I torment her clit with my fingers, breathing out slow and steady as I remember just the way she used to like it. How effortless it was to work her up. I was the one who figured it all out about her. In my parents’ conservatory or on a jet over the Atlantic. Those few times we were together, I studied her like a map, and I never forgot it. I might have learned her pleasure better than I knew my own.

She twists against the mattress as I move my fingers, relentless and punishing, just a little too hard on her clit. She rocks her hips. Clenches the muscles of her thighs. If she’s trying to get more or trying to push me away, it’s not clear. And it doesn’t matter because I’m not going anywhere.

I don’t kiss her, don’t touch her. I let her body burn and twist under me, making her spine arch as I thrum her clit with all the vigor of a sex toy. She just isn’t in control of it.

Her moans break around the tie in her mouth. Drool tints the corners of her open lips. Her glassy eyes roll back, the thighs that had been trying to clamp shut now falling open. She moans and grunts against the gag in her mouth, bucking up into my touch.

I take it away.

I push her thighs back, spread her pussy with my fingers to dip my head between them and tongue her pink, slick walls. I eat her out, avoiding her clit at all costs. The tension clamps in her belly and her legs. Those slutty moans turn into whimpers. Questions without words.

Please? They whisper.

I curl my tongue inside her again.

No, it answers.

Nadia shudders, head to toe, gasping through her nose as the pleasure burns hot and hungry. She needs me to fuck her. I blow cool air against her clit and make her whimper again, tugging at the sheets bound around her wrists.

“Imagine I had you just like this, Nadia,” I whisper, tracing her clit without ever really touching it. “For years, and years, and years. And this was all you could think about. All you wanted. What do you think would be left of you after that?”

I rub my fingers against her clit again. Her head falls back, a choked sob of pleasure breaking from her heaving chest. Her nipples strain, neglected. Her pussy drips. I walk her to the edge, where the sweat glimmers on her skin and her breasts heave with tight gasps.

And I take it away again. A sharp pinch. A firm clap of my palm. She cries out as I edge her, over and over, building and building the release that might not ever come. Tears stream down her face and soak into my tie.

Her belly becomes a tight, flat plane, clenched hard, her pussy fluttering and tightening around nothing. I wedge myself between her thighs, keep her good and open, soaking in the sight and sound of her coming apart and begging for release.

My cock is a rigid line against the seam of my pants, a mirror of Nadia’s own helpless frustration.

“I could keep you like this all night. Is that what you want me to do, Nadia?”

She shudders, gasping and breathing in just wet cloth.

“Answer me.”

My hand claps against the side of her ass. She shakes her head, begging me as she glances down the line over her body, over her swelling breasts and between her parted legs. I grind my fingers into her clit again and make her shudder, white teeth bared against the color of the tie as she bites into it.

“You’re going to feel something for me, Nadia. Just as strong as you felt it for him. It doesn’t have to be love. It can be hate. Fear. Need. But you’re going to feel it.”

Her breathing stutters. The muscles in her belly flutter. I don’t think I can bare it another second.

The sound of the zipper jerks her head up. Like it might give her some relief. I toss my belt aside, let my pants hang around my hips. I take out my cock, stroking it in front of her, tugging at the metal bar to feel a brief sting of pain. She watches it like it might give her relief. Like I might stuff it inside her and forgive her for all those years.

I jerk my hand against it in front of her. Her eyebrows knit, expression shifting as she watches me. Hunger to horror to frustration. She throws her head back and listens to me get off.

It’s easy, having her spread beneath me like that. Her breasts heaving and pussy glistening, Stretched out and bound for my pleasure. I stroke fast, brutal pumps into my closed fist, skinmeeting skin. I chase the pleasure until it peaks and spasms deep at the base of my spine, a tight rushing heat that washes over me. I come on her pussy. Let her feel my cum seep against the folds of her empty cunt. My pleasure the cherry on top of her frustration.

Then, I put my fingers back on her clit.

She’s helpless to her own body. As long as I put my hands on her like this, play her pussy the way I know that it likes, she can’t resist. She looks up at me, begging. Without words or hands, telegraphing with just her body everything she needs from me. To give her that quick, rough push over the edge just the way she likes it.

I gently grind my fingers back up into her clit, until her body is dancing on my fingertips like a goddamn puppet.

She lasts a commendably long time. I start to wonder which is going to break first—her orgasm or her mind.

Finally, I drag her up to me. I rip the tie off her mouth and throw it aside.

“Ren,” she gasps.