Page 24 of Suite 7

“Green,” he says back. Like a promise he’s making as much as receiving.

His hands find my bound wrists and lift them back above my head, securing them again, the silk taut, my arms stretched. The vulnerability of it moves through me and the urge to manage it rises instantly — to say something, to deflect, to take back even one inch of ground.

“Here.” His voice, low and certain.

My gaze finds his. One hand moves to my waist — warm, present, steady. Then his other hand moves.

Following the inside of my thigh, higher, and his eyes don’t leave mine. Not once.

His fingers find me and I inhale sharply, every muscle pulling taut, and I try to look away.

“Stay with me.”

I stay.

His fingers move. Slow. Deliberate. Reading me the way he reads everything — with complete attention, adjusting by degrees, nothing wasted. His thumb finds my clit and circles, the lightest pressure, barely there, and a moan escapes without permission.

“Good girl.”

The praise lands somewhere below my sternum and spreads. I didn’t expect that — the way two words could dissolve something I’ve been clenching for hours.

His hand at my waist begins to move. Slow strokes up my ribs, learning the geography of me, like he’s committed to knowing every inch of me before he’s done. My breathing shifts.

“You’re doing so well.” His thumb firms slightly, circles with more intention. Then two fingers press inside me, one slow stroke, and I gasp and my arms pull against the silk above — not fighting, just needing somewhere to put it. “That’s what I want. Give me that.”

I give it to him.

Or I try to.

Something is there — close, circling, real — and then it isn’t. It slides just out of reach every time I get near it, like chasing a shape at the edge of vision that disappears the moment I look straight at it. My body knows it’s supposed to be simple. My mind keeps standing in the doorway, arms crossed, timing me.

He doesn’t change the rhythm. Doesn’t speed up, doesn’t slow down, like he could do this for another hour without noticing the difference.

The thought arrives uninvited: how long is too long. How long before he’s just being patient because he’s too polite to stop. And underneath that, older and quieter: it would be easier to just get there. Give him the sound. Let this be over before he notices it isn’t actually happening.

I know exactly how to do it. I’ve done it before.

So I close my eyes and let my back arch. Let the moan come out a half-second early, pitched a little higher than what’s actually building in me.

His hand stills. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I open my eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Vera.”

“I’m not doing anything, I just⁠—“

“I don’t let my submissives fake it.” No heat in it. Just fact, laid down like a rule that predates her. “Not once. Not ever.”

Heat floods my face and I look away.

“I wasn’t trying to⁠—“

“You were.” A pause. “Look at me.”

I lift my eyes to meet his.

No anger. No disappointment. Just calm, absolute — the same calm he’s carried all night, like nothing about this costs him anything at all.