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nothing got close to rude . There was something cool and glassy, even in his touch—but underneath. Oh, underneath. She could sense his body humming, just beneath the surface of all of this restraint. His breathing had grown a little hoarse, and when his hands slid downward, she was sure she could feel the tremble in them.
    “Delicious,” he said, and it was a shock, a real shock.
    She had somehow imagined he’d stay quiet forever, right up until his body spread over hers and perhaps beyond, but he’d spoken. He’d given himself away, completely.
    It was him. It really was.
    Something like delight and joy poured through her, so fierce that his name almost ripped itself right out of her. She wasn’t even sure how she managed to stay quiet. Especially when he continued speaking, and the words did not fall short of the things he’d said to her through a computer screen.
    “You have no idea what you look like. So lovely, so perfectly giving yourself over to me. I thought…sometimes I thought, when I saw you around the office, I thought I knew. But I never realised what you were capable of, not fully. You’re amazing, Molly.”
    She wanted to say something back, anything back. Just words that represented the strange charge that went through her, when he spoke. God, he had a beautiful voice. So still and calm, just like him, with that hint of hoarseness and need buried underneath.
    It made her want to turn, again, and take off the blindfold, and look at him. Just look, look, look at him. It made her want to so much that she found herself blurting the question out.
    “Can I take it off?”
    But in response his hand slipped away from her. She felt him move off the bed, and almost cried out in desperation. It wasn’t just arousal, now, there was something else, something terrible about all of this and if he could just let her…
    “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
    Now it was her turn to go silent. She froze in position on the bed, body half turned, palms flat to the sheets. Behind the blindfold, her eyes searched for the space he occupied— somewhere towards the door , she thought, but not quite leaving. Maybe not leaving at all. Oh God, she hoped he wasn’t leaving.
    She had to say something before he did.
    “Ben, wait!”
    Seconds became hours, again, mainly because of all the ‘ what ifs .’ What if it wasn’t him? It could be that she’d guessed wrong. The voice sounded right and it fit in all other respects—he worked in the IT department, so he’d easily be able to find out where she lived. He was typically fussy about the filing systems that were kept next to where he worked. He’d been in the office with Gregson , most likely to make sure she was safe. He didn’t fit what she’d thought a dominant man would be in most physical regards, but in all other ways…oh yes.
    She remembered those clear green eyes staring up at her when she came to him with this or that problem. Something minor and irrelevant, now. But those eyes, Lord those eyes—she wanted to call them deadpan, almost, as though he knew a secret joke that he’d never told anybody.
    She supposed it was kind of like that, even if it wasn’t a joke at all.
    “When did you guess?” he said, and a weird sense of relief went through her. It was him. It was definitely him. Cute, slight little Benjamin from IT!
    “I don’t know. I knew for sure when I heard your voice.”
    “Really? I didn’t think anyone paid that much attention.”
    The words should have sounded wounded or whiny in some way, but they didn’t. His voice bent easily into a wry, light sort of tone, and she thought of his email address. Ever unknown. He might as well have called himself Mr. Invisible.
    “Will you come over to the bed again?”
    “I probably should—you are naked, after all. It seems kind of weird that I’m managing to stay all the way over here.”
    Again, that sense of relief. The barrier of anonymity was down, but everything was still somehow