Elara ran her palm along the dark oiled timber, following the smooth curve Bryce had shaped into the rail.

The stockade waiting in the centre of the barn was unmistakably his work. Hardwood, blackened steel, leather and padding, all built solid enough that nothing about it felt temporary.

She circled it once. Two padded rests waited for her knees, with lower supports beneath them. Ahead, a leather-covered support would carry her upper body, leaving her hips raised behind her. Padded restraints sat forward for her wrists.

At the rear waited the machine. Its arm was drawn back for now.

Waiting.

“You built this for me.”

“I built the first version for you.”

“The first version?”

“I know you.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “That sounds suspiciously like an excuse.”

“It means you’ll find something you want changed.”

“I haven’t even climbed on it yet.”

“You’re looking at it like you already have a list.”

She smiled. “Fair.”

Bryce gestured toward it. “Boots off.”

Elara stepped out of them and climbed onto the stockade. The padded supports took her knees and shins comfortably enough. She leaned forward over the leather-covered rest and shifted her hips.

“No.”

Bryce waited.

“Higher.”

He adjusted it. She settled again.

“Little more.”

Another adjustment. Elara rocked her weight forward, then back.

“Better.”

“You’ve been on it twenty seconds.”

“And you’ve already learned something.”

Bryce gave her a look. She grinned.

“Come on.”

He took her left wrist and settled it into the padded restraint, then the right.

“Comfortable?”

“Too loose.”

He adjusted them until the padding held her firmly. “Now?”

“Better.”

Bryce ran his hands over her shoulders and down her sides. “Hips?”

Elara pushed them back toward him. “Waiting.”

His mouth twitched.

Bryce walked behind her. She heard the machine move closer. Felt his hand settle against her hip as he brought it into position.

“Lower.”

He adjusted it.

“Too far.”

Another small movement.

“There.”

Bryce came alongside her. “You want control?”

She looked at the switch he offered. “No.”

His eyes lifted to hers. “No?”

“You built it.” Elara curled her fingers against the restraints. “You use it.”

Something changed in his expression.

“Tell me if you want it stopped.”

“You know I will.”

Bryce stepped back. The motor began with a low hum.

Elara felt anticipation tighten through her before anything touched her. Then the first slow stroke pressed into her.

Her breath caught.

It withdrew. Returned.

Slow. Deliberate.

Bryce watched her. “Well?”

“Again.”

He did. The next stroke went deeper. Elara pushed instinctively against the support.

“More.”

The rhythm quickened. Not much. Enough.

Her fingers tightened. The machine gave her exactly the same movement again. And again. And again.

Elara closed her eyes.

The repetition was different from Bryce. There was no body to read. No breath changing against her skin. No hesitation. No anticipation of what he might do next.

Only the rhythm he had chosen for her.

Bryce increased it.

Elara moaned. “Fuck.”

His hand settled onto her hip.

That made it worse.

The machine was relentless. Bryce wasn’t.

She could feel him watching her, reading the way she moved against it, noticing each small change in her breathing.

“More,” she said.

The strokes deepened. Her body rocked forward against the padded support.

Something beneath the stockade shifted slightly.

Bryce stopped.

Elara opened her eyes. “What are you doing?”

“It moved.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

He crouched, did something beneath her, then stood again.

Elara looked back at him. “Done?”

“For now.”

“Then stop wasting time.”

Bryce laughed quietly.

The motor started again. The first stroke made her gasp.

He had changed the angle.

“Oh.”

“Better?”

“Yes.”

He gave her several strokes at that angle. Her answer became a moan.

Bryce increased the speed. The machine drove into her steadily, forcing her forward against the leather support before drawing away and returning again.

Her wrists pulled against the padding. Bryce’s hand remained on her hip.

Elara stopped thinking about how anything worked.

The barn narrowed to sensation. The hum of the motor. The pressure around her wrists. The support beneath her. Bryce behind her.

And the certainty that she wasn’t going anywhere until he decided to let her.

Her first orgasm hit hard enough to tear a cry from her.

Elara strained against the restraints as it rolled through her. Bryce kept the rhythm steady. Not faster. Not deeper. He simply let the machine keep doing what it was doing while her body clenched and shuddered around it.

Her thighs trembled.

“Bryce.”

He waited.

Elara dragged in a breath. “More.”

He increased it.

The next stroke drove a sound from her throat. Then another. She tried to shift backwards, but the stockade held her where he had put her.

“You built a bastard.”

“You wanted it.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted.”

“That’s unusual.”

“Fuck you.”

“Later.”

Elara laughed once, breathless. Then stopped laughing when the next stroke landed.

The second orgasm built slower. She could feel it coming and could do nothing about it.

The machine did not care that she was still sensitive.

Bryce did.

When she tensed too sharply, his hand moved over her hip. When she pushed back into it, he gave her more. When she stopped speaking altogether, he watched.

Elara’s head dropped.

The orgasm rolled through her, tightening every muscle before breaking loose. She cried out.

The machine kept moving. Her legs shook beneath her.

“Still good?” Bryce asked.

“Yes.”

He increased the speed again.

Elara groaned into the padding. “Fuck.”

The third orgasm arrived before she had properly recovered from the second.

Fluid splashed beneath her. Onto the mat. Onto the dirt beyond it.

Bryce slowed the machine.

Elara panted. She looked downward as best she could.

“That floor has to go.”

“We’ll deal with it.”

“Not now.”

“No.”

He increased the rhythm again.

Elara cried out. Bryce didn’t stop. Her fingers curled hard against the restraints. Her hips pushed back.

The machine drove her through the sensitivity she would have escaped from if she could.

“Bryce—”

He slowed.

“Don’t you dare.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

The full rhythm returned.

Elara swore at him, then lost the word halfway through.

Pleasure stopped arriving in clean waves. It blurred together, one orgasm leaving her raw enough for the next sensation to feel almost unbearable.

She pulled against the restraints. Pushed back again. Couldn’t decide whether she wanted away from it or closer.

Bryce kept her there.

Her fourth orgasm broke whatever composure she had left. She shouted his name.

Her whole body tightened against the stockade as another gush struck beneath her.

This time Bryce stopped.

The arm withdrew.

The sudden emptiness left her shaking.

He was beside her immediately. Her wrists came free and Elara sagged against him.

“I’m fine.”

“I know.”

He held her anyway. She let him.

Bryce waited until her breathing began to settle, then helped her upright and gave her water.

Elara drank, then looked over his shoulder at the silent machine.

“You stopped.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t tell you to.”

“You were done.”

She studied him. “You decided that?”

“Yes.”

A faint smile touched her mouth. “And if you were wrong?”

“You’d be arguing harder.”

“I can still argue.”

“You can always argue.”

Elara handed him the bottle, then caught his wrist before he moved away.

“We aren’t finished.”

His eyes met hers.

“You are with that.”

“I didn’t say that.”

The look Bryce gave her sent heat through her again.

Elara moved forward over the leather support. Her legs were still unsteady. Her body was not interested in stopping.

“You built it for us,” she said.

Bryce placed one hand between her shoulder blades. “Stay there.”

This time she obeyed.

He secured her wrists again. Elara bent over the support.

Waiting.

She heard his belt loosen behind her.

That sound was somehow more erotic than the motor had been.

Bryce stepped between the rear rails. His hand moved over her. Slowly. Feeling what the machine had left behind.

“You’re a mess.”

“That’s your fault.”

“You asked for more.”

“I’m still asking.”

His hand tightened around her hip.

Then she felt him against her.

Warm. Alive.

Bryce entered her slowly.

Elara sucked in a breath.

After the machine, every difference was overwhelming. The heat of him. The shape. The slight movement of his body even when he tried to hold still. His breathing. His hands.

She pushed backwards impatiently.

Bryce stopped deep inside her. “Impatient.”

“You’ve had ten weeks.”

His fingers dug into her hips.

Then he moved.

Long, slow strokes at first. Nearly leaving her before filling her again.

Elara moaned. “Harder.”

Bryce gave her harder.

The stockade shuddered beneath them.

Elara laughed breathlessly. “At least that bit works.”

Bryce drove into her again. Her laugh became a cry.

He used the stockade exactly as he had intended. Not as an experiment. Not as a test.

As something built to hold his wife while he fucked her.

Elara’s wrists strained against the padded restraints. Bryce held her hips and drove her forward against the support with each thrust.

The machine sat silent behind them now.

Forgotten.

She wanted him.

The small irregularities the machine could never give her. The way his rhythm changed when she tightened around him. The roughness in his breathing. The strength of his hands. The fact that when she pushed back harder, he answered.

“Bryce.”

His hand slid around her.

Elara cried out at the contact.

“Too much?”

“No.”

He didn’t ask again.

She could feel another orgasm already building. Too soon. Too close to everything that had come before.

Her legs began trembling again.

Bryce felt it. His grip changed. Held her more firmly.

He drove into her harder.

Elara gasped his name.

The orgasm hit.

Her body clenched around him, the stockade taking her weight as her knees threatened to give beneath her.

Bryce kept moving through it.

She cried out again.

He followed moments later, burying himself deep and folding over her back as he came.

For a while neither of them moved.

The barn settled around them. A horse stamped somewhere outside. Wind moved against the iron roof.

Elara could hear Bryce breathing behind her.

She smiled into the leather.

“That,” she said eventually, “was better than the machine.”

Bryce laughed against her shoulder. “Good.”

Bryce released her wrists and helped her upright. When she tried to climb down, her legs disagreed with the plan.

He caught her.

Elara laughed and leaned against him.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m absolutely laughing at you.”

“You’re the one who can’t stand.”

“You’re the reason I can’t stand.”

“Fair.”

She looked back at the prototype. The mat beneath it was soaked. The dirt beyond it was dark. One of the padded supports sat slightly crooked from the punishment she had given it.

Elara pointed. “That needs changing.”

Bryce followed her finger. “So does that.”

“And that.”

He looked at her. “You said you weren’t going to analyse it.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“You complained when I stopped.”

“That was during.”

She stepped closer to the stockade and pushed experimentally against the front support.

“This needs to move.”

“It did move.”

“Exactly.”

“That wasn’t deliberate.”

“It should be.”

Bryce stared at it for a moment.

Elara recognised the expression immediately. “No.”

“What?”

“You’re already redesigning it.”

“You just told me to.”

“I told you what I wanted. You can think about it tomorrow.”

She looked down again at the wet dirt.

“That can’t wait forever, though.”

Bryce followed her gaze. “No.”

“Concrete.”

He nodded. “With drains.”

“Definitely drains.”

Elara slipped an arm around his waist. Bryce kissed the top of her head.

Behind them, the stockade waited in the centre of the old barn.

Not finished. Not perfect.

But very thoroughly tested.