“You,” she choked. “I want you.”
His hand, still resting at that unbearably sensitive juncture, pressed very lightly, and fire streaked through her. Her lips parted on a sound, and his fingers moved then, drawing a slow, deliberate line to her core. Iris could feel how wet she was already.
“You are drenched,” she heard Blaise whisper darkly.
It was intolerable, the way his words slipped under the solid structure of her shame and loosened it. She wanted him never to stop.
“Please,” she whispered, the plea dragged from a place so deep it startled her.
“Please, what?”
“I need more.”
“You will have more,” he said. “When I decide you are ready.”
Frustration flared, hot and helpless. He laughed softly as she tried to pull free from her restraints.
“Tonight, you will learn a new skill. You will learn to endure pleasure.”
Endure.The word felt wrong against the sensations building in her. She was not enduring; she was coming apart.
His hand moved with steady intention, knowing now exactly where to touch. Each stroke drew her higher. Yet every time she neared that blinding crest, he altered his touch and eased back.
Iris felt her wrists straining against the silk as sweat dampened her hairline, a bead slipping down between her shoulder blades. In the mirror, her eyes were wild, mouth open, chest heaving. She could not remember when she had last looked so alive.
“Say it,” he coaxed. “Say what you need.”
“I need you, Blaise. I need?—”
“Ah,” he said, satisfaction sliding into his tone. “There, at last, is honesty.”
He did not relent as he touched her core and began to move his fingers in a satisfying rhythm. Blaise drew her to the edge and back again, until the Iris was desperate and aching for more.
“Look,” he said hoarsely. “See what you do to yourself.”
She forced her eyes open. In the mirror, she saw her shaking thighs and the way her hips pushed helplessly into his touch, seeking more. No one was forcing her body to move like that. Those small, greedy thrusts were her own.
Mortification and exaltation collided, leaving her dizzy.
“You may be ashamed of this. Or you may claim it. The choice is yours, Iris. That is what I want you to understand.”
Her mind scattered, shards of thought flying away like glass flung from a window. All that remained was the roaring need, the taut, trembling core of her.
“I choose… not to be ashamed.”
The instant the words left her, something inside her loosened. The tension that had been braced invisibly through her for years, holding her upright and dutiful and spotless, gave way.
“This is going to sting a little,” Blaise warned her as he slid a finger inside of her.
Iris whimpered. His movements changed, and the careful, withholding rhythm broke, becoming more urgent. He drove her hard, his finger mastering exactly the maddening spot he had been denying her, and the world fractured into blinding light as she cried out.
“Open your eyes,” he said as he held her legs apart and continued to touch her maddeningly.
Iris watched as she came apart with a strangled cry that filled the mirrored room and echoed back at her from every gleaming surface. Her body bucked, dragged up against the pull of the silk, muscles clenching around the pleasure that poured through her.
The climax rolled over her in waves, each one dragging some last scrap of resistance away. She hung there in the aftermath, chest heaving, eyes dazed, feeling as if she had dissolved and been rebuilt in a slightly altered shape.
Blaise did not move for a moment. His hand rested possessively at her hip, his forehead leaned against the side of her throat, his breath ragged.
