Chapter 2: The Blindfolded Offering
The record hissed, a scratch in the silence between tracks. Fatima heard it, amplified in the dark behind her blindfold. The silk was cool, tight against her temples. Her world was reduced to scent—sandlewood incense burnt down to a nub, the clean starch of the sheets, her own nervous sweat sweet on her upper lip—and sound. The door clicking shut. His footsteps, heavy on the hallway runner, then muffled on the bedroom carpet.
They stopped at the doorway.
She knew the exact shape of his pause. The intake of breath. The way his eyes would travel over her: kneeling in the center of their bed, naked, her back straight, her wrists bound behind her with the same emerald-green scarf she’d worn to dinner last week. The cool air puckered her nipples, raised goosebumps along her thighs. She had spread her legs just before she heard the door, and the openness there was a vulnerable, wet ache.
“Zac.” Her voice didn’t sound like hers. It was lower, thick with waiting.
A floorboard creaked. He was moving again, into the room. She heard the rustle of his jacket being shed, the soft thump of it hitting the armchair. His keys, placed deliberately on the dresser. The ritual of his return, now a prelude to something else.
The bed dipped behind her. His weight. His heat. He didn’t touch her. His breath was close, stirring the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck.
“You’ve been waiting.” It wasn’t a question. His voice was calm, that steady landscape architect’s tone, but there was a new grain to it. A roughness.
“All day,” she whispered. She tilted her head back, offering the column of her throat. “Since you took my list. Since you put it in your pocket.”
His fingers traced her shoulder. A slow, testing stroke. Then his palm settled, warm and heavy, on the side of her neck. His thumb pressed into the pulse hammering there.
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” he said. His other hand came to her bound wrists. He didn’t untie the knot. He touched it, a gentle exploration of his own work. She’d tied it herself, but it was for him. It was always for him. “About this. About what ‘owning you’ means.”
He shifted. She felt him move around her, his knees on the mattress bracketing her hips. Now he was in front of her. She could sense his presence, a dark sun burning behind the blindfold. The scent of him—cool outdoor air, the faint tang of his workday, the deeper, familiar musk of him—was overwhelming.
“Show me,” he said.
She knew what he meant. She let her shoulders roll back, pushing her chest forward. She parted her lips. And she spread her knees wider on the duvet, the movement making her breath catch. The open, empty air between her legs felt like an invitation, a confession.
His breath hitched. A sharp, quiet sound. She’d heard it.
“Fuck, Fatima.” The curse was exhaled, a prayer and a condemnation.
His hands landed on her inner thighs, calloused and hot. He pushed them wider, his grip firm, almost rough. She moaned, the sound torn from her chest. He leaned in. She felt his face close to her core, his breath, hotter than anything, ghosting over her wetness.
“Look at you,” he growled, his voice vibrating through her. “Soaked. Just from waiting. From thinking about me thinking about that fucking list.”
His tongue touched her.
It was a flat, slow, devastating lick from her opening to her clit. She cried out, her body jerking against the bonds. He didn’t hold back. He didn’t tease. He feasted. His mouth sealed over her, his tongue spearing inside, then circling, flicking, relentless. His stubble scraped the tender skin of her thighs. He used his hands to keep her spread wide, pinned, his fingers digging into her flesh.
She was babbling. “Oh god, Zac, yes, right there, please—” The words dissolved into gasps. The pleasure was a sharp, coiling tension, amplified by the darkness, by her helplessness. She couldn’t touch him. She could only receive. Every flick of his tongue was a command. Every suck was a claim.
He pulled back suddenly. She whimpered at the loss, at the cold air on her wet flesh. She heard him stand, the sounds of his belt buckle, the zip of his jeans. The rustle of clothing dropping to the floor.
“You wrote ‘knife play,’” he said, his voice closer now, from the side of the bed.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Yes.”
She heard the drawer on his nightstand open. The soft sound of wood on wood. He kept a Japanese-made utility knife there, one with a supremely sharp, slender blade he used for precise model work. He’d shown her once how it could slice a hair lengthwise.
The mattress dipped. He was kneeling beside her again. The metal click of the blade locking open was obscenely loud.
Cold. The flat of the blade rested against her stomach. She flinched, a full-body shudder. The metal was a shock, an absolute contrast to the heat of his mouth, her skin. He didn’t move it. He let her feel the reality of it, the terrifying, thrilling weight.
“This?” he asked, his voice deadly soft.
“Yes.” Her voice was a thread.
He dragged the flat of the blade upward, over her ribs. It traced the lower curve of her breast, circled her nipple. She was panting, her chest heaving. The metal was so cold it burned. It was the fear she’d described, distilled and given form. And beneath it, a volcanic surge of arousal. He owned this fear. He controlled it completely.
The knife traveled down her sternum, over the quivering plane of her stomach. It stopped, the tip now just touching her skin, at the junction of her thigh. He applied the faintest pressure. A promise. A question.
“Do you trust me?” The question was grit, gravel.
“With my life,” she breathed.
The knife vanished. She heard the click as it closed.
Then his hands were on her, turning her, pushing her forward. She fell onto her elbows, her face in the sheets, her bound wrists a leverage point against the small of her back. He was behind her, his body covering hers, his heat replacing the knife’s cold. His cock, hard and thick, pressed against her ass, then slid through her drenched folds.
He didn’t enter her. He rubbed himself against her, coating himself in her wetness, groaning into her shoulder. “You’re so fucking ready,” he muttered. “So open for me.”
“Please, Zac,” she begged, the words muffled by the bedding. “I need you inside. Now.”
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging in. He positioned himself. And he thrust, one deep, unforgiving stroke that buried him to the hilt.
She screamed. The fullness was blinding, a ravishment. He didn’t wait, didn’t gentle. He set a brutal, pounding rhythm, each drive pushing her up the bed. The silk scarf bit into her wrists. The headboard knocked a dull rhythm against the wall in time with his grunts.
“This what you wanted?” he snarled, leaning over her, his chest slick against her back. “This raw fucking? To be used?”
“Yes!” she sobbed. Every slam touched something deep, something frantic and greedy in her core. “Don’t stop! Own me, goddamn it!”
He fucked her like he was trying to break through to the other side, his hand tangling in her curls, pulling her head back. The angle changed, hitting a spot that made her vision whiten behind the blindfold. She was hurtling toward the edge, her muscles clenching around him.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his rhythm stuttering. “You come with me. Now.”
It was an order. His hand snaked between her legs, his thumb finding her clit, rough and perfect. The double sensation—him pounding into her, his thumb circling—was too much. She shattered. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and silent for a heartbeat before a shattered cry tore loose. She felt him pulse inside her, his release hot and deep, his own groan a harsh sound in her ear as he collapsed his weight onto her.
They lay there, a tangle of wet skin and frantic breath. The record had ended. The only sound was their panting and the soft tick of the cooling radiator.
Slowly, gently, he rolled off her. She felt him move, heard the knife being returned to the drawer. Then his hands were at her wrists, untying the scarf with careful deliberation. Blood rushed back into her fingers with a painful, tingling warmth.
He removed the blindfold.
The room was dim, but his face was the clearest thing she’d ever seen. His eyes were dark, wide, pupils blown. There was a wildness there she’d seen only glimpses of before. And beneath it, a tender, awestruck worry.
He cradled her face, his thumbs wiping at tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed.