I bit my lip as I considered. I’d thought I’d worn them for me. They were part of my confidence-building undergarment ensemble to make me feel more seductive than I was.

But now, when he asked, I knew that I had worn them just as much for him.

I didn’t answer fast enough, and he asked again. “Did you dress this evening with me in mind? Did you put each stocking on, thinking about how I’d later roll them down your thighs? They seem quite versatile. The things I could do with those—tie you up. Bind you. Would you like that? Tell me the truth.”

I’d had a boyfriend once who’d tried to tie my hands. With a belt. I hadn’t liked it at all, but now I thought it was perhaps the material he’d used, because my answer in this moment was entirely different. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

The satisfaction in his tone and the fact that I was facing away from him made it easier for me to admit more. “Yes, all of it.” My sentences broke as I pushed to speak through the growing tension in my belly brought on by the ministrations of my hand. “Yes…I’d like it. Yes, I wore them…for you…so you’d look at me like you’re looking at me now.”

I could still feel his gaze on me. Then I realized, if I looked up at the window, I could see him in the reflection. See him looking at me. I met his eyes there. “I wore them because I wanted you to think I was sexy.”

He didn’t tell me that he was coming for me, but I saw him as he did. And, as he’d promised, the minute he put his hands on me—one gripped my hip, the other one snaked around to grab my breast—he also put his cock inside me.

He thrust in me with such force, I cried out. I cried out again as he pulled back slowly, letting me feel every inch of his length as he drew back to his tip.

“You’re the most goddamned sexy thing I’ve seen in years, Gwen,” he said at my ear. “With or without the stockings. But, fuck…” He jabbed in again then held himself still. “You don’t know what it does to me to hear that you thought about me while you were dressing. It makes me so hard. Can you feel how hard it makes me?”

His cock twitched inside me, and I swear it grew thicker, pushing against my walls even though he was motionless.

“I do feel you,” I gasped. “You’re so hard.”

“I am,” he agreed. “So hard.”

He began to move then, in rhythm, but slowly. He leaned his forehead against the back of my head, and I could tell he was watching where we were joined. Watching his cock as he pushed in and out of my swollen pussy.

Knowing what he was looking at drove my excitement further. Combined with the feeling of being watched by the entirety of Central Park, I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. I braced one hand against the window and reached my other hand through my legs to graze his balls as he thrust inside of me.

“That’s good, Gwen. I like that.”

I continued my play, alternating my attention from my clit to his balls. Then his tempo picked up and he moved both his hands to grip my hips. I needed both mine on the window now to brace myself. Our bodies slapped together as he pounded into me.

“Tell me how you feel, Gwen.” When I couldn’t formulate words, he prompted me. “Do you feel good?”

“Yes.”

“Does my cock make you feel good?”

“Mmm…yes.”

He had to know how good he made me feel; I was clenching around him, my body ready to explode with pleasure. He liked to hear it—I’d learned that from him in our short time together—but also, as he questioned me this time, I heard something else hiding under his words. He didn’t just like it; he needed it. As though he, with all his command and confidence, needed reassurance. As if he longed for an intimate connection that transcended touch and entered into thought and feeling. As if what he really meant to ask wasn’t does my cock make you feel good, but do I make you feel good?

He did. He did make me feel good, and I suspected even as my orgasm gathered and grew, that the good he made me feel also went beyond the physical. So when my climax ripped through me, stiffening my limbs and stealing my breath, I answered him. Answered his true question, the one he couldn’t really ask. “Yes…Yes…Oh my God, yes.”

He shoved into me harder, deeper, lifting me to my toes as he chased his release. The lamplights in the now completely dark park below streaked across my vision as his invigorated efforts spurred another orgasm. JC followed right after, groaning as he spilled into me. He collapsed over my back, yet somehow his hands now wrapped around my waist were the only things keeping me from falling to the ground. I was wasted in bliss. My strength was gone, and all that existed was his strength in its place.

I was still blinded and panting when he spun me around to face him minutes later. He studied me as he stroked the hair from my face. Then, he kissed me. Sweetly. Luxuriously.

Yet, there was a hint of hesitation to this intimacy. A distinct taste of holding back. There were secrets on his tongue that went beyond his full name and birthdate.

For the first time it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one of the two of us using sex as an escape. Only, what exactly it was that JC was escaping from, I had no idea.

Chapter Nine

Eventually we discovered the bed.

After we did, we stayed there all night. The next Wednesday when I arrived, he was there waiting for me, and with hardly any words at all, we headed straight to the bedroom. There wasn’t any place I’d rather be. I’d never had sex like I did with JC—primal and heated and unrestrained. He pushed me to make noise, to be heard, to free my voice. He continued to question me, continued to beg for reassurance in his subtext.

I gave him what he asked for. I answered, I cried out. He even made me scream once or twice. After only a handful of nights, I knew him in ways I’d never known another person. Knew his body, knew what turned him on and off. Knew when he wanted me to beg. Knew when he wanted me to bend.

And I still didn’t have the slightest clue what the initials JC stood for.

Overall, our arrangement was working out pretty well. Though I was wrong about one thing—I did fall asleep. Not the first night we spent together, but the next. It was February, and I was fighting a cold. Plus, I was still worrying about Ben, who seemed better from the reports that we received, but still wouldn’t talk to us.

Those were my excuses for nodding off, but truthfully, JC had worn me out. He’d fucked me until we were hungry and needed to order room service. Then, after we’d finished eating, he’d fucked me until I slipped into sweet oblivion.