39. Dex

The supreme assurance with which Max executes every little thing—commanding, acting, orchestrating—has my head dizzying and my confidence shattering. I've always held my own in bed. I'm a generous, capable lover. I'd even say I have a certain gravitas. Women respond to me.

But as I attempt to assist him in tying Darcy to this enormous bed, I feel like little more than a toddler whose preschool teacher is letting him help with tidying away the wooden blocks in a kindly attempt to build his confidence. Granted, this situation is a very big first for me. Still, it's obvious this comes as naturally to Max as breathing.

He has Darcy spread out on the bed with little more than a word and a nod. While I stand there, feasting my eyes on the impossibly perfect contrast of her creamy skin against the black bedlinen, he digs into the drawer in the lacquered cabinet, tugging out length after length of silky white sashes like a magician pulling endless silks out of a top hat.

‘Wrists,' he says, lobbing a sash across the bed at me. It's so light, it flutters in the air and descends midway through its journey, coming to lie over Darcy's hip. I grab it and watch Max for instruction, noting that he ties one end around her wrist before fastening the other end to a chrome hoop hanging from the headboard, pulling her arms over her head.

As I tie my own sash, far less swiftly and skilfully, I allow myself to take Darcy in. She's smiling up at me, limbs languid and eyes hazy with acquiescence.

The generous gift of her submission astonishes me. She's allowing two men to tie her to a bed and physically overpower her. To take all manner of liberties with that milky skin and lithe body. To lick and bite and fuck her as we want, her only defence in the face of our animalistic urges a single, simple word whose connotations speak less of sex and more of legend.

Maybe there is something to her safe word, after all.

Maybe this evening will be the stuff of fairytales, of lore.

Improbable.

Magical.

Transcendent.

I return her smile with genuine joy before letting my eyes flick over to Max, who's tugging imperiously to test her silken bond, and I have a fleeting jolt of clarity so clear it steals the breath from my lungs as though it's the icy air of a New York January.

As strong as my desire is to crawl up this woman's body and take every sinful, perverted liberty I can, the desire to have an autocrat like Max tie me the fuck down and shut me the fuck up is enough to make my blood molten. I'm the predator and the prey in this situation, my urges baffling me as much as they stir me.

‘Watch this,' he orders me, his command slicing through the fog this unfamiliar three-way dynamic has whipped up inside me. Because I can do this. I can watch, and listen, and be his little sidekick as he demonstrates the art of kink to me with the kindly tolerance of a benign Dom.

He wraps his fingers around Darcy's ankle and pushes so her leg folds, knee rising up and her foot dragging along the sheets. ‘Stay there,' he tells her. ‘Dex, there's a hoop at the side of the bed.'

I look down. There is indeed another chrome hoop halfway down the bed. Max wraps another length of silk around her ankle and knots it before tugging the fabric taut. ‘Foot towards me,' he barks, and she slides her foot across the bed, effectively making her spread her legs. ‘Try to pull your foot in,' he says when he's secured the length to his hoop.

She attempts to close her legs, to no effect.

‘Good,' he says, pleased. ‘And try to stretch it out.'

Darcy tries to slide her foot down the bed, but the fabric is too taut. Jesus. She's got no leeway. She's held in place, leg bent and open. Once I get the other leg secured, she'll be spread out for us like a feast to do what we like with. I can instantly see that this position is far more exposed, more effective, than a regular spreadeagle.

‘I'll do the other leg,' Max says, abandoning all pretence of collaboration and striding around to my side of the bed with the final tie. ‘Dex, you get down the end and start thinking about all the things you want to do to her.'

Now that's an order I can get behind.

He has her other leg up in the same position, her ankle cuffed in his fist. She's open so wide it looks painful, but she's a dancer, so I suppose she's pretty flexible. I know she's flexible—that vertical split thing she did against the cage defied normal human ranges of motion. Max's movements as he bends over her, shirt straining against his powerful-looking shoulders, are efficient but not brusque. Even so, there's something imperious in his demeanour that stops me and, I think, Darcy, from speaking.

He's setting a scene here, the atmosphere growing more potent with possibility as he preps her. More sanctified, if that's not a ridiculous thing to think.

I look my fill.

I put my hands in my pockets, taking in the scene. Standing by while another man ties a naked woman up so he can present her pussy for both of us pushes the envelope far beyond the bounds of decency for me, but I cannot look away.

Darcy's head is resting on a big scatter pillow, her gaze fixed on me. I give her a little smile, but I can no longer withstand the temptation of her pussy. I watched in horrified hunger as she flashed on stage. I tasted her when Max slid his fingers into my mouth, and now it's fully on display for me, so pink and soft and wet—three utterly unremarkable words that depict a remarkable sight.

Max straightens up, satisfied he's secured her.

‘She's all yours,' he says carelessly as he passes around the bed behind me. ‘You know you want to.'

‘What are you going to do?' I ask without taking my eyes off Darcy's body. She's outstretched and open, a truly wondrous thing. Her nipples are rosy pebbles pointing heavenward. The skin on her inner thighs is so pale, so satiny, a contrast to the glistening nirvana between her legs.

I step forward and put a knee on the bed.

‘I'm going to clamp her nipples,' he says cheerily, and she gasps. I'm not surprised. It sounds aggressive.

‘I'm not sure—' she begins.

‘Unless you say your safeword, I'm not interested,' he barks. ‘Do you have something to say?'

They exchange a heated look, and she shakes her head.

‘Good girl.' He produces a pair of hot pink clips from his pocket. They look like silicone—not what I was expecting. ‘Dex, start getting her worked up. I'll put these on for a few minutes. When she's getting ready to blow, I'll take them off.'

‘Okay,' I say stupidly, but I stay frozen, one knee on the bed as he pinches and rolls each nipple before fastening the tiny Barbie-pink clips to them. They look ridiculous and outlandish and sore, but Darcy's little whimpers and sharp intakes of breath tell me she can handle the sensation.

‘Come the fuck on,' Max says exasperatedly, and I put my second knee on the bed, lowering my head to the glossy pink haven between her legs.