Page 8 of Bound

The lower west wing of the Iceland house is the only part I left open when the house was built. I stand outside the door with Erin at my side and feel, absurdly, more exposed than I did the first time she saw the scars on my chest.

She’s fed. She’s rested. She’s wearing a black dress I bought her, and I can only hope she wears other purchases I made underneath.

She looks at the black door. Then at me. Then at the door again.

Finally, she says, “This is either where you keep bodies or where you keep something ridiculously expensive.”

“Or” I counter, “it’s the room I had built last night.”

Her brows lift. “What? I thought you were joking when you said that.”

She has no idea the reach our wealth has.

“Lucian.” My name in her mouth.

Warning. Invitation. Exasperation. Need.

Always need. No matter how angry or frustrated she is with me, she’s never stopped wanting me.

I place my palm against the biometric lock. The panel glows blue, then gold. The door releases with a soft click.

Erin’s eyes narrow. “Did you put my handprint on there?”

I open the door before she can decide whether to be furious or not care.

The lights come on slowly. A warm, sensual glow. Low lines of illumination hidden behind dark wood panels and black stone arches. The room opens wide and quiet before us, carved into the lower level of the house with one wall of glass facing the black Icelandic coast far below.

No one can see in. I threatened men with death to ensure no one would ever see what is mine.

The glass is reinforced, tinted, shielded, and wired to enough alarms to wake the dead. The view beyond it is all storm and sea and jagged rock.

Inside, the room is heat. Leather. Velvet. Silk. Dark wood.

A wide bed sits against the far wall, lower and broader than a normal bed, covered in black sheets and a deep red throw so soft even I touched it after it arrived. A chaise curves near the fire. A cabinet of drawers lines one wall. Beside it, shelves hold candles, oils, folded silk, soft restraints, blindfolds, toys chosen with obsessive care and more restraint than I deserve credit for.

A copper bathtub sits in an adjoining alcove behind a screen of smoky glass.

There are no cages. I almost added one. Then I thought of Erin’s face when she told me something along the lines of me not getting to make control sound romantic.

There are no cages. Only choices. Like now, when she doesn’t choose to step inside.

I wait. She looks at the room for a long time. I have stood in rooms with guns aimed at my head and waited with less difficulty.

Finally, she says, with that wicked little mouth that ruined me for all other women, “What would the Airbnb listing be for this? Sex dungeon with ocean views?”

She’s nervous but smiling. Aren’t nervous and excited the same emotion?

“It is not a dungeon,” I say.

She steps across the threshold. Slowly. “No?”

“No.”

“Because there’s toys in here?” She gives a half-laugh.

“Because you are free to leave at any moment.”

Her expression shifts from amusement to something quieter.