what I thought he might do if I did.
I fought the need to come. I caught myself at the edge, shook with the effort but pulled myself back.
“Good girl,” he murmured approvingly.
And that went through me like another shudder.
I glanced to the side, thinking a break in the intensity might help me maintain my control.
And I could see us in the window’s reflection. Whoever we were.
A big, strong man. And an angel.
My wings flowed over the backs of my arms, and I arched my back to make them fall even more beautifully toward the floor. A move that lifted me up and got his cock even deeper inside me.
And then I rolled my hips, experimenting with the feel of it and ignoring the protest in my thigh muscles.
I didn’t care if it hurt.
All I cared about was doing exactly what he told me to do.
Again and again, until it swept us both away.
I used my thighs and my core, and my grip on his wide shoulders. I lifted myself up, using my internal muscles to grip his cock all the way. And right when I got to the tip, I settled myself down again.
And that felt so good, so deep and full and glorious that I laughed a little.
I saw him look to the side, taking in that same reflection. I arched back even farther, dramatically, then gasped a little when he put his teeth to the side of my neck.
And then I did what I’d come here to do.
What he’d told me to do.
I fucked myself silly on him.
I found the count, the pattern. The lift and then the settle. The shimmer in my hips.
Again and again I rose up, then dropped myself down, until I lost track of the fact that this was another kind of performance. I was too drunk on the sensation of it. Too wild.
“Please, sir,” I said, then began to chant. “I need to come.”
“Too bad,” he growled in reply.
So I fought my body even as I shook and grew wetter, hotter. Wilder by the moment.
There was no sound in the room save the two of us.
Our bodies, wet and hot, coming together over and over. Harsh breathing, his or mine, I could hardly tell.
I was used to orchestras, but this was a symphony all its own, and I couldn’t tell the difference between the blood pounding in my head and the sounds I made.
“Please,” I begged him. “Please.”
I thought he would ignore me. And he did, for what seemed like forever.
Then he shifted. He wrapped his hands around my ass, easing the tension in my thighs, which felt like its own release.
“Come, little dancer,” he ordered me. “Now.”
Before I change my mind, he didn’t say. But I heard it all the same.
And I exploded. I burst into flame and fury and a thousand pieces of glorious shrapnel.
It was as if all the orgasms that preceded this one didn’t count. They were insubstantial. Releases, that was all.
This was a bomb.
This was life altering.
I felt the way I had the first time I’d danced in my point shoes, spinning around and around as if made of light and air. I felt like I was flying.
The orgasm walloped me and kept going. I thought I heard myself scream.
And then he was turning us around, falling back against one of the sofas, bringing me down astride him with my wings all around us.
He waited until I stopped sobbing against him, there where my mouth had fallen against the crook of his neck.
I lifted my head, though it felt too heavy, and looked down at him.
He was beautiful. He was hard inside me and cruel in all the right ways.
I felt soft all the way through. Even in my heart, though I cautioned myself against such nonsense as best I could when my head was still spinning.
He smiled then, this man who had bought me and had already given me more pleasure than lovers who’d claimed they knew me.
And his smile was a dark, erotic promise.
“My turn,” he said.
Darcy
I MADE AN involuntary sound.
I had made many sounds already—some I couldn’t believe had come out of me—but this was different. I realized it even as it escaped my lips, but I couldn’t take it back. I watched that dark, intent expression on his face as it altered slightly at the evidence of my vulnerability still echoing there between us.
I’d spent my whole life denying that I was capable of vulnerability. I smiled, instead. I danced until I bled, then I danced some more. Only actual broken bones made me stop, and sometimes not even then. And I certainly never made vulnerable noises. Ballet dancers were tough. We had to be, or we could never look that graceful.
“Problem?” he asked, his voice gritty.
Less a question than a demand.
I felt my breath shudder through my body, as if I’d forgotten how to breathe. I could feel the ache in my thighs, reminding me that I was splayed open as I sat astride him. And I could feel him, deep inside me, hard and hot. Still.
It made a different sort of shiver curl its way down my spine.
Every part of my body was sensitized. Overly raw and mad with it. Awake and alive in ways that made my head spin. I couldn’t make sense of it. Of him. Of this fantasy brought to life at last. All the sex I’d had before this seemed dull, dim. Unsatisfying in a thousand ways, and we weren’t even finished yet. It was as if this was my first time, as crazy as that was to imagine.
I felt words I shouldn’t say swell inside of me—
But then I remembered myself.
This was the fantasy I had chosen.
And no man—or woman—bought an experience like this so they could hear about someone else’s emotions. I understood that full well. The fantasy was in the anonymity. In the taking. This was a place for only certain kinds of intimacy.
My emotions were my own business. As were his.
That was what made this so hot.
“Of course not,” I said, trying to sound serene and in control. I even managed what I thought was a passable smile. “How could there be a problem?”
His eyes were so bright I was sure they were punching holes right through me. I wondered if when I looked down I would see not only myself impaled upon him, but see those marks, too. Like scars.
And I wanted those scars. I wore the ones ballet had given me like badges of honor. Audiences had no idea what it took to look that effortless onstage. We covered our scars and danced straight through them.
I wanted whatever this man would give me. I wanted to wear his marks forward, like brands.
I expected him to start fucking me again, much harder this time—a notion that made me quiver—now that he called it his turn.
Instead, he moved one of his big, strong hands to fit against the curve of my cheek. It wasn’t