“Face me.”

I did. I’d never felt so naked in my life as he took his time looking me over.

“Hands behind your back.”

I think if anyone else had gotten to command number four, I would have started laughing, but he wasn’t anyone else.

“You doing okay?” he asked, stepping up to me. He put the glass to my lips and tipped it. Warmth filled my chest. It was good whiskey. The single malt I’d suspected.

“It’s warm tonight,” I said.

He put his face up to mine and whispered, “Infield fly rule. What is it?”

He kissed my neck as I answered. “When there’s a force play at third, any fly hit inside the baselines, whether it’s caught or not, means the batter’s automatically out.”

“Why?” He bit the corner of my neck and shoulder, and I gasped.

“To prevent an intentional error that would manufacture a double play.”

“You are very real.” He enunciated each word.

He drank the last of the whiskey and took an ice cube in his teeth. He put his face to mine and pressed the ice cube to my lips. I sucked on it, then took it from him, holding it in my mouth.

He took half a step back. I must have been a sight: naked but for my heels, hands behind my back, with an ice cube in my mouth. “And you are stunning,” he said, lifting his glass. He put the cold base of it to my nipple, and I groaned as it hardened. He touched the other one, chilling it to a rock.

He bent down and warmed my breast with his mouth, sucking on the hard tip, pulling on it with lip-blunted teeth. I gasped, but couldn’t open my mouth farther or I’d lose the ice. I guess that wouldn’t have been the worst tragedy, but I knew the game was to keep the ice in my teeth. His attention to my breast made me groan, awakening the warmth in my crotch. The ice in my mouth melted, dripping down my chin and neck, tingling a wet path to my stomach. He licked the droplets that found their way to my breasts, warming cooled skin with his tongue. When I thought I couldn’t take another minute of his attention without falling down from the pleasure of it, he stood straight and put his mouth over mine, sucking the ice back.

He crunched it and said, “Come on in.”

I stepped past the threshold, and he closed the door behind me. The living room was impeccable in dark woods and Persian carpets. The bookcases were full. The whole place was the exact opposite of the cold modernity of his hotels.

Jonathan stood in front of me, watching my eyes take in the details of his house. The paintings. The stained glass. The clean corners and fluffed pillows. He kissed me again and, having forgotten the edict about the position of my hands, I put my arms around him. His hands warmed my back, his touch solid and strong. He kissed my cheek and neck. “Go upstairs. There’s a room with the light on and an open door. Sit on the end of the bed. I’m going to lock up down here.”

“Okay,” I said because I needed to hear the sound of my own voice at the end of so many commands. I backed up, and he watched me as I turned and went up the stairs.

The room he wanted was right in front of me. There were other doors, all closed. I heard him banging around downstairs with locks and lights. I could peek in one room, just to see, then say I was looking for the bathroom, but the idea lasted the time it took for me to step into the room with the single, glowing lamp.

I sat at the edge of the bed. It must have been a guest bedroom. There were no pictures, no personal effects, just a hardwood bed and matching craftsman style dressers.

He seemed to take forever, and just as I was about to get up and see if he was all right, I heard him coming, one slow step at a time, up the stairs.

He was still dressed and had a bottle of water. He held it out to me.

“I’m good. Thanks.”

“You look uncomfortable.”

“You took a long time.”

He kneeled in front of me and touched my knee. “I’m sorry, Monica. Can you forgive me?”

Before I could answer, he kissed inside my knee. “I think so,” I said. “If you keep doing that.”

He looked up at me, all green eyes and messy red hair. He moved his lips up my thigh, spreading my legs. A tingle went up the inside of my thighs as he ran his hands up them, the edge of his watch a light scratch on sensitive skin. He picked my leg up, and I fell back as he lightly kissed the outside of my mound.

“Ah, Jonathan,” I whispered, stroking his hair. He spread my legs farther, kissing between them. He slipped his finger into my wetness, and I gasped and remember the afternoon and Sam’s desk. This time was different. When I looked down at him, his eyes were closed with intensity as he flicked his tongue over my clit. I think I said his name again. He flicked again. He was so light with it. Like he didn’t want me to come.

As if he read my mind, he stood up, undressing so quickly I had only a second to admire his body, with its light hair and perfect angles. He flipped a condom out of his pocket and got it on without missing a beat, then lodged himself on top of me, his dick like a rock and everywhere it should be except inside me. We kissed. He tasted perfectly of whiskey and desire. I wanted him. I wanted every inch of him. He was right outside, pressing in, the head of his cock a tingle at my opening. I twisted my hips to move him in, but he backed off, picking his head up to look at me.

“Please,” I said.

“Not yet.”

He slid his dick up my snatch without entering me, rubbing the length of him on my clit, sending waves of pleasure through me. I was so wet, he slid back and forth. I spread my legs as far as I could and moved with him. I could come like this, but I didn’t want to. I wanted him inside me. This would feel like masturbation compared to his cock being where it belonged.

“Please,” I said again.

“Not yet.”

“Jesus, Jonathan. What do you want?” My sex ached for him. It didn’t feel empty. It felt full to bursting, a throbbing, pounding hunger filling my skin.

“I want you to want it,” he said.

“I do. My God, I do.”

In response, he pushed harder, increasing the pressure without entering me. “No, you don’t. Not enough.”

I knew what he wanted, and I was willing to give it to him. “Please. I’m begging you. I’m begging. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll be anything you want. Just don’t—“

He drove his dick into me with a ferocity that shocked me and turned the last word into a cry. He stopped for a second, as if he’d been shaken by the violence of his initial thrust.

“Don’t stop,” I gasped. “Don’t make me beg again.”

He buried his face in my neck and fucked me, pushing inside, pressing his body against my clit, his cock rubbing with each stroke, until I couldn’t take it anymore, and then he stopped.

“What?” I groaned.

“You want to come?”

“Yes. Fuck. Yes.”

“Beg for it.”

“Fuck you.” I pushed his chest. I was on fire, so close to orgasm, nearly unable to think complete thoughts. He pushed himself in me once, then stopped. It was a burst of sensation between my legs, then nothing. I looked up at him. He was enjoying himself, and he could keep going as long as he needed to.

“Please. Fuck you.”

“Close.” He stroked again, a taste of what I could have. He went slowly, too slowly, moving enough to keep me hot, but not enough to get me off. I put a hand between my legs and he grabbed both my wrists, holding them against the mattress with all his weight, rocking his hips back and forth just a little.

I had never felt anything like that. It wasn’t an orgasm, because I had not an ounce of release, only the firing nerve endings and blasting heat between my legs. I was sweating everywhere. Tendrils of hair clung to my face, but his hands held mine down, and I couldn’t move them.

“I want to come,” I groaned.

“I want you to come.”

“Let me. Please.” I said it so softly I didn’t even think he’d hear me. “Please. Please. Please…” With every please, I got more desperate and more quiet. On the last plea, he pulled out of me and pushed back in, all the way, and then again, until everything went hot red. I said his name over and over, going limp everywhere, and still the orgasm went on and on. His mouth was at my ear, and I could hear his groan as I finally stopped coming. His arms wrapped around me, tightening as he came, a guttural ahh rattling his throat with each slowing thrust.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered into my neck.

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

He propped himself up on his elbows and kissed my face from my chin, to my right cheek, to my forehead, and back down my left cheek, and to my chin again. His eyes flicked to his watch.

“Sun rises at 5:38 a.m. You’re mine for four more hours.”

“I don’t think I can take four more hours of that.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” He rolled off me, and we just stared at the ceiling, letting our breathing get back to normal.

I had never experienced anything like that, not with Kevin and certainly not with Darren. I didn’t know I could sit on the brink for that long or just how many brinks there were. I didn’t know I could give someone else control over what I felt.

It felt as though, after that orgasm, I should have to sleep for hours, or I wouldn’t want sex for at least a month, but neither was the case. I was energized, and I wanted it again.

“Where are you flying off to tomorrow?” I asked.

“Korea. I’m putting a hotel up in Seoul.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Uh oh.”

“Your house. You have all the original everything in here, and the hotels are, like, white and chrome.”