The light was low-shades of blue and purple-and the music was loud but not loud enough to be annoying. The kind of volume where it sank into your blood with a thrumming, demanding beat, where it fused with your own thoughts and set your pulse higher, set your adrenaline on a slow, steady drip.

I sat on the leather sofa and leaned forward, looking at my hands. What was I doing here? Why had she brought me? Of all the places- But then the door opened and I stopped wondering anything except when I could push my c.o.c.k inside her because f.u.c.k.

She wore a wig the color of blue cotton candy, and eye makeup so heavy that all I could picture were those kohl-rimmed eyes peering up at me as she sucked my d.i.c.k. And I immediately saw what she'd meant when she said the club liked to hire girls who looked expensive. Because while I knew f.u.c.k all about lingerie, I did know that the delicately embroidered fabric of her sheer panties was not probably not the usual stripper garb. Nor the matching silk shelf bra or the lace pasties covering her nipples-all in a soft champagne. A strip of the same champagne-colored silk was tied around her neck in a bow, and I wanted to unwrap her like a present, right then and there. She always looked amazing-in clothes and naked-but she was transformed right now, a Poppy I had only seen glimpses of even in our most intimate moments.

She strode over to me, just as graceful in six-inch heels as she was in ballet flats, and held out her hand. "Your wallet."

Confused, I dug it out of my (suddenly very tight) jeans and handed it to her. She dug a roll of crisp fifties and hundreds out of her bra and slid them neatly inside my wallet, handing it back to me. "I want to play a game," she said.

"Okay," I said, my mouth suddenly dry. "Let's play a game."

She licked her lips, and I realized that I wasn't the only one crazy f.u.c.king turned on right now. "You're just a client, and I'm just a dancer, okay?"

"Okay," I echoed.

"And you know there's certain rules about private rooms, don't you?"

I shook my head, unable to keep my gaze from raking over her form, over her expensive lingerie, over that strip of silk tied around her neck that could so easily be turned into a leash...

"Well, first you have to pay me for being here." And then she put a hand on her hip, looking so impatient and so hot, and any philosophical arguments Good Guy Tyler might have had about pretending something so degrading-about being in a strip club in the first place-vanished. And the moment I placed the bills in her hand, the air instantly changed. The game vanished and this was our reality-no matter that we loved each other, that this wasn't even my money-I was paying her and she was taking it and now she was on the stage, one hand on the pole, her eyes on me.

She started dancing, and I leaned back, wanting to memorize every detail of this, of the way her legs wrapped around the pole as she swung, the way her blue hair brushed against her shoulders, the way the muscles in her arms and shoulders pulled and strained against each other.

The low light, the loud music, the anonymity of the s.e.x on display in front of me...all combined with the heated blaze in her eyes, like she wanted me and me specifically and me right now-I now understood why Herod had offered Salome anything she'd wanted after she danced for him. There was something so delicious in the tug of power between us; I presumably held all the control and dignity in this situation, but the reverse was actually true. She was captivating me, she was putting me under her thrall, until I wanted to offer her everything, not just the money she'd put in my wallet, but my house, my life, my soul.

Poppy and her dance of seven veils.

And then she bent over, and I was distracted by the fact that her a.s.s was now front and center, that I could see the shadow of her folds through the fabric, and I would've sworn any oath right then to caress her there.

I shifted, trying to make more room for myself in my jeans, but it was useless. And then she was in front of me, a hand on each of my knees, and she spread them wide so she could step between them. She turned so that her a.s.s was in front of my face, so close that I could make out the individual flowers embroidered on her lingerie, and I ran a finger across them.

She caught my hand. "You have to pay more if you want to touch," she purred, and I followed Herod down the path to spiritual perdition, because no price was too high for her.

I handed over the money without question, which she tucked in her bra. Then she guided my hands to her hips and moved them down to her flanks and then back up to her t.i.ts. I toyed with the pasties a moment, both loving and hating the unfamiliar feeling of having her nipples blocked from me.

She sat in my lap, pressing her a.s.s against my erection and laying her head back against my shoulder as I fondled her t.i.ts. I nuzzled her neck. "I bet you do this with all the guys who come in here."

"Just you," she said in a velvet voice, wriggling against me, the friction against my d.i.c.k making me groan quietly. She flipped over, so she was straddling me.

"You know," she said, in that same low, kitten voice, "I never let guys do this, but if you want, I'll let you see my p.u.s.s.y."

Yes, please.

"I would like that." I am very proud that I managed to not squeak like a teenage boy.

She extended her hand, and I fished out the wallet again. It was just as well that this was a game; I'd never be able to afford Poppy on a priest's salary.

After she was paid, she hopped on the dais and spread her legs wide again, pulling the crotch of her panties aside to show me what I wanted to see. It was wet and an enticing rose color in the dim blue light of the room-the color Renaissance painters should've used to paint the light of Heaven.

I stared, hypnotized, as she slowly let her hand drift from her neck, down past her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the gentle rise of her pubic bone. From there she traced wide, light circles around her p.u.s.s.y, a loose spiral across her lower stomach and inner thighs, drawing closer and closer, and when she finally grazed her c.l.i.t, I let out a shaky breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

She too sighed at her touch, her hips rocking tiny little rocks into her hand, as if she was unconsciously trying to f.u.c.k the air, and I was beginning to lose track of everything that wasn't her c.u.n.t. Didn't she know I could fill it for her? Didn't she know I could make her feel good, if only she'd let me?

I stood up and walked to the dais. Our eyes were at the same level, and I kept her gaze as I slid my hands from her knees up to her inner thighs, my thumbs coming teasingly close to her p.u.s.s.y. I did it again, this time daring to go closer, wondering if she would let me, if her l.u.s.t would overtake her rules about money. My thumbs ran over her folds and she shuddered, and so did I, because holy s.h.i.t, she was wet. So wet that I knew I'd be able to push my d.i.c.k right in with no resistance.

"You want to stick your fingers inside me?" she asked.

I nodded, taking my thumbs and spreading her folds apart, moving that smooth pink flesh aside so that her entrance was completely exposed, begging for fingers or a c.o.c.k.

"It's going to cost you," she said mischievously, placing her hands over mine.

"You drive a hard bargain," I breathed. Hard was the right word for how I felt too. I was about three seconds away from unzipping my jeans and taking matters into my own hands (as it were.) I found the bill, folded it lengthwise to make it easier for her to stow away, but this time she didn't take it with her fingers, she took it with her mouth, her lips grazing my fingers, and it was so degrading, so wonderfully degrading, and the Herod in me was exultant on his throne, delighted with a king's delight to see her with that money in between her teeth, knowing that now her p.u.s.s.y was mine to touch as I wanted.

She raised up on her knees as if to stand, but I was getting what I paid for, and right now, and I wrapped one arm around her waist and yanked her down, onto the two fingers I had waiting for her. She cried out and I smiled grimly, planning on taking full advantage of this particular service tier. With the arm around her waist, I pushed her down even farther, so that her p.u.s.s.y was grinding against my hand (which was currently smashed against the dais, but I didn't mind,) and so the hot locus of nerves at her front rubbed relentlessly on my palm. My fingers crooked forward, finding the soft textured spot that would send her over the edge.

I moved my fingers while I crooned in her ear. "If I make you come, do you have to pay me?"

She laughed but the laugh immediately faded into a ragged sigh as I pressed her harder against my hand. I bit at her collarbone and at the soft skin around her pasties, her wetness quivering against my hand and that silk bow just begging to be wrapped around her wrists, and then she came with a sharp noise, bucking fruitlessly against me as I held her tighter, worked her harder, wrung every last drop of pleasure from her climax.

As she came down, her body relaxed against mine, but I was nowhere near relaxed. I slid my hand out from underneath her and put my fingers to her lips, making her suck her own taste off of them, my other hand unb.u.t.toning my jeans.

Poppy glanced down and back up to my face. "You want me to put it in my mouth?" she asked, looking at me from under her lashes in a way that was utterly f.u.c.king debilitating to my ability to form coherent thoughts.

I grabbed a few bills and tucked them into her bra myself. Then I took that silk bow in hand and slowly untied it, baring that lovely neck for me to suck and nip at, as I slid the silk through my hands-reverently, like I would hold my stole or my cincture.

I pulled back and wrapped one end of the length around her neck, tying it to itself in a secure knot-the kind of knot that meant I'd be able to yank on it without worrying about it tightening around her neck.

Leash secured, I wrapped the loose end once around my hand and gave an experimental tug. She jerked forward a bit, making a surprised noise, but her pupils dilated and her pulse thrummed in her neck, so I felt free to pull again, forcing her to slide carefully off the dais and to her knees. I sat in the chair and made her crawl to me, watching the way her t.i.ts swung as she did.

Once she was in between my knees, I yanked up, perhaps a bit harder than I should have, but I was almost lost with l.u.s.t at this point, lost to my inner caveman and my inner Herod, and all he wanted was that pretty red mouth on his d.i.c.k right the f.u.c.k now.

She curled her fingers around the waistband of my black boxer briefs and pulled down, and my d.i.c.k sprang free, jutting up between the V of my zipper. I wound the end of the leash around my hand a few more times until the silk was taut, and then I pulled her head to my c.o.c.k, but she didn't open her mouth right away, those red lips sealed. But the hint of a smile was at the corners of her mouth, a delighted defiance in her eyes, and I remembered my kitchen counter all those weeks ago, when she'd asked me to steal her kisses-no, not even steal. She'd wanted me to force them from her.

So I wound the leash tighter and jerked, her mouth now pressed against the underside of my p.e.n.i.s, the sensation of her breath against my skin enough to make me wild.

Play the game, Tyler.

"I paid you to suck," I hissed. "You can either suck me on your own or I can make you do it. So unless you want that, you better open that pretty little mouth and do your f.u.c.king job."

She was covered in goose b.u.mps, and I didn't miss the way she tried to rub her thighs together. Impatiently, I stuck a finger between her lips and forced them apart.

"Put me in your mouth," I warned, "or there will be h.e.l.l to pay."

It didn't take an astute observer to notice the extra flare of interest in her eyes at that idea; she wanted there to be h.e.l.l to pay, but I also think she wanted to suck me, because she finally perched her candy apple lips at my tip, and-meeting my eyes as she did so-slid her mouth down and over me, her tongue flat and scorching against my shaft.

Keeping my hand tight on the leash, I leaned back to watch the show, watch her b.r.e.a.s.t.s move as she worked me, watch those hazel eyes gaze up at me with a look that would get me hard in the shower for years to come. And those lips like a gorgeous red halo around my d.i.c.k...it was the only halo I ever wanted again, a circle of wicked wants and devilish delights.

Up and down she went, sometimes fluttering her tongue, sometimes running it in a hot, wide line down my shaft. I thrust up to meet her, hitting the back of her throat and-losing all semblance of patience-grabbed the back of her head to keep her from pulling away. I held her head with both hands and pumped that way for several long seconds, f.u.c.king her throat like I f.u.c.ked her p.u.s.s.y-hard and without apology, and she deserved it for being such a brazen, shameless tease.

"You like that?" I asked. She was breathing carefully through her nose, and she couldn't speak, so I talked for her. "I know you do. You like it when a paying customer treats you roughly. It makes you wet to be treated like the s.l.u.t you are, doesn't it?"

She made a noise that could of have a yes or a no or simply a moan of pure pleasure. Whatever it was, it made my stomach clench and my hands dig into her scalp and my b.a.l.l.s tighten with the need to release. But I didn't want to come in her mouth.

"Off," I ordered, pulling on the leash. She obeyed, coming off my d.i.c.k with watery, smudged eyes and one of the biggest smiles I'd ever seen on her face.

I used the leash to bring her face to mine as I leaned toward her. "How much to f.u.c.k?"

Her smile faded into a darker expression, an expression that promised me everything I wanted. "We-we aren't supposed to do that," she said faintly.

"I don't care," I growled. "I want to f.u.c.k you. How much?"

"The rest of what you have," she said, with a defiant arch of her eyebrow, and I silently commended her for her dedication to our game. I took out my wallet and the remaining cash-about $700 (f.u.c.k, Poppy had a lot of money)-and then tossed the bills in the air. They floated slowly down to the floor.

"Pick them up with your mouth."

"No."

"No?" I tugged on the leash, just enough that she remembered it was there. "I want to get what I paid for. Now. Pick. Them. Up."

I saw the moment she gave in by the set of her shoulders, but as she started to bend down to reach for the bill closest to her, I put my shoe on the money. "Panties off first."

She worried her lower lip between her teeth, and I don't know what my face looked like, but whatever expression was there must have convinced her that she didn't want to test me. She stood up, hooked her thumbs at the sides of her panties and slipped them down, one gold heel coming off the floor and then the other as she stepped out of them.

Then she bent over and began collecting the money.

I kept a loose grip on the leash as she did, spooling it out so she'd have plenty of slack, licking my lips at the swollen perfection exposed between her legs. When we got home, I wanted to worship her with my mouth, I wanted her coming on my tongue again and again. She deserved it, my little lamb, for going to such lengths for me, creating this little game where I could take and take from her. Yes, after this, I was going to reward her.

But as for right now...

I got on the floor behind her, also on my knees, and because the music was so loud, I don't think she heard. She was bent completely over, her face to the floor, her a.s.s high in the air, and I took my d.i.c.k and shoved into her with one rough thrust, all the way in, slapping her hard on one a.s.s cheek as I did.

She squealed-a happy noise-and that was enough to keep my conscience at bay as I f.u.c.ked her harder than was purely gentlemanly, not fast necessarily, just hard and deep, the kind of deep that made her toes curl and my b.a.l.l.s swing against her c.l.i.t.

And then the snake slithered again, that angry, bitter snake, as I remembered that I was not the first man to do this to Poppy here, that she'd been f.u.c.ked before like this, in this very place, and then that anger was itching at my palms and coiling in my pelvis.

I wanted to punish her. I wanted to hurt her the way she hurt me with making me care so much, but instead of hurting her, I pulled out and stood up, my c.o.c.k wet and as hard as f.u.c.king steel, throbbing with the need to screw the p.u.s.s.y still raised up in offering to me.

I didn't want to be Herod. Not really.

I sat down on the chair. "Come here." I jerked my head towards my c.o.c.k so that she knew what I wanted, and she didn't hesitate to climb up my lap and then impale herself on me, sinking down with her tight, hot c.u.n.t, her t.i.ts right in my face.

And here, now that I could see her face, now that I couldn't be brutal, I confessed. "I can't, like that. It makes me want to..."

But I couldn't get the words out. They were too awful. Instead, I buried my face in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, smelling the lavender smell of her, the clean fabric of her bra.

She tugged at my hair so that my head was pulled back. "Want to hurt me?"

I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her. She must hate me, but she was still f.u.c.king me, rocking back and forth like women do instead of up and down, using my d.i.c.k to get her off as if the rest of me was irrelevant.

G.o.d, that was hot.

"I guessed as much today," she said. "That's why I brought us here."

My eyes flew open. "What?"

"You're a man, Tyler. It doesn't matter what I tell you or even what you choose to believe...there's always going to be this Neanderthal inside you that wants to claim me. Reclaim me, if necessary, and I thought here..." She slowed her movements, looking uncertain for the first time. "I thought if we played like this, it would be easier for you to let go. To satisfy that part of you that you don't want to acknowledge. That part that you hide from. Because it's a bigger slice of you than you think."

As if to underscore her point, she scratched her fingernails down my stomach-hard-and my hand spanked her a.s.s so fast that I barely knew what I was doing. She gave a little moan and ground herself down on me.

"See? You need this. And I need this. I'll take you to every place I've ever been and let you f.u.c.k me there, so you can rewrite my history as your history, if you want," she promised. "Let me give that to you."

I looked at her in amazement. In grat.i.tude. She was so astute and so giving and of course I hadn't needed to watch out for her well-being. As always, she had both of us under control when she surrendered her control to me.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted.

"Say yes. Say that you'll finish the game."

I'd been wrong. She wasn't Salome right now. She was Esther, using her body to save her kingdom-our kingdom of two. And how could I act out my primal need to claim her knowing that? Knowing how generous and brave she was?

"It doesn't feel right, to treat you like this...to claim you like some sort of property. And more importantly, I don't want to hurt you."

"I want you to claim me like property," she said, leaning to whisper in my ear. The change in position squeezed her c.u.n.t around my length and I sucked in a breath. "And if you hurt me, I'll tell you. You trust me to say stop, and I'll trust you to stop if I say it. Sound good?"

f.u.c.k yes, it sounded good. It sounded too good to be true, but then again, that was my Poppy, a woman made like G.o.d himself had designed her for me. And maybe He had.

I decided to trust her. Trust Him.

Mind made up, I grabbed her thighs and stood, keeping her pelvis pinned to mine as I stepped over to the sofa. I kissed her-a soft, searing kiss-a reminder of how much I loved her before the rough part of me took over, which it did right after our mouths broke apart. I set Poppy down and flipped her over the arm of the sofa, so that her a.s.s was higher than her head, and then notched the head of my d.i.c.k in her entrance.

"Press your legs together," I commanded. "Make it tighter."

She obeyed, and I sank in with a groan. "So tight like this," I managed. "You make it so good for me."

I shoved in again, hard enough that her feet came off the floor, and I kept going like that, her beautiful a.s.s filling my hands and her satin c.u.n.t around my c.o.c.k and her moans as she ground her c.l.i.t against the firm arm of the sofa.

And in this moment of her Esther-like love for us and a future that was so ephemeral as to be nonexistent, it came to me that there was no sin here. This was love, this was sacrifice, the opposite of sin, and maybe it was f.u.c.ked up to feel like G.o.d was here with us in the back room of a strip club, but I did, like He was bearing witness to this moment where Poppy opened herself to the worst of me and erased it with her love, just like G.o.d did for us sinners every moment of every day.

That feeling that Poppy and I had felt in the sanctuary, that G.o.d-feeling of presence and promise, it was here right now, making my chest tight and my head swim with the potency of the air itself, and once again I felt like a bridegroom, the man shouting his joy for all his friends and family to hear, and this room was our chuppah, our marriage tent, the faint blue lights the lamps of the ten virgins, our bodies echoing the joining G.o.d had already forged between our immortal souls.

How was this not marriage? How was this not more binding and more intimate, us bare with each other in the presence of G.o.d? At the very least, this was a betrothal, a promise, an oath.

I spanked my betrothed, wishing I could drink her squeals like Scotch and eat her moans afterward. I f.u.c.ked her hard, taking in the blue hair tumbling over her back, the delicate lines of her small waist as they swelled into her perfect hips and a.s.s, her wet c.u.n.t gripping me, and the pink aperture of her a.s.shole-all of it mine. I was the monarch of all I surveyed-no, I was the master of all I surveyed, and I spanked and scratched and stabbed her over and over again with my c.o.c.k until finally, finally, she made a noise that was half gasp, half wail, pulsing around me, her hands scrabbling at the leather as she was lost to everything but her body's response to me.

I was lost to it too-this moment where I had rewritten history, her body's history-where I had made this room belong to me and the o.r.g.a.s.ms that I'd given her. Where I'd made her mine and no other man's, where I had taken an oath of marriage in my heart, and it was that mine that made me pull out and force her on her knees. I wanted her to witness my o.r.g.a.s.m, I wanted her to see what she had given me.

The leash in one hand, the other hand with its rough grip and brutal pressure on my c.o.c.k, using the wetness she'd left on me as lubrication, and it only took a few rough tugs before I shot streams of s.e.m.e.n on her waiting lips, on her swan's neck, on the fringes of her long eyelashes.

The tip of her tongue, pointed and pink, licked a drop off her upper lip, and then she gave me a soft, happy look that sent one more jet of come out to land on her collarbone.