“Yes. But not his cock. You’ve never been stretched there before and that would be painful. But his fingers will bring you pleasure, as well as the gift he’s brought for you.”

And before she could think of another word, Ben’s oiled hands were spreading open her cheeks assertively, so he would see her anus in embarrassing detail.

“Very pretty.” Amazingly, she felt his lips brush over the opening, then he licked her there, probed, his roughened jaw tickling her buttocks, the tops of her thighs. Peter blew heated breath on her left nipple, closed his mouth over it again, his right hand continuing its tortuous kneading and gentle pinching of the other breast.

She was aroused, but at the dual sensation, something turned over inside of her stomach, some tightly wound spring, and something was catapulted into her chest, choking her with need and desire at once, flooding her body, an exquisite sense of pre-climax. It was so close she could see it, but she wasn’t there, she was just at that perfect viewpoint to see how amazing and steep the cliff edge was that awaited her, as Ben and Peter bore her toward it like a cherished sacrifice. Her gaze fastened on Matt’s, and she was invaded by a wild thought. He was the god of this volcano, the volcano of molten response ready to erupt within her, held back only by their skill and his command, the knowledge of it in that sensual gaze.

She needed his power around her, over her, spreading her wide, filling her, taking her sacrifice.

He was watching her shifts in emotions, the reactions of her body, and somehow she knew part of that attentiveness was because he was ready to move and act as needed if the line was crossed and fear or pain entered the picture in a way not intended. Matt would never hurt her, or allow someone else to do so.

That had to be insane thinking, brought on by the physical and emotional duress of her climax. Even her father had made that clear to her.

Rule Nine: The people who claim to love you can hurt you worse than those who don’t. Don’t let anyone past your guard, and you’ll know what to expect from friends, lovers or children, as well as enemies. It won’t matter which mask they wear.

Underneath, every person operated on self-interest, and that would obliterate any sentimental attachment when challenged by stress.

She’d seen him proven right, again and again. People were what they were. He hadn’t meant it as a qualitative judgment. Geoffrey hadn’t gotten sentimental or emotional. He’d been protecting her in his way, or rather protecting Tennyson Industries, but at times she had wondered if certain returns were worth the pain.

She expected her father would have said, “It depends on how much you’re willing to pay”.

“You’re tensing, Savannah,” Ben observed. “I want you to do something for me.”

“Wh— What?”

“I want you to tell me a fantasy you have when you’re afraid. How do you make yourself feel safe?”

Safe? Had she ever felt safe?

Certainly from the common things of the world like thieves and muggers, but she’d never felt safe from emotional attack, not in a world with Geoffrey Tennyson, though she’d loved him. She’d had different fantasies to comfort herself when the stress of always having to be on her toes got to her. But over the past couple of years, one fantasy had dominated and erased all the others.

She couldn’t tell them that one.

“I won’t pull down the blinder, but close your eyes,” Ben insisted. “Then say it as you’d say it if we weren’t here. We don’t have any secrets here.”

Of course they knew she was afraid to say it. Maybe they even suspected what it was, which made it absurd for her to pretend otherwise.

“My fantasies are always shadows,”

she murmured. “Just impressions, just for a moment, then gone, as if I’m afraid someone will come into my mind, turn on the lights and catch me doing something I shouldn’t be doing.

Worse, the lights will be harsh, and make something I want to be beautiful become something ugly.”

“What’s the fantasy?” His hand gently probed her, making her suddenly wish to weep. He shifted his thigh against the back of hers.

“You may get emotional when I do this.” Again, he seemed to read the confusion of her mind as if she had expressed it. “That’s normal, because a lot of issues are held in this region.

Tell me the dream. Your fantasy.”

“To be held,” she whispered. “… Someone…comes to me, to my bed, and holds me.” She couldn’t be specific. A lifetime of protecting herself couldn’t be undone in one night, though if anyone could do it, she suspected they were in this room.

The “Someone” was Matt. She didn’t know why it was him in the fantasy, but it always was, ever since she’d met him.

Peter was brushing his cheek against her breasts now, a comforting gesture. She felt an almost maternal, fierce need to have her hands free so she could touch his head, his hair, hold him to her, perhaps rub her mouth, her cheek against his hair, smelling his varying scents. Nurture as well as be nurtured.

“I’m in my bed, and…that someone comes to me. He’s there, sliding in behind me, but not just to hold me from behind. He turns me, so I’m in the shelter of his body, facing him, my face tucked beneath his chin, his arms around my back, and all I have to do is just…be. He sees me. He doesn’t say anything, or want anything I’m not willing to give. He fills me in my heart, my mind and body. He’s there, with me, for

me.”

“And you’re comforted.”

For that short period of time. Until the alarm goes off. “Yes.”

One of Ben’s fingers slid within her, the oil taking it easily deep into her rectum. His other hand squeezed her right cheek, a sexual gesture as well as one of comfort. “Breathe deep, Savannah,” he said.

As she drew in a breath, he kept speaking in that deep, musical voice.

“I love women with tight asses. I have thick fingers, and I love the feel of them clenching around me. And I think you’ll enjoy this even more.”

He leaned forward, his soft Pierre Cardin dress shirt brushing her back, and in the oiled hand he held before her, just to the right of Peter’s head, he clasped a strand of gleaming freshwater pearls.

Her father had given her jewelry to appropriately decorate her for the functions they attended. Not once in her life had she been given jewelry as a true gift, something offered for her pleasure. She certainly could afford to buy herself something like that, but this…

“Ben…they’re beautiful. I…can’t…”

“They’re yours,” he said simply, and then he was bending over her, laying a kiss, tender and lingering, on the nape of her neck. He trailed the pearls down her spine, left them in a coil in the small of her back. “I’ll use them for your pleasure, then I’ll take them with me tonight, get them cleaned and return them to you, so you can always remember how they were used when you wear them.”

“And how is that?”

“I’m going to double them over, and insert them into your rectum. As Peter rouses you to even greater pleasure with his mouth and his gift , I’ll slowly draw them out. It’ll make you crazy.”

Before she could think of a response to that, Peter was turning, taking a velvet box from Lucas.

“We’ve all brought you gifts tonight.”

Lucas leaned his hip against the table next to Peter. “Jon is giving you his device, the prototype, to keep for your private enjoyment. Ben has brought you the pearls. Peter and I picked these out together.”

“One from each of us.” There was laughter in Peter’s voice. “I think you’ll like them.” He withdrew what looked to be a pair of genuine diamond chandelier earrings, and then she realized they were not earrings.

He leaned forward, covered her with his mouth and wet her again, then his fingers were there, placing the jewelry on her distended nipple.

“Tell me when it’s uncomfortable.

It’s an adjustable clamp.”

She only had a moment to be fearful of that particular word in association with her nipples before he was tightening the screw on the jewel.

The pressure was exquisite, wringing a whimper from her throat, and he looked at her face, registered that the noise was pleasure, and he took another turn. “I’m going to stop there, darlin’. You’re aroused enough to like the feel of it, but it will be painful if it’s at too tight a setting for long. Now the other one.”

“I’m taking the pearls into you, Savannah. Take in another deep breath for me.”

Ben again. Good luck in that, when she could barely draw an even breath, let alone a deep one. Peter slid his tongue over and around her curves as if washing them, nudging the jewels, tugging on them, his fingers twisting the slick nipples, causing wrenching bolts of pleasure to rocket from her nipples to anus and back again. The diamonds brushed the lower curves of her breasts like feathers of sensation.

She drew in the breath, tried to hold it, though her pussy was so wet she could feel that the soft curls were drenched, cool against her skin.

“Now let it out. Slow. Count of five.

Just like with Jon. One, two, three…”

She obeyed, and she felt Ben’s fingers gently push round, smooth pearls into her. They were lubricated with the oil of his fingers, and she began to move against the straps, she couldn’t help it. It was equal reaction to both stimuli, so aroused she couldn’t find a rhythm, only this desperate movement. Ben began to play with the beads, pulling on them slightly, not taking them out, just turning them around, wiggling them a bit, and then his finger amazingly joined them, a thumb she thought, for she felt impossibly filled, her pussy contracting as he began to move the digit incrementally inside of her, tiny back and forth pressures as his thumb stretched her opening.

Savannah cried out, her hips jerking, shuddering, her cunt weeping for a release being held just out of reach.

Neither man touched her clit, and in the air, she had nothing she could grind against, the damn bench on which she rested stopping just above her pubic bone. She still could have forced herself down against it, pushing against the loose skin just above the pussy to somehow massage the clit, but as if Peter knew that, his hand slid under her belly, between the board and her body, and held her away from it.