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“Then this is the way it happens. Or not at all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He didn’t have to sell me on this. Really, he didn’t. If he wanted to sweetly make love to me in what I assumed was the standard normal way, I would have probably found it unappealing in general, judging from what had just happened and the way I’d reacted to it. Despite my wild attraction to Shannon, I had a sneaking suspicion that much of that attraction was this dark sexual layer that I may not have seen consciously, but somewhere, deep inside my mind, in the places untouched by the amnesia, I’d recognized... something.
I might not have my memories, but I still knew in a very basic way what I liked because what I liked was formed and reaffirmed each moment I existed. I didn’t need decades of remembered history behind me to tell me grapes were delicious or sunsets were pretty or that I liked sex mixed up with a little bit of danger—or a lot, depending on an outside observer’s tolerance for risk. It seemed apparent that my tolerance for it was endless, despite this brief moment of visceral fear.
“I’ll leave your feet free as long as you don’t try to kick me. If you kick me, things will get ugly. Do you understand?”
I nodded quickly. I wasn’t sure what all that entailed for someone like Shannon in this particular situation, but I was one hundred percent sure I didn’t want to find out.
Instead of stripping off his jeans, he sat beside me, his hip settling into the groove of mine, the scratchy denim rough against my skin. He leaned over me and tweaked my nipple hard between his thumb and finger.
“Ow!”
He merely smiled in return. Unlike over by the wall, I could actually see his face now and how much he liked every drop of pain he delivered. My self-preservation finally kicked in, and there was nothing I wanted more than to get away from him.
I wanted to go back to the moment in the castle, the moment when he was going to call his friends and the police and get me some help. I closed my eyes and tried to remember it, the smell of burning flesh from the fireplace, the smell of Trevor’s blood. The smell of my fear.
Shannon was right. This was too dangerous, this fire I played with. He wasn’t some regular guy who liked a little slap and tickle with silk scarves. I twisted away, jerking hopelessly at the ropes.
“Let me go. I changed my mind.”
He looked angry. His hand moved up to wrap around my throat and he squeezed...just enough. Just enough to let me know the danger I was in, how completely I was at his mercy.
“Why?” he practically growled at me.
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Ilikeit. I like it so much that I never want it to end. So if you’re worried I’ll just snap and kill you or do serious damage, you can put those fears aside. I would never do anything to endanger my ability to do this again and again.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
Shannon’s eyes narrowed until all I could see were slits of pure evil. How could I have trusted this man? What was broken in me that I thought Shannon could give me safety?
He took his hand off my throat, and a whimper escaped my mouth. The second it was gone, I wanted him to put his hand right back where it had been. But it wasn’t safe.
“You gave me the rope. I was going to take the high road.”
“I know.”
“I told you if we crossed this line we weren’t going back.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I was so fucking stupid. It was like giving a bottle of whiskey to an alcoholic or asking a junkie to hold some heroin and syringes for a few days.
“No,” he ground out. “I told you not to come downstairs, but you came down anyway. I was going to let you go back to your room, and you put the rope in my hands. Do you want me to fuck you, Elodie? Don’t lie. I can’t abide liars.”
I wanted to say no, but if I lied to him, he would see right through me, and God help me if I ever betrayed him.
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to make sweet romantic love to you that we both know is a lie?”
I shook my head. The thought made the bile come up in my throat. It was too much like the sham with Trevor.
“Good. Because I don’t make love. You know you’re mine, right? You were mine the moment I laid eyes on you in the castle.”
My pulse fluttered harder in my throat.
