Again, there is a theatrical flicker, and the stern, auburn-haired woman is in her place.

“You’re lying. I think you do know,” she says as if there had never been a lull in the conversation.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because you feel it.”

“Feel what?”

She finally looks up at me and smiles thinly, her dark eyes piercing. Reaching to the side, she takes hold of the victim’s hand. He is securely bound so he is unable to pull away, but a horrified squeal begins behind her as he struggles, only to be interrupted by her careful method of bondage. I hear a metallic snick and watch as she slips the cigar cutter over his pinkie finger at the second joint.

“The same thing we are going to feel when I do this,” she says and punctuates the sentence by bearing down and squeezing the cutter closed.

The stir that had been wriggling deep inside my body flared in that exact instant. No longer was it simply extreme arousal; it was now tickling nerve endings I didn’t even know I had. The result was a pleasure so intense as to be literally excruciating in its scope. I now knew the true meaning of having something feel so good that it hurt.

The room began to spin and then everything went completely black.

I opened my eyes and the acoustically textured ceiling filled my field of view. I felt spent in a way I had never experienced before, and to say I was confused wasn’t doing my current state any justice. I was completely addled. I was in agony deep inside, but it was a pain born of emptiness. An ache that called out, begging to be filled by the pleasure once again.

With a groan, I started to sit up but felt a firm pressure pushing me back down. I fell back and my head thumped against the floor.

I blinked.

Now I not only saw the ceiling but Annalise as well. She was leaning over me, one high-heel encased foot pressing down on my chest and holding me to the floor.