Page 106 of Dominion’s Collar

I do it again. He swears under his breath. The hand in my hair tightens to the edge of pain, and the pain focuses everything. The pearls against my pulse. The ache in my knees. The slick heat between my own thighs, untouched, building with every stroke he feeds me.

His rhythm falters. One stuttered thrust that tells me he's closer than he wants to be. He pulls me off him, hold firm. The loss of him leaves me breathing hard with swollen lips and an ache that runs from my throat to my core.

"Not like that." His voice is rough, raw at the edges. "Not the first time back."

He pulls me to my feet. Backs me toward the desk. One arm sweeps the surface clear. The consideration collar slides off the edge. Papers scatter across the heart-pine floor.

His hands close on my hips. He lifts me onto the desk, and the wood is cool against my bare thighs where my skirt has ridden up. He pushes the fabric to my waist.

His fingers hook the waistband of my underwear and drag it down my legs in a single motion. Gone.

Neither of us has bothered with the rest. His shirt is open but still on. My top is bunched above my bra. The urgency of the half-dressed mess we are is its own kind of honesty.

"Lie back."

My back meets the desk. The surface is hard, flat, cool beneath my shoulder blades. The vulnerability registers in every nerve. Open. Displayed. His to look at.

He looks. His gaze travels from the collar at my throat to the exposed skin of my stomach to the slick evidence of what the last few minutes did to me. He doesn't touch. He lets the looking do its work, and the work is devastating.

"Tell me what this is," he says.

"A choice."

"Tell me it's yours."

"It's mine."

His hand slides up the inside of my thigh. Slowly. The calluses on his fingers drag against skin that hasn't been touched in days that felt like weeks. He reaches the crease where my thigh meets my hip and stops. Holds. His thumb traces a circle against the tendon.

"Sebastien."

"Not yet."

His hand moves inward. His thumb brushes my clit, light enough to make me jerk against the desk. He does it again.

Watches my reaction with the same focused attention he gave the shibari, the same control he used with the fire wand. Reading my body the way he reads every room he enters.

He circles my clit with slow, measured pressure. The pleasure builds in tight spirals, concentrated where his thumb moves in patterns I can't predict. My hips rock against his hand and he presses them flat with his free palm.

"Stay still."

The command is impossible. I try anyway. My fingers clamp the far edge of the desk and my teeth close on my lower lip.

He slides two fingers inside me. The stretch is sudden and specific, and the sound I make is loud enough to carry in the quiet study. His thumb keeps moving on my clit while his fingers curl forward, finding the spot that makes my vision blur.

"You're close," he says. He already knows the answer.

"Yes."

"Not yet." He withdraws his fingers. The loss makes me gasp.

Before I can protest, he positions himself between my thighs. The head of his cock presses against me, slick and hot, and he holds there. Waiting. Making me feel the proximity without giving me the relief.

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Please, Sebastien."