The message had come late Friday night, brief and assured.

“Come to me on Saturday at 8 o'clock. I want you all night."

Emily hadn’t responded. Not with words. But her body had. She felt it the moment she read it — a quiet ache, a pull deep in her belly, the ghost of his fingers already tracing the inside of her thigh.

By morning, the decision had already bloomed beneath her skin.

She woke early. Moved slowly like a woman preparing for something sacred.

She didn't tell Mark; there was nothing left to say.

He watched her leave, eyes flat and hollow. She wore heels, slim black trousers, and a silk blouse that kissed her skin with every step. The silver anklet was there, plain as daylight.

He didn’t ask where she was going.

She didn’t offer.

When she slipped into the back of the taxi, her phone was silent, but her pulse was not.

Peter’s building was still, the kind of quiet that feels intentional. The doorman gave her a single, silent nod. No need for names. She belonged here now.

The elevator ride was slow.

Tension curled up her spine as she reached his floor. It was not nerves or fear, just anticipation and readiness. It was different tonight.

She knocked once.

The door opened without a word.

Peter stood barefoot in dark slacks and an open white shirt in the doorway. His sleeves were rolled. His hair was slightly mussed like he hadn't tried to look perfect for her.

And yet, he was perfect.

“Emily,” he said softly.

She stepped inside, her heels tapping across the hardwood. The suite smelled like him — leather, amber, and wine. The lights were low. Jazz spilt from hidden speakers in the walls. No one else in the world existed.

He closed the door behind her.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.

“I didn’t think I’d stay,” she replied.

Their eyes locked.

“And now?”

“I don’t want to go back.”

Peter didn’t touch her. Not yet.

Instead, he poured a glass of red wine and offered it with a small smile.

“To surrender,” he said.

She clinked her glass against his, lips barely brushing the rim as she sipped.

The wine was dark and warm like him.

They stood across from each other, speaking. The quiet between them wasn't awkward — it was ripe. Buzzing. Full of everything yet to be said.

Peter took a step closer.

Then another.

When he reached her, he didn’t kiss her mouth. He touched her wrist. Lightly. Like he was reading something in her pulse.

“Tonight,” he said, voice low, “I want you to give me everything.”

She didn’t answer.

She just nodded.

And that was all he needed.

He moved behind her, fingers gliding over her arms. Not possessive, reverent.

He brushed her hair aside, lips near her ear.

“You’re here now,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be anything but mine.”

She shivered.

His hands slid around her waist, resting on the soft dip just above her hips. He didn’t rush. He held her like she was breakable and eternal all at once.

“You smell like you’ve been thinking about me all day,” he murmured.

“I have.”

His fingers trailed down her arm until they reached her hand. He laced his fingers with hers and led her toward the couch, where the fire flickered low and lazy.

He didn’t push her down.

He sat first.

Then, he opened his arms.

Emily hesitated,  not from fear, but from knowing this was the moment everything would change.

And then she stepped into him.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she sank into his chest, her head resting against his heartbeat.

"You wore the anklet," he said, vibrating through her cheekbone.

“I haven’t taken it off,” she replied.

He touched it slowly, fingers tracing the delicate chain.

“Do you know what that means to me?”

Emily lifted her head. “Tell me.”

Peter looked into her eyes. “It means you’re not pretending anymore.”

She inhaled, deep and slow. “I’m done pretending.”

He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her,  not like a man hungry for a body, but like one starving for her truth. His lips moved slowly, enjoying her, giving her time to lean in.

She did.

With a soft, breathless sound, she opened to him.

Their mouths danced, not frantic, but hot and intentional. The kind of kiss that speaks of everything that’s coming next.

Peter didn’t rush. That was what opened her the most to him.

He kissed her like a man who had already won her, not with arrogance but reverence. Every brush of his lips told her: I see you. I want all of you. And I will wait as long as you need me to.

His fingers traced the line of her jaw and the curve of her neck until they found the first button of her blouse. He paused.

Emily nodded once, barely, but it was enough.

He began to undo her, slowly, deliberately, one button at a time. With each inch of exposed skin, his mouth followed: warm kisses at the hollow of her throat, the curve of her shoulder, the rise of her collarbone.

When the blouse slipped from her arms, her breathing had changed.

So had his.

She touched his chest, palm flat against his heartbeat, and pushed his shirt back over his shoulders. It fell in a whisper to the floor. His skin was warm, his scent darker now, deeper. She pressed her lips to his chest, just above his heart, and felt his inhale sharpen.

Peter’s hands slid down her sides, worshipful in their path, before finding the waistband of her trousers.

“Still sure?” he asked against her cheek.

Emily looked up at him, pupils wide, voice thick. “Take them off.”

He obeyed slowly, reverently, peeling the fabric down her legs as if unwrapping something rare.

When she stepped free, she stood before him in just her lingerie: soft, sheer black lace. Her silver anklet caught the firelight. She saw his eyes drop to it, and the faintest smile touched his lips.

“You wear it like you were born with it,” he murmured.

She reached for him. “Then claim what you gave.”

Peter lifted her gently, carried her with strength and care, and laid her down on the bed with a patience that only made her pulse pound harder. He didn’t crawl over her like a man driven by lust; he joined her like a man guided by need. His mouth found hers again, deeper now, more urgent, but never rough.  

His hands roamed in slow circles over her ribs, her waist, and her thighs. He took his time, learning her curves like a language he already spoke but wanted to perfect.

And Emily… she melted.

Every stroke of his hands made her hips shift. Every kiss on her stomach, hip, and inner thigh made her thighs tremble open.

Still, he didn't take her. Not yet.

He looked up at her from between her legs, his breath warm against lace.

“I want to taste the part of you that’s never lied,” he said.

Her lips parted, her back arched.

“Please,” she whispered. “Peter…”

That was all it took.

He kissed her through the fabric of her wet panties at first, a slow, measured pressure; her hips began to grind against his mouth. Then, with practised poise, he moved the lace aside and pressed his tongue against her like a promise. Spiralling deep, a finger, then two, followed… and his thumb pressed softly, precisely, against her clit.

Her cry was soft and sharp.

It was no longer about sex; it was worship. A worship of pure lust and the female form, a kind of maddening foreplay that built her higher with every second until her fingers dug into the sheets and her thighs began to tremble.

She came like a slow-burning fuse, no explosion, just wave after wave of molten orgasm, its juice flowing like molten lava. Her cries caught in her throat, her body arching, begging, breathing.

Peter kissed her inner thigh, her hipbone, and her stomach.

Then he moved up her body and kissed her mouth again.

She could taste herself on his lips, and it made her moan all over again.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed.

“I won’t,” he said. “Not tonight.”

He undressed the rest of her, taking in every inch like it mattered. It did.

Then, finally, he pressed against her, hard, thick, warm.

She gasped at the feel of him, still stunned by the size of him even now.

“Let me see you,” she whispered, "I want to see you enter me."

Peter raised his body a few inches for her to see, and then slowly, he pushed inside her, slow, steady, deep.

Emily watched and gasped as each part of him slowly sank into her wet welcoming slit. Her back arching, eyes rolling, fluttering shut.

He didn’t thrust. He didn't need to. He slowly entered and claimed her.

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer to her body, already soaked and ready, welcoming every inch.

They moved together like music. No rush. No desperation.

Just rhythm, just trust.

Just everything they hadn’t said in words,  spoken now through gasps, through the grip of her nails on his back, through the way he kissed her neck and whispered her name like a confession.

He held her hips as he moved deeper, slower. His rhythm was flawless—deliberate, controlled—stretching time as if he could keep her trembling on the edge forever.   

“I can’t…” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said softly. “You can.”

Her climax crept in like a tide. This one was different, slower, longer, a full-body unravelling that pulled her under and left her breathless. She clung to him, shaking, whimpering.

Still, he didn’t stop.

He slowed, kissing her cheek, shoulder, and lips. Then he gripped her hand and pressed it over his heart.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

She nodded tears in her eyes.

“You live there now,” he whispered.

And then he let go.

His own orgasm came in a deep groan, his body surging forward, his penis right up hard against her cervix. Her arms wrapped around him tight as if she might lose him. He didn’t collapse; he stayed with her, holding, kissing, breathing her in.

They lay there for a long time, tangled in sweat and satin sheets, breath matching breath.

For the first time, she didn’t think about what came after.

She didn’t worry about Mark.

She didn’t wonder if it was wrong.

She had never felt more right. 

The room was quiet now — the stillness that followed only after every body part had been thoroughly explored, tested, and surrendered.

Emily lay on her side, her cheek resting against Peter's bare chest. Her fingers traced slow, lazy patterns across his skin as if memorising him by touch. The soft rise and fall of his breathing moved her gently with him like they were still connected in ways the body couldn't explain.

His arm was wrapped around her back. She might float away.

Neither of them spoke.

They didn’t need to.

The air was thick with the scent of skin and sweat, with the fading echo of her moans and the low, deep groan he made as he came inside her, holding her tighter like he never wanted her to leave.

Peter kissed the top of her head, his lips warm against her damp hair.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured.

Emily smiled against his chest. “I’m… full. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full.”

He ran his fingers down the curve of her hip, slow and reverent. “That’s because you weren’t just taken. You were giving.”

She looked up at him, eyes half-lidded, a flush still painting her cheeks. “You didn’t take anything from me, Peter. You gave me back something I thought was dead.”

He brushed a knuckle down her cheek. “Your fire?”

She nodded, a tear forming and sliding down her cheek.

"Happy" is all that he would say.

Emily raised her eyes to meet his and smiled.

He kissed away her tear, slow and unhurried, not passionate, not urgent. Just... present. The kind of kiss lovers shared in the quiet when no one was watching.

Their legs remained tangled beneath the sheets. Her thigh rested over his hip, and the silver anklet resting lightly against his skin was a subtle glint in the low light.

Peter reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing each knuckle individually.

“I don’t want to let you go,” he said softly.

“I’m not gone yet,” she whispered back.

A pause.

“Stay the night.”

She didn’t answer right away. Her head rose slightly, eyes on his.

“I haven’t stayed anywhere for me in a long time,” she said.

Peter pulled her closer, their foreheads touching.

“Then let tonight be the first.”

And so she stayed.

Wrapped in his arms.

With no guilt.

No pretending.

Only breath, heat, and the sound of two people rediscovering what it meant to belong.

-- The End --