Mental babbling was always a sign that I was nervous. I drew in a deep breath and tried to calm down. But I had been desperately turned on for about four hours straight, and it was hard to feel calm when he was sitting there looking at my naked body.

I flexed my fingers around the slats and waited.

“Good,” Carter said. He took the fabric from his lap and showed it to me. It was a long scarf, fringed at the ends, and made of a heathered charcoal material that looked like cashmere. “Close your eyes,” he said.

I obeyed, and felt the brush of soft cloth against my face, and then Carter’s fingers moving against my hair as he tied the scarf at the back of my head. Even with my eyes closed, the world suddenly became much darker. I opened my eyes again. My eyelashes brushed against the fabric, but I saw only darkness. The scarf was thick enough to cut out all light.

Unable to see anything, and unwilling to let go of the headboard, I waited.

I could feel my pulse throbbing in my clit, and in the thick artery deep in my belly.

My pussy flexed involuntarily. Wetness trickled down my thighs.

“I can smell how much you want me,” Carter said, his voice coming from somewhere above my left hip.

His words made my scalp prickle with a sudden flush of arousal. The air in the room didn’t feel cold anymore. I was overheated and sweating slightly. I arched my back, lifting my ass higher, hoping he would take it as the invitation I meant it to be. If he didn’t touch me soon, I was going to lose my mind.

And then he did, finally, trailing his fingers lightly down my ribs, making me jump. It wasn’t where I wanted him most, where I really wanted to feel his fingers, but it was better than nothing. It was a start.

His fingers left my ribs, and landed again on my hip. I jumped again. With no way to see what he was doing, every touch took me by surprise. He drew a burning line around the curve of my hipbone, down across my abdomen, down, almost there, and then he switched directions and moved back up my stomach. I could have cried with frustration.

His hand slid up the center of my body and came to rest just below my right breast. My nipple hardened with anticipation. He traced his fingers, so gently, up the underside of my breast, skirting around the nipple, and then switched to my other breast, drawing light circles with his fingernails, so close to where I wanted him to touch me but not quite there.

He was teasing me, I realized. It was a surprise for only a moment. I had thought he would get right down to business, but of course he wasn’t going to, not with the scarf, the elaborate setup—it was all about making me lose control. And I was going to. I could already tell. I was going to sob and beg and break for him, shatter into a million pieces and hope he could put me back together again.

I trusted that he would. It was the only reason I was still there.

“That’s right,” he said. I didn’t know what I had done that he was approving of. His hands left my body, and I felt the mattress shift, and the sound of cloth rustling. Was he—oh, God, he was going through my discarded clothes.

“Are you going to use the vibrator again?” I asked. My voice was shaky and barely recognizable.

“Hmm, not yet,” he said. “Maybe later, after your second orgasm, when you tell me that you can’t possibly come again.”

Second orgasm? After? He’d already made me come once that evening, and I couldn’t imagine that I had another two in me. I shook my head, mutely denying it, and he chuckled, that warm sound I was becoming so fond of.

“Your body belongs to me, now,” he said. “Don’t forget that. I’ll make it do whatever I want it to.” As he spoke, he drew his hand down my side, a firm pressure this time instead of the teasing glide he’d used before. I leaned into him like a cat.

He repeated the same path he’d followed before, over my hip and down my abdomen, but this time he didn’t stop. He trailed his hand down my abdomen, slowly, making me crave every centimeter, until he arrived, finally, where I wanted him, and slid his fingers along my wet slit.

I moaned. It broke out of me without my permission. After so long, what felt like a million years of waiting, he rolled his thumb over my clit, and it felt even more incredible than I’d imagined. I had been swollen and hungry for this since we left the club, and the long wait had driven me to the brink. If he kept touching me like that, I was going to lose all control.

And that was what he wanted, after all. So why fight it?

“Ah, careful,” he said. “You don’t come until I let you.” He rubbed my clit in slow circles, deliberate and practiced, and I knew I wasn’t the first woman he’d touched like this, but in that instant, I wanted to be the last.

It was a stupid thought, and I put it out of my head immediately. I was a cocktail waitress. He was a billionaire. We were having a fun night together. That was all there was to it.

It was easy not to think about it, to sink into the sensations running through my body. Carter touched my pussy with one hand, and with the other, played with my nipples, one at a time, switching to the other when he’d teased one to a hard peak.

“God, the things I want to do to you,” he murmured in my ear. “Tie you up, hold you down. Spank you. Make you scream. You’d let me, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, because I would, and we both knew it.

He pinched my clit between two fingers, and I felt his other hand slide down my body, slow, slow, and then his fingers rubbed at my entrance, rubbing my slickness into my skin. I held my breath. He pushed a finger into me, or—was it two? I couldn’t tell. I was stretched open, split apart.

“I can’t, I can’t,” I heard myself saying, and I meant that I couldn’t hold out, that I was going to come even though he hadn’t said I could.

“I know,” he said, and circled his fingers over my clit. My body was tight as a bowstring, every muscle tense, and I clenched around his fingers inside me, wanting, shaking, and then he said, “Come for me now,” and I exploded into light.

It rolled over me, through me. I shook hard, squeezing his fingers, throbbing, and I knew I was making noises, but I didn’t let go of the headboard. Not even for a second.

“That’s right,” he said. “Let it happen.” I heard his voice dimly, like he was speaking in another room. The muscles in my thighs twitched. My toes curled.

When it ended at last, I opened my eyes and stared into darkness. Carter had taken his hand away from my clit and was running his palm up and down my thigh. The fingers of his other hand were still rubbing slow circles inside of me, sending delicious aftershocks running through my body.