Earlier, he’d clearly been Master to slave. It was what he’d wanted, what she’d wanted, and she’d reveled in the fact he loosed that desire upon her, given her the chance to prove she could match it. But this was different, indefinable. Something moved between them now, something that was part of it and yet even deeper. Holding her breath now, she reached the waistband of the jeans. She traced that, back and forth, aroused by the beauty of his fit body, the power of it he’d demonstrated so capably, again and again. Under her other palm, his heart was thumping a little faster. So was hers.

The jeans were loose, so she maneuvered beneath the waistband, found the trimmed pubic area, then lower, to the heated base of his cock. She was able to partly circle it with her thumb and forefinger. Her intent wasn’t arousal, not exactly. She was gripping him, marveling at the heat and virility of the organ, at how much she could desire it inside her.

She explored the velvet skin stretched over the steel of it, because he was obviously hardening under her touch. His stomach muscles contracted as he shifted his hips, and she helped guide his shaft out of a folded position, letting it stretch up more comfortably beneath the zipper. It let her stroke her fingers more fully up and down its length, though the diminishing space was allowing less maneuvering room.

“You don’t have any photos,” she whispered. “Jon, Matt, any of them. Not even of my brothers and sisters. Or of you.”

“No. I don’t do photos.” He sighed, looking up at the sky again as she let the other hand descend so she could use both. It required opening the jeans, but he didn’t stop her as she did that, took a two-handed grip, started to explore more aggressively. Her nipples had tightened against his back, and she rubbed her mound against his ass. The jeans slipped a little lower. She wanted to go to her knees, kiss her way down his spine, tease that dip between his buttocks with the tip of her tongue, see if she could make him shiver as he’d made her shiver.

“You’re messing me up, Marcie. You’re just a baby.”

She stilled, the rough quality of his voice bringing her heart into her throat. “I’m your baby,” she said against his skin. “All yours. Love me, Ben. Love me in the dark, let me be whatever you want me to be. Stop worrying about me. Take what you need.”

I am a baby. I’m scared to death, because I rely on your strength and your knowledge, but if I have to, I’ll lead.

He turned in her arms, dislodging her hands. Gripping her wrists, he studied her. His expression was brittle stone, those eyes measuring. Old. Ancient, even.

“If my Master is lost,” she said, her voice shaking a little, “I’ll find him. I’ll lead him back to himself, because to serve doesn’t always mean to follow.”

As he stared at her, she pushed against his hold. He didn’t relent immediately, but she insisted, and then he let her put her hands on his face. Lifting on her toes, she brought her body up against him, laid her mouth softly on his. Teased his lips, touched them with her tongue, playing with him, coaxing him to respond. His head moved, his lips starting to answer her flirtation, and when he nipped at her, she smiled against his mouth.

He came to life then, summoning a pleased purr from her throat. His arms slid into the shirt and around her, one around her waist, the other dropping so his hand could grip her ass. He hiked her up in an effortless move that let her wrap her own arms around his shoulders. He didn’t take her inside. Instead, he pushed her up against the balcony wall, his body pressed to the core of hers, and the kiss was suddenly much deeper, all consuming.

God, the man could kiss. Wet heat, just like what was gathering between her legs, rubbing against his cock. The cool teeth of the open zipper scratched against her inner thigh, where he’d slapped her with the spatula earlier. He had his other hand on her nape now, fingers tangled in her hair, tugging in that hard way he did, a Master’s grip, reminding a slave of her place. She fought him, fought to deepen the kiss from her end, because she wasn’t going to miss the chance to savor it even more fully.

She wondered if he’d take her here, under the night sky, where a neighbor might look out of the adjacent house and see their silhouettes mating among the flowers. Instead, he took a firmer grip on her, side-stepped over the threshold. He kissed her against that wall, and she moaned, telling him she wanted him.

“Insatiable,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re insatiable.”

“For you.” She wasn’t going to pretend otherwise, protected by the cloak of the night. He said nothing to that, just flexed his arm around her again, holding her to him to carry her down the dark hall, back into his bedroom.

She expected him to turn her over, bend her over the bed. Instead, he laid her down on her back in that nest he’d left her in before, only now he was over her, his knee pressed between her legs.

“Arms above your head,” he said quietly, those emerald eyes gleaming in the dim light from the windows.

She complied, though she hated letting go of him. His gaze coursed over her as he adjusted the shirt so it was fully open, so he could see all of her. He trailed a knuckle down her sternum, under the curve of her left breast. The nipple jewelry gleamed, and when he caught one, tugging, she gasped, arching up to his touch.

“Stay still, cher.”

Cajun. Oh God. She really had to ask how he did that, switched to different accents according to his moods, as if he was a split personality. Maybe he was, because she knew it had taken a lot of different Bens to become the man she was with tonight.

He bent, kissed her breast to the right of the piercing. He nuzzled her nipple but didn’t suckle. Instead he moved to her sternum, rubbed his jaw between her breasts, teasing the tender skin with his beard shadow. Then he moved down, his lips on her navel, catching the dangling silver rose there in his teeth, tugging on it and eliciting another gasp. Then lower. Marcie’s hands curled into balls as his heated breath skated over her clit. When he pressed his open mouth high on her thigh, so close that his hair brushed her labia, she moaned.

“You want me to eat your cunt, sweet darling?”

“I want…my Master to do…whatever he pleases.” She let him see the absolute truth of it in her gaze. “I’m all yours.” His pleasure was hers, one and the same.

“When you told me about your fantasy with Lucas and Cass…if he was eating your cunt tonight, while I fucked you from behind, how would that feel?”

“Like I’d died and gone to heaven, as long as it was what you command of me.” She could barely breathe. “I want you, Master. It’s all you.”

He bent his head then, put his mouth on her. Oh holy…God. God. God. God. Lucas was known as the master of oral sex, but obviously he’d shared his talents, or Ben’s were nothing to be sneezed at. His tongue flicked her clit at just the right pace, with erratic movements that kept her crying out, struggling not to move when she wanted to buck against his mouth. He thrust his tongue into her when she was so wildly excited that it made her scream aloud at the sensation.

Lapping at her cream, he suckled her so she could hear it. When he sealed his heated mouth over all of it, her cunt and clit both, started swirling, flicking and teasing, she came to pieces. She came, period, no time to ask permission, but it was obvious his intent was to drive her over that edge.

Right in the middle of that peak, he raised up, taking his mouth away, but before she could wrap her mind around the sudden, shocking loss, he was there instead, sliding his full, turgid length into her slick pussy, so slick that even with his size, he worked in with barely a pause, her tissues still spasming around him. He was stroking inside her almost immediately, so the aborted climax wasn’t aborted at all. It was like a hurricane that did a somersault and came screaming back to the same center eye again.

“Be still, baby. Very, very still.”

He slowed down, watched her frantic face as she fought not to move. She wanted to lift her hips, force him to continue the same pace or thrust. Instead, she made tiny pleas, caught in a string of spasms that drew out even further while he did those slow, dragging strokes. It became even more intense, so all her muscles locked, her lips stretched back from her teeth in a feral snarl.

Then he came to a full stop, lodged deep inside her. Marcie quaked, and when he framed her face with his hands, bringing his body down full on her, she bit his palm in ferocious need.

“Fierce kitten,” he growled. “Touch me now. Move all you want.”

She wanted to buck like a rodeo bronc spurred from confinement, but even through that roaring need, she wanted something else. She slid her arms around his shoulders, locked her legs over his hips like a drowning swimmer. “Can you take off the jeans without moving?” She pressed the gasp to his ear. “Will you let me feel you against me, nothing between us?”

It occurred to him then, to both of them. His muscles tensed, and he tried to pull out, but she held on tight. While he could overpower her, she made a noise of such vehement protest he paused.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m protected from pregnancy. I have been for some time. I know you don’t take risks. I know you’re clean. You’re my first…without wearing anything. Please don’t leave me.”

It startled him to the core that he’d forgotten to don protection, she could see it. If he withdrew from her now, unsettled by that realization, she wouldn’t survive it. She wasn’t near as confident as she seemed. She just loved him enough to bluff him into believing she could handle anything, no matter how rough or cruel he was.

But there was no cruelty now, only earth-shattering tenderness as he cupped her face anew, brushed her lips, gave her a nod. A slight smile touched his mouth, a trace of unexpected humor in his eyes. “If you can get your heel into the back of my jeans, you can push them to my knees. We can probably work them off from there.”

His jeans were already mostly off his gorgeous ass, and she took full advantage of the sensory input through the soles of her feet as she curved one over his buttock, hooked her toes into the seat and worked the denim down to his thighs, maneuvering her other foot to get them to his knees. He did manage to get them off, but unfortunately it pulled him out of her as he did it, the tip of his cock leaving a delicious wet trail down her inner thigh. But her hands were between them in an instant, gripping him.