Oh God, he was trying to destroy her. She obeyed, her arms still twitching like she had a palsy, and he controlled it all, lowering her onto his cock, keeping her swaying body steady with his strength, pushing her all the way down as a sound of guttural need wrenched from her throat. She'd never had anyone strip her so raw emotionally and physically. She had no restraints upon her except the blindfold, but the fact she was obeying his every word said he didn't need them, did he? He was all of it. Every restraint, every device. He was her Master, and she'd do anything he commanded, feeding off of the same energy that was driving him to even crazier, more intent demands of her. He would push and push, because he needed her submission as much as she needed his Dominance. Neither of them ever sated.
He lifted and lowered her, brought his own hip movements into it, making another orgasm threaten in a matter of a few strokes. But he kept it as long and drawn out as a glittering strand of a spider's web, holding her in that net as he ensured she got ever closer to climax, but not to the edge of the cliff. It was like dividing a number by two into infinity.
She kept coming back to that figure eight, didn't she?
"Please . . ." she whispered. "Please, Master."
"Not yet." It sounded like his teeth were gritted, gratifying evidence he was holding on to his own control by that same fragile set of threads. "You have no idea . . . how fucking beautiful you look."
Who knew words could push one beyond the point of no return? She tried her best, but she couldn't hold out, not before the power of the emotion in those words. Possession, reverence, devotion. Need, to the point of pain. Love, a visceral, raw, not beautiful thing, but as miraculous and spellbinding as a naked beating heart.
Why hadn't she ever seen it, what was so clear now? All the wrong guys she'd chosen before, they hadn't been the wrong choices merely for nurturing the Dom/sub side of things. They'd been the wrong choice for all the important parts of a relationship, all those things as interconnected as those eight paths of Nirvana. She was as sure of that as she was that the right man was holding her now.
"Go, love. Go over."
She had to drop her arms, grab hold of him for support. Yes, he had her body, but she had to have the contact through her palms, feel the ripple of muscle as he drove harder into her. As a result, she felt him shudder beneath her fingers as he released with a hard groan. Reaching up to catch the back of her neck, he yanked her down against him, cinching his other arm around her hips, driving into her deeper, the strokes becoming so short there was almost no movement at all, just a straining against each other, trying to crawl inside each other's souls as they both shattered.
*
Another one of those long ebb periods, where it could have been four minutes or four hundred, like they'd stepped into a magical world where time was merely a passing thought, nothing that could touch their reality. He'd continued to hold her tight like that, and she did the same, her fingers curved over his biceps, her cheek against his throat, forehead against the recliner. She breathed in the heated space between his shoulder and neck. She loved feeling him like this against her, nothing between them, no clothes. She realized the blindfold only enhanced all of it. She had no desire to remove it. She liked relying on him totally in her dark world and wondered if it was somehow a primal return to before birth. When, whether one was held in the womb or the hand of a god, there was naught to do but feel . . . and trust.
"This is your house, isn't it?" she asked at long last.
He was stroking her back, teasing the bumps of her spine with his fingertips. "Yes. I want you living here, Madison. Starting tonight. I've already cleared room for your things. We can move them in tomorrow."
That should have startled her, maybe panicked her a little bit, and perhaps it would in the morning. Instead she made a quiet noise, but one that wasn't a refusal. "That doesn't mean you get to order me around all the time. You do know that?"
"Why, no. I assumed one unforgettable orgasm would change God's original plan and turn the female mind into a docile bowl of oatmeal."
She chuckled against his shoulder, giving it a feeble thump. A climax that powerful left no energy at all. Of course, the manly specimen beneath her wasn't acting ready for an Iron Man contest himself.
His arms tightened around her, though. "I do mean it, Madison. I know it's going to take a while for you not to fear intimacy, for every argument we have not to be a rehashing of your past. If I have you here, living with me day to day, from that first brushing of teeth in the morning, to the last kiss at night, I'll prove it to you, every moment."
"Plus you'll have a sex slave within reach of your fingertips."
"There is that."
Another thump, and this time he chuckled as well, shifting her so she was cradled in his lap. He unlaced the blindfold, removed it, stroking her hair away from her face. "Not going to open your eyes for me?" he queried tenderly.
She shook her head. "Not yet."
"Open your eyes, Madison. I need to see them."
The order gave her the strength. She raised her lashes to meet his brown gaze. The intensity of the emotions they'd shared still lingered in his expression, which did a great deal to quell any butterflies in her stomach that were trying to resurrect themselves.
"They say, after people turn thirty, it's really hard for them to change their ways," she said. "Makes it hard to live together."
"Which is why I want to start working on the adjustment period as soon as possible. Because after forty, it's completely impossible. I'm thirty-nine."
Reaching up, she touched his mouth, making his gaze soften. "I felt like I was all yours," she whispered. "I want to always feel that way."
"It's the truth," he promised, his gaze becoming fierce, immutable. "Give me your faith and trust, Madison, and I'll never betray it. I promise."
Faith. One of those eight paths that Alice had mentioned. A way to the infinite power of this, a love that she could believe wouldn't end. A love as strong as her Master's will. And her own.
"How come you never doubted? You were so sure that I was meant to be yours."
Giving her an affectionate look, he traced her throat, the side of her breast. "Alice was good at seeing deep inside of people. I saw her do it for her customers, over and over. You have a lot of her in you, though you have your own lovely style. I learned never to doubt her. When she told me that you'd be mine, I believed her. She also said I'd be yours. Not sure if she told you that, but it's true."