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Every sentence gives Heather another stroke, Jamie another pull and Simon permission to continue. Whenever punctuation slows me, Heather slows too. When the heroine’s thoughts run together through a paragraph that should have been three, she rides me without mercy until I reach the period.

My voice goes rough. I clear it and continue.

Heather’s hands settle against my chest. Simon watches her move over me while his fist works faster. Jamie keeps looking at Heather for permission she hasn’t given.

An underlined passage waits near the bottom of the page. I reach it.

“His darkness closed around me like velvet bars, and some faithless part of my soul had always known I belonged behind his locked doors.”

Heather stops. Jamie makes a frustrated sound. Simon’s hand freezes halfway down his cock.

“Again,” Heather says. “The pronoun is wrong.”

I look at the line. “Which one?”

“All of them.” Heather lifts herself until only the head of my cock remains inside her. She holds there. “Read it correctly.”

I begin at the underlined sentence. “Her darkness closed around me like velvet bars, and some faithless part of my soul had always known I belonged behind her locked doors.”

Heather takes my entire cock in one downward stroke. The sentence nearly breaks.

“There,” she says. “That sounds better.”

Jamie starts moving again without waiting.

Heather catches his mistake immediately. “I didn’t tell you to continue.”

His hand stops. “Sorry, Heather.”

She turns her attention to Simon. “At least one of you remembers how permission works.” She looks back at me. “Continue from the next paragraph.”

My cock is buried inside her, painfully close, and nobody moves until my voice returns. I find the next sentence.

Heather rides me while the captor tears the heroine’s dress, praises her for taking him and promises she’ll never have to make another choice alone. The language is overwrought, but the structure is efficient.

Heather takes me deeper on every promise the captor makes. By the time he forbids the heroine another choice, Jamie is watching her hips and Simon has stopped pretending his hand is only obeying.

Jamie’s restraint deteriorates first. His strokes shorten, and his hips begin following his hand. Simon remains slower, although the muscles in his thighs have started to tighten.

When I reach the last paragraph on the page, she leans forward, breasts against my chest. “When he finishes, you may come.”

Jamie’s eyes close. Simon looks at me.

I let the next word wait. Jamie’s hand slows first, then Simon’s stops at the base of his cock. Heather settles her full weight over mine, giving me exactly long enough to understand what silence will cost before I lower my eyes to the page.

“The lock turned behind him, and the sound should have frightened me,” I read. “Instead, I opened my legs for the man who had taken every door away.”

Heather’s hips move harder. Jamie’s hand becomes frantic at the edge of my vision, while Simon’s jaw tightens around every stroke.

“I finally understood that captivity was not the absence of freedom. It was the shape his love made around me.” I hate the sentence. I read it exactly.

Heather looks at Jamie and Simon. “Now.”

Jamie comes first. His head tips back, and come spills over his fingers in quick pulses while Heather watches. Simon fights it longer, as though resentment might give him a choice his body no longer has. Then his fist locks beneath the head of his cock, and he comes across his stomach with a low curse he swallows.

Heather takes the book. She turns back to the underlined passage and places the book in my hands again. “Read it again.”

Jamie stays kneeling at the foot of the bed, his hand wet and loose against his thigh. Simon settles into the chair, breathing carefully around his bruised ribs. Neither is dismissed.