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“Did you know that this chaise lounge has been in the house since I owned it?” I see Edward’s hand out of the corner of my eye. He runs his fingers over the inlaid wood. “It used to be in the master suite. I have laid many a countess over the arm of this sofa, just the way you are now. And yet, none of them have looked as beautiful as you, or meant so much to me. Pax, tie her ankles next.”
Pax leaps forward to fulfil Edward’s demands. His rough fingers tug my ankles wider, tying them to the feet of the sofa. He makes quick work of the knots. I test the restraints. I won’t be escaping any time soon.
“Ambrose.” Edward’s voice is thick with need. “You can touch her now. I want you to see how beautiful our Brianna is tied up like this, like a present waiting to be unwrapped.”
Our Brianna.
I like the sound of that.
I like it almost as much as the way my whole body ripples and tightens from just the movement of air across my bare skin. There is something so raw about this, and yet so safe. They make me feel safe.
Ambrose bites his lip as he steps forward. He reaches out a ghostly hand. His fingers dance across my back, and that now familiar ghostly tingle shoots heat straight between my legs.
He moves his hands over me, his face turning rapturous as he explores my naked skin. He slides his fingers first along the curve of my ass, then back over my shoulders and down, down, to cup my breasts. He grazes the sharp points of my nipples, and I gasp, straining against the restraints for…what?
For whatever they will give me.
I moan in protest as Ambrose moves his hands away, dancing trails down my arms, over the inside of my elbows, to my bound wrists. He stops.
“You said that you’d show me another way to please a woman? But Bree is tied up? How can this be pleasing?” His voice rises.
“Love and sex and death and agony,” Edward intones. “These are the worlds a poet inhabits. They are more linked than we might believe. If we bring our greatest fears into the boudoir and confront them while in the safety of a lover’s embrace, we might find that we have nothing so much to be afraid of anymore. And Brianna’s greatest fear is what will happen if she can no longer run away. How do you feel, Brianna?”
“Good,” I say, my voice coming out husky. “Strange. Nervous, but in a good way.”
Ambrose looks unsure. His fingers pass through the cord. “Is she truly restrained?” he asks, his voice catching. “She can’t escape and run away?”
“I got a Centurion Scouts badge for my Roman knotwork,” Pax declares happily. “She won’t be slipping out.”
“Good,” Edward says. “Now, for the final touch. See that scarf draped over the back of that chair? I want you to wrap it around her head, covering her eyes and her ears.”
“Edward…” I start to warn as the fear plunges into my chest. But it’s too late, Pax is pulling it over my eyes. I blink in the gloom. I can still see a few snatches of light from the wall sconces and the moonlight out the window, but I can no longer see them.
“Now, Roman, I need you to come with me,” Edward says. I can just make out his words with the scarf over my ears. “We require some supplies from the kitchen, and obviously I can’t be expected to carry them myself.”
Ah, yes, there’s that old Edward.
He lowers his voice as he explains his plan to Pax, but they’re too quiet for me to hear their plans. Next thing I know, Pax plants a kiss on the top of my head and promises they’ll be right back.
Wait, what? They’ll be right back?
This is not happening.
“Wait?” I call out.
But they didn’t answer. Those absolute bastards. They just left me here, tied to the chaise, my pussy aching for them. I jerk my arms, but it’s no good; I’m trussed up tight, although one of the moldavite stones rolls off my back.
“Edward, I am going to kill you!” I yell.
“You can’t kill that which is already dead,” he cheekily calls back.
“Bree, are you okay?” Ambrose’s muffled voice breaks through.
Am I okay? I don’t know anymore. I trust them, Itrustthem, but the urge to run, to be free, rises inside me, and…
I feel something cold jerking on my restraints, and then a flash of one of Ambrose’s memories – I’m sitting beside a roaring fireplace at an inn in Germany, eating a hearty stew while snow falls outside. I’m thinking about the ruins of a medieval castle I visited that day, how the tower stairs were worn smooth beneath my stick from centuries of feet moving up and down. Contentment settles in my belly, but there’s something else there, too. A loneliness, a wish that I could share this joy with another…
As quickly as the memory appears, it fades, but the contentment remains. And so do the cold, frantic fingers tangling with the cord.
