"Pull," she says.
I pull.
The rope tightens at the hitch and then gives. The hitch slides. The rope comes free of itself. She redoes it.
"You pull if you want out."
"I won't want out."
"Pull anyway when we're done. So you know you can."
"All right."
She loops the free end of the rope around the headboard behind me. Not tight. Loose enough that my wrists are not held against the wood. Held, but held with room.
She looks at me.
I am naked and tied and she is naked and strapped and looking at me, and I am so wet the insides of my thighs are wet, and I have never in my life been wet like this.
"You're so beautiful," she says and her eyes move over my body settling between my legs.
Not performative. Plain. The way she saidI want to wash you.
"Thank you."
"I'm going to touch you now."
"Please,” I gasp.
---
She starts at my mouth.
She kneels on the bed beside me. She puts her hand at my jaw. She turns my face up. She looks at me a count. She bends and she kisses me.
It is not the first kiss of a romantic novel.
It is the first kiss of a woman I have spent a day wanting desperately. She kisses me slow and she kisses me deep and her mouth is soft and hot and she tastes like the mint of the tea we drank. I make a small sound into her mouth. She smiles against me. She kisses me again. Her hand at my jaw moves down to my throat, light, not pressing. Her thumb traces the hollow. Her other hand comes up to my breast.
She touches me.
She touches me the way her hands on the bathtub rim promised she would touch me. She drags her palm over my nipple and the nipple comes up hard and the line of heat goes straight through me to where I am wet. I moan into her mouth. She pulls back an inch and looks at me. Her eyes are the bedroom blue of the chair this morning, but darker now. Darker for me.
"Yes?" she says.
"Yes. Green.” I am sure. I want her so much.
She works down my throat with her mouth. She puts her mouth on my collarbone. She licks the shallow scrape the glass left there and it makes a sound come out of me. She goes down. She takes my nipple in her mouth and she sucks, slow, and the orgasm that had been an idea in my body becomes a thing that is going to happen, she has not even touched me between my legs, and the thing is going to happen. I shudder. I am close. I think she knows it. She backs off and releases my nipple and my orgasm although still threatening with her hands on my body becomes less urgent.
I say her name.
"Max."
"Mm."
"I'm."
"I know."
