I heard him before I saw him, and I felt him before even that. My skin prickled whenever I was close to him; to any of them, really. It was like the air grew electric, and I remember I felt the same the first time I met Callan.

A sound, like a match being lit, filled the room. My ears strained to locate where he was and when he was moving.

"Such a good girl, Gorgeous, following my orders so perfectly." He sounded satisfied as if this had all been a test–and now that I thought about it, it probably was a test, seeing if I would listen to him or not while he wasn't in the room.

He moved closer. Having him near me made me want to look up at him, but I stayed with my head bowed down.

"Whenever we're alone, or in a scene, I want you to call me Sir. If we're in public and people might hear, Mateo will do," he informed me while he walked slowly around me. I felt his eyes inspecting me in my pose. Was he looking for faults? Or was he simply just looking?

"Remember your safe word and remember it well. Yelling out stop, will not make me stop. Use the safe word, however, and everything stops at once. Is that clear?" He stopped behind me, towering over me.

"Yes, Sir." Opposed to his voice full of authority, mine was small, soft, and compliant.

"When I give you an order, I expect you to do it with no hesitation. If you pause for even a second, you will be punished. Understood?"

Fuck. Me.

The thought of being punished excited me, and my body urged me to be naughty–even as my mind wanted me to be the good girl he'd praised me for being.

"Yes, Sir," I answered, still looking down on the floor. And God, I wanted to look at him; I wanted to see his expression. I wanted to know this was affecting him as much as it was affecting me.

"Stand up," he ordered. "And lay down in the middle of the bed, on your stomach."

Not knowing if it was okay to look at him or not, I chose to keep my eyes strictly on the bed. I climbed up on the silky covers and laid in the position he wanted.

"Put your hands on the sprinkles, and don't let go until I tell you to." I heard a drawer opened up and then closed before I felt the bed move as he sat down to my right. "Lift your head for a second."

I did as he asked and felt him slide a blindfold on me. I had so much jittery energy in me, nerves, and excitement mixed into a heady blend, making me dizzy with lust.

"We'll go easy tonight. Just lay still and feel," Mateo said. If that wasn't cryptic, I didn't know what was.

The weight of his body on the bed disappeared as he moved away, but I could sense he hadn't gone far.

Usually, right now, I would have a million thoughts circling my mind. But, with my body and mind focused entirely on Mateo, my overanalyzing brain had shut off. It was like everything had gone silent except for the sound and feel of Mateo nearby. I'd never been this hyper-focused and as present as I was now. It was freeing. How could I be this calm, yet so alert? Lying in wait for what came next...I couldn't even describe how that felt.

I heard Mateo blow out, and before I could register the sound, a few drops of something hot splattered down on my back. I jumped slightly, my hands clutching the sprinkles, too caught off guard by the feeling. It stung for a couple of seconds, and then the sting turned into a delicious numbness where the splatters had hit.

Candle, I thought. That was what he must've lit up when I heard a match swipe over a striking surface earlier. Though, it couldn't have been an ordinary candle either–when it cooled, it didn't turn into hard wax. Instead, it almost melted on my skin.

The first drops were also the best; I hadn't known about it then, and because of that, I hadn't been waiting for it to happen. Now that I did, I tensed, preparing for more drips.

Mateo didn't pour more right away like he wanted me to anticipate it–like he wanted me to let my guard down before he did it again.

Stupid me, because I did relax a little, just before a few more drops hit my lower back. It was a pleasure-filled kind of pain; the fire in the dribbles licked at my skin, before fading into a nice kind of numbness.

I never knew where it would fall next. Some were on my ass, others on my back, and a few on my thighs and legs. He never poured at the exact same place twice, and he changed up when he would do so; sometimes a few seconds, other times a few minutes. He kept me from anticipating when the next sting would come.

"Describe what you feel," he ordered. It was the first time he'd talked since I'd gotten to bed.

"It burns, but it's the good kind, Sir. After the sting is gone, all I want is to get it back," I told him, my voice husky and low. The thing was, as nervous as I'd been before we started, all I could feel now was calm. My pulse had slowed, and my mind had paused its constant chatter of thoughts. It was like the pain was soothing me.

"You're doing so well, Gorgeous. You're a natural at this," Mateo crooned and let a splatter of the hot melted candle trickle down my spine.

I hissed a little at the burn and moaned as it cooled. Even though I knew what to expect, my body still couldn't get used to the slight sting that turned into pleasure–the feeling was addictive.

Mateo stepped away, and I could hear him putting down something on a table before he was back. I startled when he put his hands on my left leg but relaxed again when he started kneading my muscles.

"It's called massage candles," he explained. "It melts into an oil when it's in contact with skin."

I moaned in contentment, happy to let him massage me. It was even more heavenly than the delicious sting of the wax from earlier.

"Fuck, I've wanted my hands on you all day," Mateo murmured as he started massaging my other foot. After a while, he climbed up on the bed and moved on to my back.

It was bliss– utter, complete bliss.

When he stopped, I was too far gone to even hear his next command. The slap on my ass? That I wasn't too far gone to feel. I jumped at the impact, too unprepared for it.

"I said, get up on your knees," he ordered. Still, my body was slow to obey my own urgings, and Mateo punished me with another slap. He'd massaged me to the point of complete relaxations, and the change in tempo happened too quickly for me to follow it. "What did I say about hesitation?"

"That I would get punished if I didn't follow your orders, Sir," I answered and hurriedly got up on my knees.

I felt the bed shifted as he moved from somewhere beside me and stopped in front of me.

"You can take your blindfold off now."

The room wasn't that bright, but my eyes had gotten used to the complete darkness the blindfold had offered, and I had to blink several times to adjust to the light.

Mateo looked as handsome as ever in front of me. While I was naked as the day I'd been born, he still had his clothes on. I knew what that represented, and more so, I felt it; the power dynamic between us was unbalanced. Where I had only that one word as power, he had everything else, and I was loving it.

He reached out and gripped my chin. "We've only gotten started, Gorgeous. And I think I know what I want to do next." His eyes zeroed in on my lips, and his thumb stroked my bottom lip. His gaze was intense, bringing shivers with it.

"You said you had little experience with blowjobs. Let's see if we can do anything about that."