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For most of my adult life, I’ve controlled almost nothing. The Beaumont name has made my decisions, chosen my path, and kept me from what I want most. But not in this room. Not tonight. Here, the choices are mine.

“I’d like to tie your wrists,” I tell her. “Only if you want me to.”

Her eyes move from the ribbon to my face. She swallows. Then she lifts both hands above her head.

I wrap the velvet around her wrists, loose enough to slide a finger underneath, and check her face. She’s watching me, lips parted, and she nods. I loop the ends around the bedpost and knot them.

“Nina, I want you to focus on being pleasured,” I say, running my knuckles down the inside of her arm. “Don’t reciprocate. Don’t hold back. You don’t have to do anything tonight but feel. Trust me. Let me be in control. You’ll like it.”

“Bossy,” she says, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Neither did I.”

She wraps her legs around my waist to pull me closer. I unhook them gently and set them back on the bed.

“Stay still.”

She huffs. I kiss her until she stops huffing.

Then I start.

Her mouth first. Then her jaw. The line of her throat, the dip at the base of it, the hollow of her collarbone. I take my time, because I can. Because for once, there is nowhere else I need to be and no one else I need to answer to.

I kiss my way down her chest and deliberately skip her breasts. I kiss the underside of one, then her ribs, then back up to the swell of the other, never quite reaching her nipple. She arches toward my mouth. I move away.

“Pascal,” she breathes.

“Patience.”

“I’ve waited two weeks for this. I’m done being patient.”

I laugh, then I finally close my mouth around her nipple, and whatever she was going to say next turns into a gasp.

I suck slowly, then graze her with my teeth, carefully, just enough for her to feel it. Her nipple hardens against my tongue. Good. I like it when her body responds to me. I move to the other breast and give it the same attention, and she pulls against the ribbon hard enough that the bedpost creaks.

My hand strokes the inside of her thigh. Up, then down. Up again, closer, then away. I don’t touch her where she wants it. I kiss her stomach, her hip bone, the crease where her thigh meets her body. I kiss the inside of her knee, and she squirms.

By the time I make my way back up her body, her skin is flushed, and she’s breathing hard, her hips shifting restlessly on the sheets. I stretch out beside her, propped on one elbow, and hook my leg over hers to hold her open.

Then I finally touch her.

Just one fingertip, drawn slowly up through her. She’s soaked, and she moans the second I make contact.

“So wet for me,” I murmur against her ear, “and I’ve barely gotten started.”

I circle her clit with my fingertip, light and slow. Her hips lift off the bed. I keep it light. I watch her face: her brow draws together, her lips part, and her eyes flutter closed.

“Keep your eyes open,” I tell her. “I want you to look at me.”

She opens them. They’re dark and glassy, fixed on mine.

I press a little harder. Her breath stutters. I feel her thighs start to tense against my leg, and I ease back until she settles.

She makes a sound of pure frustration. “Pascal.”

“I know.”

I work her back up to the edge. Slow circles, then tighter ones, until she’s panting and straining against the velvet and her whole body is drawn tight. Then I ease back again.