“Please,” he said.

“Please, what?” I said, and trailed my fingertips oh-so-lightly over him again.

He cried out again. “Intercourse, sex, please!”

I kissed him, gently, where I’d just touched, and his spine bowed as if there were an invisible rope attached to the center of his body dragging him ceilingward.

His eyes had bled to leopard blue-gray when he looked back at me. His face was as frantic as I’d ever seen it during sex. He was usually so controlled, it was interesting to see him like this; I liked it, or maybe it was just different and I wanted to try the limits of it.

I bent back over him, intending to lick the length of him and then stop and do what he wanted, probably, most likely, but he did something he’d never done with just me.

“Hopscotch,” he said.

I raised up and looked at him. “You safeworded?”

“Yes,” he said, in a hoarse voice that held an edge of growl to it.

“I’ve never heard you safeword,” Jason said.

“I’ve only seen Asher make him safeword,” I said.

“Sometimes it’s not about pain, Anita. I want you, now, like this,” he said, his voice deeper with the edge of the leopard that filled his eyes. He had utter control during sex, during bondage, and with his beast; if he didn’t he couldn’t have stripped on stage and shifted to his animal form in front of a crowd of customers—read potential victims.

I stared at one of the loves of my life; something about the scene we’d just done had hit some major switch for him. I’d ask him later, but for right now, I’d respect his general safeword and do what he asked.

“Jade wants some privacy,” Domino said. He moved off the bed with her still curled small in his arms. I could see him tight and ready inside the red silk, but if they were leaving the room, it wasn’t my problem. They were lovers, just not usually without me in the room for Jade’s comfort. They’d work it out.

“Okay,” I said.

“Have fun,” J.J. said.

Domino smiled. “She already has, thank you.”

“My pleasure,” she said, and grinned.

His smile turned to a grin.

Jade murmured something to him, and whatever she’d said made him turn for the door like he had a purpose. I hoped she’d agreed to have sex with just him, but either way, not my issue. I had other fish to fry, or maybe sausage, something like that.

I looked down at Nathaniel. His eyes had bled back to their usual extraordinary lavender, but his face was still almost frantic with need. Later I’d ask him what about all of it had flipped his switch so hard, but right now I’d see just how long and how hard I could flip that switch.

11

NATHANIEL WAS ONE of those men who was longer when he was at his most excited. He could gain two inches in length between “normal” erection and this, but he was also vibratingly hard, like wrapping my hand around rock wrapped in warm, velvet skin.

I was careful as I used my hand to slide him inside me, not just because with the extra length he would be deeper inside me, but because he’d told me when he got this hard that sometimes the sensations were almost too much, so that the pleasure of being touched bordered on a type of pain, and not one he enjoyed.

I’d had sex with Nathaniel more times than I could count, but he always felt different when he was this hard, almost like making love to someone different, no matter how much my eyes saw the familiar hair, the eyes, that face, the body all achingly familiar to me, and yet as I slipped him inside me it was like my eyes and my body were telling me two different things, so familiar and not.

I shuddered as he slid inside me, and my voice shook as I said, “God, you’re so hard.”

He nodded and closed his eyes, his breath coming out in a shuddering line that trembled down his body and into mine, as if his whole body had shaken itself. That small movement made me close my eyes and have to fight to find my focus. I was on top, he was tied up, I was in charge; it meant I had to hold my shit together and not get completely lost in the sensations.

I kept my eyes closed and started rocking my body slowly, getting the feel of him inside me this hard. I added a hip roll, like the real version of what belly dancing promises, that deep abdominal roll, with me gripping and releasing as I rode him.

He began to move his body with mine, so that he thrust up as I squeezed down, and we began that barely moving dance, rising and falling for each other, until I made a small sound for him.

I opened my eyes and found him staring up at me. His eyes held that intensity that only shows during sex, and sometimes violence. I think because both strip us down to the bare essentials, so that we can’t hide ourselves anymore, not from the person we’re with, or even from ourselves. When the sex is good enough, intimate enough, there is nothing like it. I was still Christian, but I understood in moments like this why so many other faiths used sex as a religious experience. You could bend your knees in church and lie, but face to face, naked with Nathaniel buried deep inside me, there were no lies. I loved him, well and truly, and wanted nothing more in that moment than to be as close with him as I possibly could. I bent over him, changing the rhythm of my hips so I could continue to move for him, and he continued to thrust, but eventually I was bent over his body so that we were touching from groin to chest and I was staring into his eyes from inches away. I had to change the rhythm from that invisible dance of muscles and deep body to thrusting my body over him, so that more of him came out of my body, and I shoved my body down the length of him. He thrust his hips up to meet my body, so that it became more intense as we both found a matching rhythm, and I pressed my mouth to his, so that we could kiss while we made love.