I slide my hand over my slick belly and stop just short of my mound. I’ve wanted to touch myself from the moment he left my apartment, promising to return. But I can’t allow myself to think of Daimon that way.

I also can’t stop thinking of him this way.

I slide my finger between my legs and easily find my clit. Moving my finger in a gentle circular motion, I imagine it’s Daimon’s tongue, licking me clean.

I didn’t know much about sex until I left my parents’ basement and got a computer. I’d been touching myself for a few years by the time I moved out at the age of eighteen, but I didn’t know why it felt so good or that someone else could touch me and it might feel even better. But my computer introduced me to a whole slew of websites, which taught me everything from how to touch myself to what to imagine when I touched myself.

The novelty wore off after a few months on my own, and I hadn’t pleasured myself in more than a week until today. So imagining Daimon’s mouth on me is easy and my muscles quickly begin to convulse and contract at the thought of him pleasuring me.

A knock on the bathroom door makes me jump and I knock the top of my head against the shower head. “Ow! Who’s there?”

“I didn’t mean to startle you.”

That voice. Even with the warm water drenching my skin, it still sends a shiver through me.

“How did you get in here?”

“Your door was unlocked and you didn’t answer when I knocked. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine!”

My door is never unlocked. I want to say this aloud, but part of me wonders if I left it unlocked by accident. Maybe I was subconsciously hoping he would let himself in. Our minds have a way of tricking us into acting on our desires.

Desire. Do I really desire Daimon in my home?

“May I come inside?”

His question stuns me. I can’t have heard him correctly. No, I’m definitely hearing things. I won’t even respond.

“Alex?”

Oh, heavens. The way he says my name.

“I’m coming into the bathroom.”

“Why?” The word escapes my lips sounding more like a shrieking cry than a question.

“So I can be near you.”

I don’t know how to respond. I’ve never heard a more beautiful sentence in all my life. And this very thought fills me with shame.

I turn the shower off and listen as the water drips from my hair and body onto the floor of the tub. Both of us are silent as we await my response or the next words out of my mouth. It is clear that the next move is mine.

I cross my arms over my chest and clear my throat. “Can you please hand me the towel on the rack?”

I hear a soft rustling as he lifts the towel off the rack on the wall. I consider jutting my arm out through the shower curtain, but I decide against it. Let him figure out a way to get the towel to me. Though the sun is just beginning to rise, barely shining the faintest hint of gray morning sunshine through the cracks in the blinds, not enough light reaches the shower for him to see anything. Right now, I’m nothing more than the shadowy outline of things he’s already seen on a hundred other women.

The shower curtain flutters as he grabs hold of it. Then he slowly pushes the curtain completely aside. He takes a step back and holds up the towel, beckoning me to come to him.

I draw in a slow breath and release it as I let my arms fall to my sides. I watch his face as I step out of the tub, but I can’t see his expression in the shadow of that damn hood. He’s about to close the towel around me when I reach up and push his shoulders back.

“What are you doing?”

“The sun’s coming up.” I keep pushing him until we’re both in the corridor and I close the bathroom door behind us.

I don’t want to see him just as much as I don’t want him to see me.

I breathe an audible sigh of relief as the darkness conceals us both.

“You’re a little bit crazy, but I like it.”

“A little bit?”

He laughs and I can’t help but laugh with him. A moment later, we both fall silent and now the next move is his.

He reaches forward with the towel and brushes it across my cheek. He does the same to the other cheek and I stand frozen as he continues to dry off my face and move down to my neck. He swipes the towel over my shoulder and I let out a stuttered breath.

He pauses a moment, then he grabs my other shoulder and turns me around. He drapes the towel over my head and uses it to squeeze the water out of my hair. Pulling the towel off my head, he gently brushes my hair over my shoulder, exposing my nape.

His fingers graze the back of my neck and goosebumps sprout over my skin as he trails his fingertips over my shoulder and down my left arm. He steps forward so his chest is pressed against my back, then he leans over and brushes his cheek against my ear. Laying his hand over the back of my left hand, his fingers lace through mine and my entire body relaxes.

“You’re skin is so soft,” he whispers, his lips brushing against my earlobe. With his fingers laced through mine, he brings my left hand forward and holds it against my abdomen. “I want to touch you.” He slowly begins sliding both our hands down my damp abdomen. “Here, in your bedroom. Come.”

With every step I take, leading him through the darkness, the alarm bells in my mind are sounding louder. Warning me to think.

Think, Alex!

But, for once, I don’t want to think.

I want to feel.

When we enter the bedroom, he closes the door behind him. There’s no need for this. It even feels a bit sinister. But I’m not afraid.

“Turn around.” I turn away from the bed to face him and he holds out the towel to me. “Dry yourself off.”

He doesn’t ask me to please dry myself off. It’s not a request. It’s an order. A stern command delivered gently in that beguiling voice.

I take the towel from him, reveling in my own sexual magnetism as I caress my body with the soft cotton. He can’t see me very well, but he can see the curves of my body as I move. Wiping away the beads of water on my skin as another kind of moisture gathers between my legs.

“Lie down,” he says once I’ve dropped the towel to the floor.

I sit on the edge of the bed first and he steps forward, invading my space. He gazes down at me and I know that underneath that dark hood, his dark mind is relishing this position of dominance. Because something tells me that he knows I wouldn’t give him this unless I wanted to. If I didn’t want to, he’d be dead.

I smile as I lie back, resting my head on the pillow and swinging my legs onto the comforter. As if he knows where I put it, his hand reaches sideways and feels around the surface of the nightstand until he finds the black feather he left with me on his last visit.

He sits on the edge of the bed. “Give me your hand.”

I try not to smile. Even though he can’t see my face, I know he can feel my energy. And I know he’s asking for my hand rather than taking it so that he knows he has my consent and cooperation. I want to tell him he needn’t order me around. He can just do with me as he pleases.

But I must be patient.

I hold my hand out to him and he takes it gently in his. He holds my hand face up and I flinch when the tip of the feather quill comes in contact with my palm. He traces the quill over my palm and down to each fingertip, one at a time. Then he begins writing something on my palm.

M-A-C-H-E-R-I-E. Ma chérie. My darling in French.

Then he presses his lips to my hand and I draw in a sharp breath. Something about his lips on my skin makes me emotional. My skin has been my enemy for nineteen years. But when he puts his lips on me, it’s as if all my enemies have fallen and the two of us are the only ones left standing.

He lays my hand down on the bed, then he turns the feather around and traces the soft vane of the feather down my temple and cheek. I try to keep my breathing even, but I know he can see the rapid rise and fall of my chest as he traces the feather down the side of my neck and over my collarbone.