She stared at him, uncertain.
“Take your hair down.”
She would never have picked herself as someone who wanted to be commanded. The loss of control was something she thought would terrify her, but the sensation of yielding to him was as welcome and explicitly sexual as his hand between her legs had been Wednesday. As his mouth had been earlier today. Far from adding restraint, it made her feel released.
She pulled out pins and unwound an elastic, and her hair tumbled down. He ran his hands through it and buried his face in it, and she laughed.
He wasn’t laughing as he pulled back. “Take your clothes off.”
This was harder. This was nakedness. Real nakedness and more to come. She was certain that the longer she let this go on, the more thoroughly he’d peel away her defenses and get under her skin.
She knelt on the bed, unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall open. His gaze fell to her breasts and stayed there, hot and admiring. She basked in his stare, then shrugged her blouse off. She grew suddenly self-conscious and sucked in her stomach.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I was just—”
“I won’t let you. Now your bra.”
She unhooked it with one hand and let it drop. His pupils dilated so fast she saw his eyes darken with it.
He crawled across the bed toward her and did what he’d done earlier, placing a hand on her breast a hair’s breadth from her nipple. Her sex tightened and tingled, answering the tautness of her breast. She felt empty in a way only he could fix. But right now he wasn’t interested in fixing it, he was interested in teasing. In making the emptiness and the craving grow.
He took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger so lightly she could barely feel him.
“Mmph.”
“What do you want?”
“More.”
“Like this?” He tightened his fingers infinitesimally, just enough to send a zing of sensation to her clit.
“More.”
Tighter.
He lifted his other hand to the other breast. “Does it feel twice as good if I do it to both?”
It felt more than twice as good, some kind of crazy logarithmic multiplier. She wriggled in his fingers, trying to get more touch, more sensation, but whenever she moved, he released her.
“If you want more you have to hold still.”
It was supreme torture, with one nipple in each set of clamping fingers, slowly tightening, but if she squirmed or arched or made noise, he stepped it back. She made herself hold completely still until the pressure was exactly, perfectly right, and then she said, “Please, just like that,” and he obeyed.
“I’m going to come,” she cried, tipping her head back.
“Not yet.” He let her go, and the orgasm, which had felt inevitable, retreated. “Skirt.”
She unzipped her skirt and lifted herself off the bed to slide it down.