper, this new Christina was hesitant and nervous. Almost shy. Instead of faking enthusiasm, she acted like she’d never done it before. And yet underneath, in the way her hands trembled, in the flush I could see at her neck, in the tightness of her breathing...she needed it. She had that instinctual urge for this, just as I had the matching, dominant one. And the idea of that, combined with this strange new innocence she had, made my cock harder than it had ever been.

She pulled her sweater over her head. Her pale breasts strained at the bra...I swore they seemed bigger. And then, as my eyes tracked down her body, I saw the scar. A burn of some kind, low down on her side. I felt a sudden, unexpected surge of protective anger that something had hurt her. But she saw me looking and she...shrunk. Her eyes went to the floor, her hair hanging down to cover her face. She was embarrassed by it. She thought it made her not beautiful. As if such a thing was possible. Her hand went down to cover it and I got even angrier, that she’d been hurt in that way, too.

I took her wrist and gently pried her hand away.

Then I leaned in and, very softly, touched my lips to the scar. Her head jerked up in surprise...and then she relaxed a little, her confidence restored.

I stepped back and the slow strip resumed. She unbuttoned the skirt and wriggled it down over her hips where the old Christina would have expertly twisted like a dancer and made it fall down on its own. I let my eyes roam up and down those beautiful, shapely legs, even found myself trying to get a glimpse of her ass, despite having seen it a hundred times before. It was almost as if I was seeing her for the first time.

I was so turned on, I didn’t realize at first that she was unbuckling her high heels. She normally always left them on to make her legs look longer. But before I could think to stop her, she’d stepped out of them, and then stripped off her stockings, too, gasping a little as her bare soles hit the cold marble. It was weirdly endearing.

I caught myself. Don’t think like that.

She looked up at me, now just in bra and panties.

I waited.

She waited.

I smirked. Of course, it was deliberate. She knew I meant for her to take everything off, but she was trying to turn me on by being a little disobedient. She was cunning, like that. “All of your clothes,” I told her.

She gave a tiny intake of breath and her eyes went wide. I frowned. Christina’s acting had suddenly gotten a lot better. She really did seem shocked and nervous...and turned on. I didn’t know how she’d done it, but I loved it.

I watched as her bra slipped free, her breasts bobbing and swaying. They did seem bigger, or maybe I’d just forgotten how beautiful they were. Full and heavy and creamily pale...I couldn’t wait to fill my hands with them.

Only one little scrap of clothing remained. My eyes locked on that triangle of fabric between her thighs. I couldn’t remember ever having been this turned on, watching her undress. Or watching any woman undress. Since she got back, she had some hold over me….

I clenched my jaw. Those sorts of feelings could be the end of everything. Maybe I should just tell her to leave. It would be fatal to become attached: our “relationship” was never meant to be that. But...as the fabric started to move down her body, pushed a few millimeters at a time by her shaking hands, I knew there was no way I could do that. I needed to see her, needed to touch her.

She’d stopped moving the panties. “Go on,” I told her. “Unless you want me to rip them off you.”