I am, however, thwarted in my plan, as his hands grasp me under the arms and he gently pulls me to my feet. “Minx,” he teases.

I smile innocently.

“Oh, no,” he says. “You are not getting off that easily.” The scarf that I had wrapped around my wrist has come loose, and now he picks it up off the floor and knots it securely above my right hand. He gives it a tug and then leads me to the bedroom. The headboard on his bed is a solid piece of wood, and dead center is a large metal eyebolt. I’d noticed it before, but had never thought much about it. Now, he tells me to lie on my back on the bed with my hands above my head. I do, and he threads the scarf through the eye, then ties off the loose end on my other wrist. My arms now make a triangle above my head. I expect him to bind my feet as well, but he doesn’t, and when he sees my curious look, he grabs my hips and flips me over onto my stomach. The maneuver both surprises me and explains why he wants my legs free.

I realize with a jolt that I am surely not the first woman who has made the acquaintance of this eyebolt. The thought doesn’t disturb me, though, because I know two things. I am the first woman Damien has brought to the Malibu house. And more than that, I believe with a bone-deep certainty that I am the last.

“On your knees,” Damien says. I comply, and he leaves me there, my ass in the air, my arms forward, and my head bent down and turned to the side so that I can see what he’s doing.

He’s at the side of the bed, opening the door to the ornamental cabinet he uses as a bedside table. He pulls out a case that is similar to one I remember well from a delicious night at my apartment. This one, however, is bigger. He opens it, and I’m pleased that from this perspective, I can see the contents. Metal handcuffs. Candles. A cat-o’-nine-tails. A blindfold. A string of beads. And a few other things that I do not recognize.

“Handcuffs?” I tease. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“Maybe.” He takes out the cat-o’-nine-tails, a small whip with many strands of leather at one end. “But not yet.”

He moves behind me so that I cannot see his face. Just his legs and his very hard cock, and that only when I drop my head and look down between my own legs.

I don’t look for long, because he dangles the soft leather ends of the whip over my shoulders and back. “Want?” he asks. “And need?”

“Yes,” I say as the horror of the evening rushes back. I want to banish those memories and those emotions. I want to claim them and destroy them. I want to survive them. And I want Damien to be the one to help me do that. “Yes,” I say again, but my word is drowned out by the snap of the toy against the soft skin of my ass.

It stings, and I cry out, closing my eyes as I draw in the pain and cling to it. I want it, yes. And I need it, too. But with Damien delivering the blows, I can’t deny that I am getting off on it as well. “Again,” I say, as his hand rubs the spot where the whip connected. “Please, Damien, again.”

He complies, bringing it down hard again and again, then rubbing my soft skin, which I imagine is now red. This is better than a knife. Safer, yes, but also more real. I’m turning something horrid into something good. Somehow, being with Damien turns it all around.

“Spread your legs,” he demands. I comply, and the end of the whip dangles over my sex. I am more wet than I can ever remember being, and Damien’s moan of pleasure only makes me more excited. “I’m going to spank your cunt, too,” he says. “And then I’m going to fuck you, because dammit, Nikki, I can’t wait.”

The whip snaps lightly between my legs, and I tremble from the fast shock of it against my clit. I discovered recently with Damien how much I enjoy this particular sensation, and that feeling hasn’t lessened in the slightest. Again, then again, and I am crying out from the spectacular intensity of the pleasure.

I am on fire. I am burning up. I am a blaze burning free, and only Damien can quench this heat.

“Please,” I beg. “Please, Damien, now.”

He doesn’t hesitate. His hands take my hips and I feel the head of his cock at my vagina, and then he is inside me, deeper and deeper until I almost feel as though I cannot take it anymore. He holds me by one hip, the other hand beneath me, his finger stroking me in time with the thrusts so that I am lost in an overload of sensations.

“Come for me,” he demands, and my body tightens around him.

“Come for me,” he repeats. “Dammit, Nikki, I want to feel you come.”

And then, as if my body really is abiding by his will, a deep, quaking orgasm rolls through me. My body quivers. My muscles clench, bringing him even tighter into me. And my arms go limp. I collapse down onto the bed, breathing hard as waves and waves of violent pleasure continue to crash over me before finally settling down into the soft glow of immense satisfaction.

Damien shifts, pulling out of me and then lying beside me, his fingers stroking lazily up and down my back. “Turn over,” he says after a moment. “I want to show you something.”

Curious, I roll over. He brings the box back onto the bed, and this time, he pulls out a red taper candle.

“Damien?” I say warily. “What are you doing?”

“Something new.”

He straddles me at the waist so that I cannot move my legs, and as my arms are still bound, I am essentially immobile.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I say, but as he strikes a match and lights the candle, I can’t help but bite my lower lip.

“Liar,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

I do, and I’m certain I must look ridiculous. My eyes squeezed tight and my teeth grazing my lip.

“Relax,” he says.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Tell me what this is.”

I feel a gentle stroke along the swell of my breast. “Your finger?”

“And this?”

Soft and slightly wet, this time at my cleavage. “Your tongue.”

“This?”

It is rough and soft at the same time. “I don’t know.”

“A feather,” he says, though he doesn’t say where he got it.

“And this?”

At first I feel nothing. Then there is a sharp, hot ping on my nipple that quickly shifts to something cool and tight. It’s not painful, and it is more than pleasure. It is, in fact, exquisite. “I—the candle?”

“Very good. Now hold still.” I feel it again, only this time the ping lasts longer and is not confined to one place. I arch up to meet the sensation as what feels like long fingers tighten on the skin of my breast. Then the feeling repeats and repeats and now I am biting my lower lip not from nerves, but because of the glorious rapture that has sparked inside me, spreading out like electric shocks from my breasts to my sex. And then shooting sparks out through my fingers and toes.