It's been a while, but he still remembers the game. It was different with Elle, all heat and need and she was so eager to be seen, be admired, belong to someone, it really had taken very little work. A smile, a moan that welcomed the charge of her fingers, a soft plea for her to do it again, please, he needed it, touch him, could he touch her, too? Lips and skin and short out the camera just for tonight, love, and let me see you, feel you, I need you, and she was his. No fear, no shame, eager and willing and not frightened of him or herself, and letting her think she was in control, and god, but it had been so long, and she had been so sweet and willing and such a fast learner, too.

This was different. This was coaxing a shy, wild thing out to eat from his hand, begging a feral kitten to let him pet her. She was as frightened of herself as the feelings he brought out in her, and caught in her patterns of innocence for so long now. There was fire there, underneath, he knew. The way her head tilted for his lips, the way her body moved against his, friction through fabric nearly driving him made. She wanted him, he could tell, but she'd no idea what to do with that want, no idea what it was her body ached for, the feelings he could bring out. So he moved so slowly it hurt, leaving her there, clothed for once, both of them aching for more than he would give.

He had a plan, soft and slow, but it ended, he prayed, with her naked, under him, legs around his, arching into him and begging him for more. He could see her hair, spread out on his pillow like flames, the way her porcelain skin would glow as candlelight flickered over her. He imagined how she would taste when his lips trailed over her skin, brushing where no one else's had ever been, tasting her, letting his tongue curl over, around, pressing into her until she screamed his name. Marking her, slowly, gently, until no one could deny she was his, molding her into his creature, his masterpiece. Fire and ice, the two of them, balanced perfection.

Swallowing, he shifted in his seat, trying to slow his breathing and pulse, to focus back on his work, to push her back to the corner of his mind where such things were supposed to stay. But when she wouldn't go, her smile bright and teasing and staying right before his eyes, he was finally forced to ask the question of who was seducing whom.