For Eric all was darkness.

He’d been dreaming of sunshine, a Cornish holiday from his youth. Vivid blue water of St Mawes’ bay, sunlight fragmenting on a thousand wavelets and dazzling the dreamer as he clutched his ice-cream cone harbour-side. Only, he was older now and Daniella Blanchford was seated with him on the bench, wearing a pale-yellow summer dress. She had sunglasses perched in her hair and ice-cream was spotting her chin as she smiled at him. And she was humming, her voice soft and breathy and slightly off-key. She stared at him with an affection he was sure he did not deserve. It was a golden moment—like summer sun on waves. A moment from which he parted with the utmost reluctance.

When he did, blackness encased him. It felt like morning but looked like night. The last time he had worn a sleep mask was on a business overnight from Hong Kong. He made to remove the padded blindfold automatically, instinctively, but his wrist jerked tight above his head before it left the pillow. He’d been groggy, but the sensation shocked him fully awake. His left hand was tied as well. What the fuck? He was lying flat, strung out on the bed with his arms making a broad Y with the rest of his body.

Where am I? How much did I drink last night? God, I took those pain-killers too. Shit …

Okay, okay, it was his own bed. Its feel, its smell … with the added scent of girl on his pillow and the musky odour of sex from his own body all about him. The room was warm, his torso baking in summer heat, cool sheets still cast about his lower body. Beneath them he was erect, boldly so, and even his bound predicament could not shrink him. He tugged against his restraints with both arms and gained a sense of knots tightening in response. His bonds were secure—some kind of soft material, but capable of biting into his wrists if he fought too hard.

He jerked his head about on the pillow, trying to sneak a glimpse of his situation from beneath the mask, but it clung to his eyes too firmly. “Hey. Hey! What the hell … Daniella?”

No response. He held his body entirely still and listened. Nothing could be heard but his own breathing and the squall of a gull from outside the window. There were distant church bells too—Sunday morning. Silence, though, within the house. His house. Fuck, had she left him? Was she coming back? How the hell long was he expected to lie here? Damn. Little bitch …

“Morning, babe.”

He started at the words, breathed as they were into his ear with the whisper of a kiss. Then teeth snagged his earlobe, their tug brief and sharp.

“Fuck. Daniella, what are you doing?” He figured he had at least some idea. Once again though, she provided no response. “Daniella, you’re freaking me out here.” Pride required that he qualify the statement. “A bit.”

There was nothing further, aside from the swish of smooth limbs about his room. Silence again, then catches of the same tune she had hummed in his dream, soothing if not entirely tuneful. Words were being muttered now. She was singing Adele’s Rolling in the Deep placidly to herself.

“Daniella?”

“Hey, babe. I’m just moisturizing. You slept all through my shower.” He sensed the bed’s surface compressed, as by the girl placing a foot on it. Then there was the light slap of hands on flesh and the silky smoothing of lotion. Its freshness filled his nostrils. “You slept like a baby, baby.”

Her tone was light, playful. He lay in renewed silence, letting her apply her lotion and play her little game. So where had this come from? A bit of payback, that much was clear. He had to hand it to her, she wasn’t short on audacity, this girl. What, he’d slept through the entire binding? God, he must have been shagged out quite literally, although he might have expected her to be so too. They’d been busy at it for a good two hours after the restaurant, on top of all that had gone before, that crazy Saturday.

There’d been no hint of her doing any plotting. She’d been her sweet and funny self in the restaurant, all sense of Saturday’s bizarre sex-contest wiped clean once he made his choice. The one that meant they were still dating, not simply fucking. And she hadn’t even insisted on anywhere five-star when the Latymer was found to be fully booked.

“ ’Somewhere nice’ doesn’t mean you’ll have to pay the bill in instalments,” she told him, revising the original impression she had created. “I’m not a high maintenance girl these days, Eric, whatever you thought before. Not materially at any rate. I want nice, tasteful, a little bit intimate. So we can talk. Like we did before, remember? Before all the craziness.”

“It’s okay, I want that too.” His hand rested on hers a moment before he took her to the French/Mediterranean place in Surbiton where he’d done business lunches with Damian Gaunt. Neat attractive décor, not too showy. Intimate like she wanted, perfect for two people trying to affect normality after thirty-six hours of sexual mayhem.

Their sub-dom exploits were pushed discreetly to one side, like the whole thing had been a fiction. She talked about her dad: “I’ve almost forgiven him, you know. If I use you to punish him a little, that should get me the rest of the way.” He talked about his future in response to her query: “I’ll start on establishing my own publishing house, take on board a few potential clients who your father vetoed. Build it from there. I’ll need to pump in quite a bit of my own money. Scale down everything in my life, in the short-term at any rate. Just as well you’re enjoying your newly established independence and not looking for a wealthy boyfriend.”

“I’m not,” she asserted, looking mildly annoyed that it had been in question. Then her expression changed to one of curiosity. “Why say that anyhow? Aren’t we having a fling? Or is this something more?”

Eric stalled in his attempt to respond, mouth open but non-operative for several seconds before he opted for honesty. “I’m not sure what we’re having, right now sitting here. I know I like it though. And … well, I’m hoping you do too.”

Her smile was tentative, but not without warmth. “I do like it. It’s nice. It’s different. So, what should I order?”

The meal was delicious. So was the sex afterwards, a marked contrast with that earlier in the day. He undressed her slowly, palming the curves of her body as her clothing fell piece by piece to the floor, and drawing her naked form to his for a long mouth-locked embrace. She kissed luxuriously in response until they dropped onto the bed without letting go and explored each other, mouths still in rhythmic union. Then he rolled her onto her back and set about her—all of her—with his mouth.

He brought her off twice with the indulgence of his tongue and marvelled at how sweet she tasted to him. Then he entered her easily, filling her up with long measured thrusts as she clutched his straining torso and his jaw and mouth. She ran fingers over his face and craning neck during his hard climax, then wrapped arms around him and kissed again as he subsided in post-coital exhaustion. All sweetness. Nothing to suggest that she had designs on the physical freedoms of her weekend date.

So exactly how had this morning’s predicament come about? And where was she planning on taking it?

He dared to broach the subject. “Had you any specific purpose in mind when you tied me to your bed?”

She continued, by the sound of it, to cream herself. Cream herself, ha. “You’re always so active, sweetheart. I thought ‘The only way he’ll get a nice morning massage is if I make him.’ ”

“A morning massage? You really think I need tying up for that?”

“To stay in one place, even when you get all excited the way you do?” she said lightly. “Absolutely. Otherwise, you’d be all over me. Let me fetch.”

He didn’t call after her when her footsteps padded from the room. Best let her have her fun. Hell, there might be some good sport in it for him too. Her light tread returned within moments and then she was climbing on the lower part of his bed, positioning herself between his legs, drawing the crumpled sheet away from his nether regions, and leaving him utterly exposed, including his morning tumescence. Now, he thought, would be a good time to start feeling vulnerable.

“Care to lift the mask? It’d be nice to see you. Wish you good morning properly.”

“No, sweetheart. Don’t want sensory overload, do we?” Cold silky liquid trickled onto the shallow concave of his chest, the shock drawing a sharp gasp from him. “Steady. You’re all on edge. Maybe I shouldn’t have refrigerated it.” Minx, she’d been planning this. The fingertips of both her hands landed in the pooled liquid and glazed his whole chest with it. His nipples prickled to her touch, shudders running all through his body and settling in the root of his dick to swell him larger. Fuck, so did she carry massage oil about in her overnight bag?

“Maybe,” he managed, despite the suddenly increased level of bodily stimulation, “I’d be less on edge if I’d been given some warning. Not that I’m discounting the degree of enjoyment here, by any means. It’s … certainly very pleasant.” Her palms were gliding in smooth circles on his pectoral muscles, making sure to graze his nipples on every revolution. God, she had soft hands. “You give a nice massage.”

“Hush now.” The circles broadened, her fingers bumping over his distended ribcage. “Relax yourself and who knows where my fingers will go?”

He let his head rest on the pillow and focused on regulating his ragged breathing. He’d tolerate her scheme—the constraints and the darkness—for now.

~~~~

Daniella ogled as she perched. She’d been objectified a whole damn lot this weekend and, while it had been undeniably thrilling as hell, it was a delight to look on and play with the man who had done all the scrutinizing. All that male beauty and passion lashed to its own bed, how delicious. It emphasized his height and his physical strength.

Damn, how his biceps had hardened and flexed as he fought the silk scarves’ tightening. There was a lean athleticism to his body that suggested concerted cardio training rather than the vanity of body-sculpture for its own sake. The musculature of his upper body was accentuated quite magnificently by the stretching out of his arms—what a delight to ease her palms all over its glistening surface—and his big gorgeous cock was swollen yet indolent on his stomach. Her pussy clenched along with her rectal muscles on remembering its sometimes harsh intrusions.

No more of that for now. Yesterday’s ringmaster was this morning’s chained beast. She liked seeing him like this. She needed it—to look on him naked without him looking back. Not forever, just for a while.

Of course there was always the possibility that he would clamp his thighs to her ass and wrestle her with his unchained lower half. But in that case, she’d simply inflict monstrous indignities on his nipples until he desisted. He was a smart guy. He’d not risk it. As her hands glided over his hard torso, middle fingers flicking his nipples on each rotation, she watched his face. Yes, he was striving admirably to appear relaxed, but his rigid jaw betrayed the tension. It spurred her in her mission.

She released her slippery grip on his chest and dropped all the way down his body, starting over at the ankles. Watch him. God, watch him closely. A double-handed gliding motion up his legs and thighs, sweeping over his groin either side of his helpless erection, then pausing at his stomach before a teasingly slow journey back. Hell, that did it. His chest visibly seized and the veins in his neck stood out. No disguising the response. Her fingernails grated gently up his thighs, slow so that she could feel each tiny strand of hair. She steered either side of his tight ball-sac and proceeded up his groin, hands parted in avoidance of that languishing cock. Mmmm—she wanted to kiss it, to take in her mouth, but she sublimated the urge. Teasing had pleasures all its own.

Her hands stretched to their broadest span about his stomach, thumbs stroking across his glistening navel. Resist this. You’ve no other option, baby, because you’re getting no relief anytime soon. Want to find how wicked I can be? She reached for the bottle, dripped more oil and enjoyed his broad chest again, mind alive with possibilities … all the juicy possibilities that had begun to occur to her after dinner the previous night.

It wasn’t that she was lacking in gratitude. Far from it—the thoughtfulness he had shown throughout the meal had disarmed her. A perfect choice of restaurant, relaxed yet intimate with no glaring ostentation. Making way for her on entering, drawing out her chair, doing all on her behalf. Good menu suggestions as well. The pate and the salmon were both fabulous. Considering that she had finagled her way into the date, he wrested back control of the evening with aplomb, saving face entirely and embracing the tender mood. Damn, she really was starting to like him again. How dangerous.

Fitting a jigsaw, that was her experience of the evening. Piecing together the real Eric Lehane. What was left of the nice guy she’d met weeks before? How much of the bastard was real? Friday night’s penitence and Saturday’s protectiveness on her father’s return both spoke well of him. His sacrificing of pride regarding their contract had been significant for this guy; she’d seen it in his face. But she had to know more—something solid. Something genuine about a man who, she realized, had up till recently been all surface cool.

“Share with me,” she said over dessert. “Tell me something.”

“Tell you … what? A personal quirk? An embarrassing incident from my school days?”

“Something that means something. Something you never share with anyone.” Her eyes stayed on his and his gaze did not waver.

“God. Okay, okay. Alright, I know what to share. Here goes. Every Thursday night in life I meet up with my mum. Including two nights ago.”

While you were plotting my defilement. “Okay, you visit your mum. That’s nice. Is it a secret?”

“That part’s not. What no one knows is that once a month we make it ‘date night’. I know what you’re thinking, a guy’s vaguely unsettling attachment to his mother. A little bit Norman Bates.” She hadn’t been thinking anything in particular at that stage and left room for him to continue.

“You see when he was alive, my dad always made Thursday night ‘date night’ with mum. Somewhere different every week. Married thirty years and they still tried to surprise each other. He got ill—terribly ill, whole story … that’s for some other time, not tonight—and five years ago he passed away. Mum was … well, she was a recluse for well over a year, who can blame her? But then after that, rather than have her sit in every Thursday, we started to celebrate it. Thursday I visit and at least once a month we go out somewhere. A film, a meal, a show—we started calling it ‘date night’. Our joke. Never intended for anyone else, as you can imagine. Hell, maybe there’s still a chance she’ll meet someone new to take her on Thursday dates, but until that day, I’m glad to. In fact I look forward to our nights. You’d like her. She’d like you.” He shrugged. “That’s my bit of sharing for the evening.”

It made her sad for him and relieved and elated all together. She hadn’t realized till he said it how much she’d secretly staked on his response and now she wanted to give him the kind of hug she had on their original nights out, right there in the restaurant. My God. I’m still ready to date this guy after everything. Who’d have thought?

But still there was the big fuck-off granite stumbling block. However warmed her heart had been by his moment of confidence, that obstacle wouldn’t go away. The weekend’s events swirled in her mind as he went on talking.

This man tricked me. He talked me into being tied to a chair and used me as his little daddy’s-girl revenge fantasy. Okay, it was absolutely scorching-hot as seventh hell on barbecue night, but that’s not the point. The bastard deceived his way into my knickers and made me a toy to get back at my father. And he acts like it’s all forgotten and he can dominate my ass all over again like the whole thing was play from the start. Thinks a half-assed apology is enough. How the hell can I let that go? Date him, contemplate anything meaningful with him? Let go with him? Really let go, even if he is being sweet. Fucker…

“You okay? Daniella?”

“What? Yeah, sorry. Wine, going to my head. Give me a minute. I need to use the Ladies’.”

She went there and hid herself in a cubicle, head spinning and not from the Sauvignon Blanc. Calm down. Bloody calm down. Don’t let him do this to you. She sat on the seat cover and breathed her way back to self-possession. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy his attempts at control. Hell, the reverse … but it was all too skewed. He’d seen to that. There was no fixing it, was there? Was there? Unless …

Fight fire with fire. Her heart pounded to the phrase. But how? She knew, vaguely. It had occurred to her enough times when he had her tied up the day before. But the detail … What could she use? What would she need? And did she even have the nerve to follow through? Fuck—if not this weekend, this crazy anything-goes weekend, then when? The rule book had been shredded, the moment was right. Seize it, girl. Seize it. He deserves it, hell you deserve it. And you know someone else who wouldn’t miss a beat if it happened to her. She smiled at the thought. Damn it all, it made her grin. Her breath caught at its follow-up. Should I call her? I sure as hell could use some moral support here. Maybe some advice. Her mind underwent a few more seconds’ inward debate, then … Fuck it. Where’s my phone? Let’s do this.

The conversation that ensued was brief, pithy and inspiring.

“I thought you’d done a runner out of the bathroom window,” Eric said on her return. “Caught a taxi home. You okay?”

Daniella’s stomach was roiling with excitement at the dialogue of which she’d just been part. She swallowed down the rising shudders. “Window jammed,” she said, sitting down with all the ladylike calm she could gather. “Or I’d have been out of here.” She smirked. “It’s okay. Seems I’m a bit giddy from all today’s … activities. And a bit sore. So it’s all down to you, you terrible man.”

“I am a terrible man, aren’t I?” Apology was more in evidence of that smugness.

“Yes, you truly are.”

“Well, let me settle up here and try and make it up to you some more back at mine. I mean for real. No naughty surprises.”

“Can we stop at my dad’s, so I can throw some stuff in an overnight bag?”

“Sure. Think I’ll wait in the car though. Your father’s had enough of me for one weekend.”

“Really? Don’t you want to rub his face in it some more, that you’re diddling his little girl?”

His smile was gentle and somewhat embarrassed. “I think I’ve made that point. And tonight’s not about that. Although feel free to rub his nose in it for both of us.”

“Oh, I intend to.” She grinned and he responded in kind, clearly revelling in her mischief.

Her brief visit home had been more to do with gathering the right supplies than exasperating her father, however. He treated her appearance and clear intentions with a brooding reserve. She whirled around the house trying not to miss any of the items on her checklist. Arabella’s voice was sounding in her head. This matters to you, Dani, so make it count. Do what it takes and make me proud. “I will do,” she muttered to herself as she shut the front door. A Christmas Eve kind of excitement was welling up within her.

“Laptop?” Eric inquired, when she plopped herself into the passenger seat with her belongings.

“Emails and stuff, now that I’m definitely staying the weekend. It’s nothing that’ll take long.”

“You could have used mine,” he said.

“Yes, I know that. Thanks. But … you know, love my lappy.”

He took her back to his apartment and went about the ‘making up’ he had promised. It began with music and wine on his sofa and proceeded, via exquisitely slow removing of all her clothes, to a full-body mouth-bath on his bed, his warm wet kisses homing ever inward to her aching pussy. By the time his lips and tongue made it there, all soreness from the day’s events was swallowed up in need and she opened to him like a flower.

He ate her out for goddamn ever, hands exploring her flat plains and curving mounds; she spilled her essence over his face twice, a sodden mass of sensitivity. Then he climbed on her and ploughed with long, slow strokes, kissing hot and tender as he fucked. Her arms clutched his ribcage as her cunt clutched his shaft. He stroked full and deep into her and she took him, legs wrapped around his shunting ass. His groan, as he emptied inside her, was long and deep, like it came from the pit of his being. She clung to him and stroked his hair until his shuddering subsided and wondered that Friday’s kitchen chair ravisher could make love so damn beautifully.

She might have slept. Thoughts of her scheme might have temporarily been fucked from her head, but they came rushing back as he lay in her arms, his cock still inside her. Yes, he knew how to make nice, but it wasn’t quite enough. Not for this twenty-first-century girl. Shortly after his slick extrication from her sex, as they lay in perspiration-beaded bliss, he provided her with the opportunity himself.

“Bathroom, gorgeous. I’ll be right back.” She kissed his forehead and he smiled at her before she took her naked self from the room. Minutes later he returned with the last of the Shiraz. ‘Top-up?’

They clinked their glasses one more time and drank to their crazy weekend, Eric using the last of it to wash down two chunky codeine tablets. “Don’t do this at home, kids,” he quipped. “Red wine can be a bastard to me next day,” he explained, “if I don’t nip its effects early.”

Holy Christ, she’d thought. Eric was a deep sleeper at the best of times… What a result!

His self-medicating had made sure he didn’t even threaten to wake up as she applied the silken restraints. But all grogginess had now been shaken off by her bound lover if his breathing was anything by which to judge. His body was doing quite the horizontal limbo-dance—undulating gently as her fingers teased their way to his nipples over and over.

“Mmmm. Somebody likes his massage.” She leaned into him, her knees parting his thighs more firmly as she slid up to caress his neck and tautened shoulder blades.

“Very much. The tying up part was scarcely necessary for this kind of treat. You can untie me if you like. I’ll be good.”

She kneaded steadily a moment, then swept upwards over his extended arms. “I don’t believe you, baby. I think if I untie you, you’ll grab hold of me and have your unutterably vile way.”

“Well … would that be so bad?”

Daniella gauged her words before she spoke them. This was the crucial stage. She couldn’t afford to blow it. “I imagine it’d be very good. But it’s only fair I have my fun, since you’ve had yours. And you’ve no idea what fun I have lined up.” Her nails tantalized all the way to his wrists, then back down his out-stretched arms to his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. Then to his groin, so close to that swollen length that his pelvis twitched. “Fun with a capital F.U.N.”

That stands for ‘Fucked Up Nastiness’, she made sure not to add.

~~~~

She’s good. She’s fucking good, I’ll hand it to her on a silver platter. Eric endeavoured to keep the head-lolling to a minimum, but the ache of his cock for her hands was starting to consume his whole body. “You’re not being entirely fair here,” he pointed out. It took a lot of effort to produce a casual tone of voice. “I’ve had no say in my restraint. On each occasion you submitted to it voluntarily. Shouldn’t I have been given a similar choice?”

Daniella’s fingers lingered exquisitely about his groin. “Would you have taken it? In all honesty, Eric, would you have agreed to this? I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”

“Depends on how you put it to me.”

“And I think that’s bullshit. I think you’ve been enjoying making the rules up way too much to risk it. What do you think?”

He’d developed too much regard for her bullshit-detection skills to lie. And those trailing fingertips on his stomach weren’t doing anything for his own powers of deception. “I think … I think you may have a point.”

“I know I do. So I thought, give him a chance to see what he’s missing and maybe he’ll realise all the fun there is to be had.” Her voice was soft, plausible, intoxicating. He knew he was being played, but he didn’t care. “I mean,” she persisted, “it’s not that far from what you did with me. Introduced me to a game without telling me all the rules. It was scary, I won’t deny it, but it was even more fun. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me.” A single fingernail stroked from between his balls all the way up his shaft to the tip, making his whole body shudder. Her hands gripped his upper arms as her body zoned in to meet his. The lace of a soft-cupped brassiere stroked against his chest and her damp pony-tailed hair brushed his face. It smelt of green apples.

“I want to play a game with you, Eric. And I want you to agree to it. I want to untie you and then tie you again, only this time with your permission. If you jump me and fuck me, I’ll take it like a good girl. But I’d much rather you hold back. Use all your own restraint …”—she tugged on one of the silk bonds—“instead of this type. Fuck me later and find out what fun I’ve got stored up for you now.” She kissed his face and his lips were warm.

Credit where it was due, she had him almost hooked. I’m being manipulated. At least I know it’s happening. That makes it kind of okay. “So …” He picked his words with as much care as was possible under the heady circumstances. “Do I get any indication as to the nature of this fun?”

“Only that you’ll never forget it. That you’ll curse me for it and thank me in the same breath.” The words were barely audible, wetted lips brushing his ear as she articulated them. Her fingers toyed with strands of his hair.

“And once I’ve …” He sidled past the word ‘submitted’. “… Once I’ve agreed to your game, once you’ve tied me again, is there no escape?”

“Well there’s brute strength. Of which I’m sure you’ve quite a lot. And there’s something you can say. A phrase to stop the whole thing and spoil all my plans.”

“A phrase of my choosing?”

“I’d rather I picked the phrase. If that’s okay, baby.”

“I see. And what might that phrase be?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll tell you if you let me tie you up. Not here, out there.” She paused, hands stroking sheer tenderness against his jaw. “Please say yes, Eric. I’d so love for you to play my game.” There was a little-girl brokenness in the way she said it. She kissed his face and suddenly it was wet with tears from her eyelashes. “I’m silly, I know. But I … It’s something I need, Eric. Please give me this, baby.”

God. He owed her. He owed her this one thing, whatever game she had in store. And how could he deny his own level of intrigue? It was the least he could do—let her have her fun.

And then later he could fuck her really hard.

“Okay.”

“Okay? Really?”

“Yeah. Really. You’ve been a good girl. You’ve earned your game.”

She hugged him close, so that his face was nested in the tangles of her hair. “Thank you, baby.” She rubbed her nose against his cheek. “Hey, if you go back on your word and ravish me, it’ll be bad form.”

“Now why would I risk finding out what you’ve got planned?”

Her fingers moved to the first of the knots and she paused. He could sense it, her hesitation. Fearful of what he might inflict if she unleashed him. Then she lifted the sleep mask enough for him to see her tear-stained face and realised he’d been wrong. The fear was more that he’d not be good to his word. That he’d choose instant gratification over submission to her ingenious plan.

“I’ll be good, I promise.”

She smiled, innocent and happy. It made him glad to see her like that, yesterday’s defiant rage replaced with cuteness and devilry.

She slipped the mask back in place and worked first one knot, then the other undone. The bonds fell free. He paused an instant, then he grabbed her, hard. She squealed and he held her there, frozen within his grip. There was enough raging lust within his body to fuck her senseless and he held her panting long enough to let her know it. Then he let her go and eased back on the bed, massaging his wrists.

“Fooled you.” He smiled and imagined her grinning back. “Come on, take me wherever you’re going to take me. I’m yours, pretty girl.”

~~~~

Asshole. Daniella’s heart was thumping from being seized so instantaneously on releasing him. Had to prove a point, didn’t you? So masterful, so in control. Mr Alpha Dom throws the girl a bone. You are so going to pay for that. Next time I loosen your bonds it’ll be a different story, I fucking swear it. “Scared me there, baby.” She kissed him on the jawline. “You’re so damned bad.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll behave.”

She couldn’t help but smirk at his fake penitence as she took his hand and drew him from the bed. “Make sure you do.” She assumed the sweetest tone she could manage. “You’ve got some making-up to do, Mister.”

He let his hand rest in hers and she walked him wearing only the mask from the bedroom, cock swaying like a raised flagpole in front of him. In her highest heels she came up to his chin, so petite was she compared to her strapping male lover. Her wiles had him in check for now. Soon it would be rope—the same rope he had used for her. This morning was all about justice after all.

In Eric’s living-room the chair was positioned, apparatus set out and accoutrements concealed close-by. “No peeking,” she said as she guided him into his hard-wood seat. He maintained his compliant air, despite that towering indication of how much the current developments were affecting him. “Recognise this? It’s the play-chair. I’ve got very familiar with it these past few days. Now it’s your turn.”

“Whatever you say, darling. I’m putting myself in your supple hands.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I want to believe you can be a man of your word.” She let the hands in question rove across his chest a moment. It was supple and moist, her massage oil having been all but absorbed. “Tell you the truth,” she said, reaching for the nylon ropes she had retrieved from his storage closet, “I won’t be entirely convinced of it until you’ve let me do this.”

She trailed one end of the rope across his chest, and she took her time.

~~~~

Well, this is new. Eric let his hands rest on his thighs and drew in deep slow breaths as his nipples were teased with the same damned rope he had used on Daniella. Was she watching to see where I kept my supply when I tidied up yesterday? If she accessed the rope, what else did she find? She took his hands one at a time from his lap and drew them behind his back, crossing them at the wrists. God, it was his final chance to overpower her, to break her hold and wrest that sweet young body to his will a further time. But that in itself would show weakness. Bring it, little girl. Show me what you’ve got. Do you really know one knot from another? It surprised him when he realized how fast his heart was racing; adrenalin had utterly swept away that morning stupor.

“Hold them there for me baby.” Her voice, however sweet, was breathy and intent. “Let’s see if I can get this right.”

Her rope-work started tentatively, then picked up pace as she talked herself through it. “Cross the ends, tie an overhand knot. Then cross the strands again ... and … there. Nice and tight. But not uncomfortable, is it?”

“Not at all. Secure though.” Not bad. What hadn’t this girl told him about her past experience? “And you learned how to do this …”

“In the Girl Guides?” she proffered innocently.

“Please say you didn’t learn to do it there. That would make this all kinds of wrong.”

“Okay, not Girl Guides.” She was behind him now, feeding a second length of rope behind his back, her breath warm on his neck as she sang a snatch of her Adele song. “The internet is a wonderful resource. Hang on a second, I’m kind of improvising here.”

The newly introduced rope was drawn around both his arms; it tightened at his elbow-joints as she drew it behind. She kept it taut as well—no slack as she drew the ends together and spliced them neatly. “This is the basic Granny Knot,” she prattled as she worked. “It’s the only one I’ve learnt about so far. I doubt if either of my grannies ever put it to this use, unless I’ve seriously misjudged them. Of course, family can always surprise you. There. Yes, that’ll do.” She was gone from him again, no doubt picking up more of his supply.

Eric was impressed. Any lurking notions of being able to wrench his way free if the whole thing got tiresome had already been thwarted. There’d be no easy escape from these bonds, he sensed. “To be honest,” Daniella said, “I was a bit worried about this whole part.” There she was scuttling about his feet nonetheless, binding his ankles to the chair legs. “I mean I pick things up pretty fast, but I didn’t have much time to practise and no one to practise it on.”

“No time? So you’ve never done this …”

“Before? No sweetheart.” She completed her knotting, then he sensed her rising. He imagined her standing there, five feet six in heels, admiring her handiwork. “You were sound asleep,” she explained. “I crept out of beddie-byes and did a little online research. Seems I have natural aptitude.”

“Seems you have.” It was slightly more tricky, he discovered, keeping one’s voice level when totally incapacitated. Instinctively he shunted about, testing the bonds. God. He really was going nowhere.

Then she was climbing onto him, those prettily plump thighs pressing against his spread legs and her arms linking behind his head as she settled on him. “Gotcha.” She giggled and kissed him. Well, at least his captor was endearing. “Now, there are only two rules.”

“There are rules?”

“Two. The first works totally in your favour.”

“Okay, and what’s that?”

“Well, if you do manage to get the best of my stupendous rope-work,” she said, dropping her voice and moving close so that her lips brushed his ear, “you can fuck this hot girl any nasty way you want. You can use her up, daddy.”

“O-kay.” His cock was expanding and tightening in response to her carefully chosen words. “That would work in my favour if you didn’t have that natural talent. And the other rule, dare I ask?”

“That’s the safe-word,” she said, and her tongue traced the ridges of his ear. “Safe-phrase. I’ve decided on one.”

“And what have you decided?” God, this should be choice.

“If …” Her arms wrapped tighter and she nuzzled him. “If at any stage you decide you’ve had enough, all you have to do is say three little words.”

“Okay, just tell me.”

“All you have to say, baby, is, ‘I’m—your—bitch.’ ” She kissed the corner of his mouth. “Got it?”

Laughter blurted from him. He couldn’t suppress it. She’d played him perfectly, this bundle of surprises, there was no denying it. Her cutesy check-out-how-bad-I-am act had lulled him into this chair and kept him placid until he was firmly knotted in place. He would keep underestimating how smart she was, wouldn’t he?

“You’re not serious.”

“If you don’t know I’m serious, then you don’t know me at all yet. Time to learn, baby. Kiss me.”

Her lips landed on his. Smooth plumped velvet. Her crooked arms cradled his head and he succumbed to the exploration of her wet mouth like it was his last meal as a condemned man. There was a thrilling sense of trepidation now as her tongue stroked. It occurred how little idea he had of what lay in store. Scarves, ropes, unutterable safe-word—she knew how to improvise, how to make use of her time, how to play his kind of game. It only remained to be seen how well. Exactly how scared should he be? Perhaps as much as he was excited.

“You do realise I’m never going to say those words, don’t you?” he said when her mouth parted from his.

“I don’t expect you to say them easily.” She gripped his neck with her arms and slid herself further up his thighs, so that her lace-enclosed tits brushed his nipples. “But I’m so up for the challenge. That’s why you like me.” She tongued his lips and when he made to claim her mouth with his she backed off till his bonds pulled tight against his chest. “See? You’re chasing after me already with nowhere to go and I haven’t even started yet.”

There was wanton self-destruction in his next words. Somehow he couldn’t help but utter them. “Bring it on then, daddy’s girl, or I’ll think you’re all talk. Show me what you’ve got.” Was he mad? Hell, he could hardly incense her any more than she clearly already was. And what was life if you didn’t broaden your horizons?

“So what are you waiting for?” he asked with as reckless a tone as he could summon up. “Impress me.” Her laughed response was breathy, mocking, all but indiscernible. It was a contender for the most erotic sound he had ever heard. And it made him shudder.

TO BE CONTINUED