“Turn around,” he commanded.
Her feet obeyed before her thoughts had formed. Blaise lifted one of her wrists. His fingers encircled it, and he then laid the silk against it.
“You may tell me to stop at any time,” he said calmly.
“You would truly stop if I said so?”
“I would,” he said simply, and she believed him. “Lie down on the bed.”
She did as she was told, and he began to wind the silk around her wrist. Each turn tightened with the softest pull until it felt snug but not biting.
Iris knew then that she would not tell him to stop.
He bound her other wrist, then drew her arms above her head. A low sound worked its way up her throat. The vulnerable stretch of her body, the lift of her breasts, and the instinctive arch of her back all combined into a singular awareness that she was on display.
She heard a faint metallic clink overhead and watched in the ceiling mirror how he had secured the silk to some cleverly hidden ring. She could still move slightly.
“Look at yourself, Iris,” he said, stepping aside.
Iris did not want to. But she did.
Her reflection in the ceiling mirror stole her breath. Her cheeks burned, and shame rose, thick and choking.
“Is this what you wanted?” she demanded, hearing the tremor in her voice. “To see me helpless and… like this?”
His reflection joined hers in the glass. He kneeled beside her on the bed, hands loose at his sides, gaze traveling slowly up the bound lines of her arms, the peak of her breasts, the hollow at her throat. When his eyes met hers, they were intent.
“You are not helpless,” he said. “You chose to let me bind you. You may choose to have me unbind you. That is not helplessness. That is power.”
Blaise dipped his head. His lips brushed the tender place beneath her ear. Her body reacted with startling violence; her knees weakened, heat streaking from that light contact straight down through her belly. The silk at her wrists held firm, reminding her of her own acquiescence.
“You look,” he whispered against her skin, “exquisite.”
She made a small, protesting noise. “You said you would speak only truths.”
“And I am,” he said.
His mouth traced the line of her jaw, the slope of her neck. Blaise moved one hand upward, fingertips gliding between her breasts. Then lower down the rigid center to the slight softness of her stomach. He never touched where she wanted him most, that throbbing center of aching awareness between her thighs, butevery path he traced led toward it and then away again, mocking her.
He sank to one knee between her legs. The movement dragged his hands down along her hips, over the firm fullness there, and then to her thighs.
Iris gasped as he lifted her leg and placed a kiss on her heel. Her breath turned ragged.
“Spread your feet,” he said.
Iris’s blush went all the way down her chest. Still, she obeyed, feeling the stretch of muscles, the way it opened her.
His hands pressed her thighs further apart, a murmur of approval escaping him.
“Do you still feel humiliated, Little Blossom?”
The word had become soft and unfamiliar. It no longer fit what she felt.
She closed her eyes on a shaky exhale, then forced them open at once, remembering his command.
“No,” she whispered. “I feel as though I am burning with want.”
His breath drew in sharply. “And what is it you want, little blossom?”
