Gingerly, I take the handcuffs out. They are the police procedural type cold metal and clinking chains.

I turn to Chris again. The sight of him naked is like the sun in my eyes beatifically dazzling. I don't think I have ever seen such a beautiful man in my life. He should be immortalized in sculpture, on frescoes, on naughty calendars.

"You mean . . . on your wrists?"

He sits up, still seated, and puts his wrists behind his firmly muscled back. G.o.d, he's beautiful. I'll never stop thinking that. He's the epitome of s.e.x himself. I mean, look at him. You can't help but think of s.e.x when you look at him, and I'm thinking of myself entwined with that wondrous body right now.

But he's bad news, my inner voice hisses.

I know, I know, I know, but I still badly want to touch him.

"Are you sure about this?" I say.

"Yes." He stands up, his back to me. He has a tattoo on his lower back, inscribed in some runic language I can't decipher. I have a mind to ask him about it later, except that he's distracting me in the most distressing of ways.

His tight, tight b.u.t.tocks are at my eye level, and they are quite a marvel to behold. He spies me looking at them, and turns to grin. "Do you want to touch them?"

I blush. I'm frazzled by such frank s.e.x talk. Maybe it's a good thing that I put these cuffs on him. That way "You don't have to worry about me losing control," he says, finishing my thoughts. "You're the one in control now."

He says this in a significant tone. I take it that it's usually the other way around with him where women are concerned.

My hands tremble as I circle his wrists with the cuffs. I lightly brush against his b.u.t.tocks as I do so accidentally, mind you. A thrill of deep desire courses through me.

Click.

He's now manacled like a common prisoner.

He remains standing as I place my palms upon his b.u.t.t cheeks. His flesh is warm and soft and hard and taut all at the same time. I can hear him take a sharp breath as I traverse the contours of his flesh, feeling its texture and tensile strength. I roam my hands down the backs of his thighs. A shudder seizes the area between my legs.

"Do you want me to sit?" he says.

"Yes."

Carefully, he seats himself again, hands behind him. His p.e.n.i.s is ramrod stiff so masculine that I daren't gaze too long at it. His arms are nicely veined with gym pumping. His chest glistens under the warm yellow light, and his nipples are stiff and very erotic.

"Kiss me," he says.

Emboldened by his obvious captivity, I lean over to kiss his mouth. He immediately seizes my lips with his own. I can't help but be drawn into him his warmth, his intoxicating scent. My hands fasten onto his pectorals and sweep down the silky hardness of his muscles. Down, down to his abdomen, where his ridges lie. And he's kissing me savagely, devouring my mouth like I'm ambrosia, and I'm getting lost in him again.

I've been kissed before in high school and college but not like this.

His p.e.n.i.s comes between us like a sentient rod, and my right hand moves on its own volition down to it. I have never touched a man's p.e.n.i.s before, but with his tongue wrapped up in mine and my s.e.x on slow burn, I can't help but touch it. OK, more than touch it. I grab his thick flesh it's like a reflex action. So this is what a c.o.c.k feels like. It's nice and firm and springy and sordid and everything that sends electric tingles up my arm and into my spine.

He moans against my mouth, and it's s.e.xy as h.e.l.l.

"Stroke it," he murmurs onto my lips, "play with it. Do what you want with it."

He's supposed to be the one in a vulnerable position, all cuffed up, but it's like I'm enslaved to him instead. I can't take my hand off his c.o.c.k and his ripe t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es below it. I spend a considerable time feeling him up everywhere, all the while kissing his lips, clean jawline and neck.

"Don't leave me a hickey," he teases.

As I roam my lips down his throat and sternum, I plant a kiss in between his collarbones.

"Mmmmm, don't stop," he says.

I would like to kiss his nipples, but I hold back, suddenly feeling shy. My cheeks are aflame. What must he think of me? Here I am, his PA, and I'm behaving like a first cla.s.s s.l.u.t.

He says in a husky voice, "Have you ever given a guy head before?"

No. Funny thing, I balked at that in college. Figured it was one step closer to sinning.

"Do you want to try?" he asks me.

I stiffen. My hand on his shaft trembles.

"OK, not tonight," he says, understanding. "Do you want to finish me off?"

"What do you mean?"

He nods at his magnificent straining organ.

"Do you want to give me a hand job?"

A hand job? Oh yes. I'm innocent, but not that innocent.

"I-I don't know how."

He's patient. "I'll teach you. Grab it and squeeze it real hard. No . . . harder. You don't have to treat it with such care. I can take it. Now move your hand back and forth. That's right faster. Faster."

I do all that he tells me. He tips his head back, closes his eyes and groans as I increase my rhythm and pressure. He's such a s.e.xy sight, handcuffed and naked and completely at my mercy. As I go on, his panting escalates and his wonderful chest rises and falls.

"Make sure you rub the head," he murmurs. "Oh you're good, baby, so good."

His praise tinges my cheeks. I ascertain that I include his enormous mushroom-shaped head in my ministrations. My hand becomes a blur, and my forearms begin to ache as his breathing becomes more labored. His face contorts in a mask of ecstasy.

"Don't stop, baby, don't stop."

My own breathing dissolves into a series of pants. And finally, he utters a soft cry and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es in a wide arc into the air. The spatter is furious upon the table and carpet.

"Kiss me," he gasps.

I lean over, still holding his spurting organ in my wet, sticky hand and kiss him. He ravages my mouth back a melding of hot, wet tongues and moving lips.

"Oh baby, how I wish that c.o.c.k was inside you," he whispers.

I won't pretend to deny I wish it too. Though a sliver of dread of something so huge entering me taints the heady antic.i.p.ation.

I hold him until he subsides into a series of shudders and trickles. His s.e.m.e.n is everywhere white against the wood of the table, against the green and gold carpet, against the luxe upholstery of the couch. I have never seen so much s.e.m.e.n in my life, and it exudes a pungent smell of virility and deep desire.

"You going to leave this for Rita to clean up?" I ask in horror.

He laughs.

"Nah. I'll do it myself. Now, if only I can find the keys to the handcuffs."

BETH.

I think that when you've given someone a hand job, you automatically become more comfortable with them. At least that's how it is for me.

So when Chris suggests a visit to the spa after work on our second day 'together', I don't bat an eyelid, even though I've never stepped into a spa in my entire life.

"What do they do in spas?" I ask, knowing I stand the risk of sounding like a total dweeb.

He grins at me and hands me a leaflet. The receptionist has stars in her eyes as she gazes adoringly at him. I suppose he gets that a lot. I wonder what it's like to go through your adult life being objectified, but I suppose he doesn't even notice it anymore.

I peruse the leaflet and the list of body treatments scrubs with various organic materials like aloe vera, coconut husks and walnuts, ma.s.sages, facials, manicures and pedicures, oxygen therapy, hydrogen therapy.

I didn't know there were so many things you could do with base elements.

"I've arranged for us to have a ma.s.sage today," Chris announces.

Oh? Without asking me what I wanted? Maybe this is the controlling part of him creeping out into the open. He is a CEO after all. They have to maintain some modic.u.m of control, right?

"OK," I say. I don't know what I want anyway, so I shouldn't be making a fuss about it.

A hostess ushers us into a dimly lit room with two ma.s.sage beds side by side. Soft background music pipes through, and an ethereal scent of sandalwood and other exotic spices wafts from a brazier in one corner. On the ma.s.sage beds, soft white towels are folded neatly.

"Your ma.s.seuses will be right with you," the hostess says. "Please undress and lie face down on the beds."

She flashes me a look of envy.

Something occurs to me.

"Do I have to undress for this ma.s.sage?"

"h.e.l.l, yes." Chris starts to unb.u.t.ton his shirt, an action I don't think I will ever tire of watching.

I'm suddenly self-conscious. Chris has never seen me naked before, but then I've never seen him naked before yesterday, and that's the point of this whole seven-day exercise, right?

Chris takes pity on my blushes.

"I'll turn around and let you arrange yourself, towel on," he says. "I won't peek, I promise."

"Thank you."

He knows I'm not ready, and I'm grateful. My only regret in not facing him full frontal is not being able to watch him shrug his pants off. Speaking of which, the enormity of what I've done yesterday is only beginning to hit me (stuff I can never, ever tell my mother), but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

I pack my nude body with towels and flop belly first onto the bed. Beside me, Chris has arranged the towel so that it covers only his b.u.t.tocks and nothing else. He smiles at me.

"Comfy?" he says.

"Yes."

"I think you're beautiful, in case you're wondering."

I think he's beautiful too, but I won't say it aloud.

"Thank you."

He adds, "You don't have to be shy about your body."

"I'm not. It's just that I'm still shy in front of you."

"Well, sooner or later, within the week hopefully, you're gonna have to show it to me. I'd rather it be sooner."

"I know, I'll get there. Just give me time."

His eyes are a lovely molten chocolate in the low yellow light. "I'm getting h.o.r.n.y just looking at you. I'm glad I'm lying belly down."

I blush.

"You drive me crazy, you know that?" he says.

From any other man, I would have been over the moon to hear that, but coming from him, it's just going to end up with someone storming into a boardroom and demanding why he blocked her from his cellphone.

It's sad, really.

The door opens and two female Asian ma.s.seuses walk in. They bustle about, arranging this and that, and finally settle on ma.s.saging us.

My ma.s.seuse starts with my neck.

"Pressure OK?" she asks.

"Yes. Thank you."

I have never been touched so intimately before by a total stranger (other than the family doctor, of course), but her firm hands immediately put me under her spell. Ohhhh. How soothing her flesh is as she straightens my tense muscles, infusing each fiber with a rush of warm blood.