She shook her head no, wondering what he was going to tie her up with that would damage the delicate material. But before she had time to really consider it she felt the cool touch of metal against her skin and glanced down to see him slipping a pair of safety scissors under the front band of her bra. She gasped as in one snip it fell open, and in two more the straps were cut and the remains of the filmy garment fell to the floor.

She knew what was coming, but all the same it made her breath catch when he cut her underwear off her and pulled the fabric away, leaving her in nothing but a few feet of rope and her heels. But she was proud of her body—she only arched her back, raising her bare breasts higher.

She heard a small chuckle from him. “Very good, princess. That’s exactly what I want to see. I can tell you like it, being naked, on your knees.” He leaned over her and fisted her bound hair in his hand once more, yanking hard, and she pulled in a sharp breath. His face was right next to hers, his cheek pressed against hers. He said quietly, “Now we’ll find out just how much you like this.”

She closed her eyes as he pressed two fingers right into the damp heat between her thighs, sliding in her juices. Pleasure lanced into her.

“Christ, you’re wet, baby. Do you know what that does to me? Entices the beast to come out of its cave. But we can’t have that. Not yet, that’s for sure. We’ll just have to do something about it.”

He let her hair go, pulled his fingers from her, leaving her shivering with need and heat, and returned with more rope, which he laid on the floor next to her, coiled into bundles. With quick hands he began to fashion a harness around her breasts, the rope sliding and slinking over her skin like a snake, sending small vibrations through her system. She loved every moment of it—the sensation of being slowly decorated, of being rendered helpless, being in his hands.

His hands.

As he drew the ropes tighter around her breasts, one rope across the top, another beneath them, she felt the pressure, making them even more sensitive, the sinuous slide of the rope across her skin making her nipples hard. Making her shiver. He worked the rope between her breasts, making a series of knots in the center that pressed painfully against her ribs, but she loved it. Wanted it.

He slid his hand under the rope there, pulled hard, pulling her up onto her knees. Ah, this was good, being handled this roughly. She didn’t dare look up at him, keeping her gaze on the floor. But oh, how she wanted to. Wanted to see that animal banked and burning in his gray gaze.

“Very good,” he murmured. “I like seeing the rope on you, the way it presses into your flesh. What do you feel in them, Allie? Tell me.”

“I feel . . .” She had to pause, to take in a breath, which was a bit harder to do with the chest harness in place, just as it was when she wore a corset. “I feel . . . as if I’m being held. Hugged. I feel . . . excited. And safe, somehow.”

“You are made for this, Allie girl. Made for my ropes, aren’t you? Stay right there.”

The ropes were sliding again as he worked them through the chest harness and down around her body—her ribs, her waist, across her back, and finally, between her legs. The rope slipped between her thighs, against her aching sex, and she almost cried out, her thighs shaking.

He was quiet as he worked, but she could hear his breath, almost as heavy as her own, felt the pressure and easing of hands as he moved the rope, tied knots, stopped to pull on the harness for no other purpose than to make her feel commanded. To make them pull hard against her swollen clit, to tighten there until the rope sank painfully between her pussy lips.

Oh, God, she loved it.

When he tipped her over onto her side she didn’t protest, she just went down onto the floor, the rug a bit scratchy against her bare skin. He rolled her over onto her stomach with rough hands. She had always loved being manhandled a bit while in scene. But when he pulled her ankles up and she understood he meant to hog-tie her, something in her rebelled, her legs going stiff.

He was on her in a moment, his knee in her back, one hand pulling her torso up off the floor by the ropes crossing between her shoulder blades. She felt utterly helpless, taken over, which was exactly what she wanted, yet was also what was making her panic now.

“Allie, I’m going to give you a chance to tell me what this is about.”

“I can’t, Mick,” she started, but tears lodged in her throat and she had to stop.

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t be . . . humiliated. Not with you. Please don’t.”

“This is not humiliation. This is beauty,” he said, his tone low, quiet. Reverential in a way she understood. In a way that calmed her instantly. He ran a hand over her spine between the ropes. “The graceful angles of the body. The level of submission it signals. Seeing the flesh bound in my ropes is pure art to me. Your flesh . . . well, I’ve been waiting a long time to do this, which I believe you already know. That’s . . . almost indescribable. So damn beautiful.”

She felt her limbs loosen. His grip on her softened, and he let her back down onto the floor, where she turned her cheek, resting it on the wool rug.

“You’re ready now,” he told her. Told, not asked. It didn’t matter. It was true.

He drew her ankles up once more, wrapped them in the sensually sliding rope, making her acutely aware of the bones and flesh there, then he tied them off with a few knots. He slipped a length of rope under the knots between her ankles and led it to her body harness, where he worked it through the ropes across her back, and pulled on them until they drew her ankles up a bit more.

She was truly helpless now, except for her safe words, of course. But she didn’t need them. Her head was sinking deeply into subspace, which she realized distantly she hadn’t quite expected without more pain play. The only pain was the slight throbbing of her bound breasts pressed against the carpet, her nipples grazing the wool, and the rope that pulled hard against her sex. But she was soaking wet.

Mick’s big hand wrapped around her bound wrists, which were clasped behind her head. She heard the soft snick of moving rope as he bound the corset tie on her hair to her wrists. Then he pulled up, lifting her chest off the floor, raising her head with it.

“Tell me that you’re doing okay, Allie.”

“Yes. Yes,” she whispered.

“Are the ropes too tight anywhere? Cutting off circulation? Pressing too hard into bone?”

“No. The ropes are . . . good.”

She tried to just keep breathing, to keep her body loose. When he slipped some rope between her wrists and tied it to her ankles, drawing her body up, making it bow, shock coursed through her. The discomfort of the position was a part of the power of it all, she understood, but Jesus, she’d never felt so utterly helpless. But it was for him.

Him.

Mick.

He began to run his hands over her flesh, so gently she wanted to cry. Her skin was alive, every nerve ending in hyperdrive. She felt his touch like fire. Like nothing she’d ever felt in her life.

“You feel so damn good, Allie girl. Skin like fucking silk. I love the way the ropes press into your body.”

He reached down then and slid a hand under the knots at the small of her back, making the rope press harder against her sex.

She moaned.

“Yes, I like that, my girl—to hear how it hurts you, how you love it. Oh, yeah, I understand perfectly well it’s both pleasure and pain. And make no mistake—that is my intention. Because as much as I love rope, I am a bit of a sadist. But you already knew that. You wanted it, or you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

He moved his hand between her thighs, his fingers sliding in her juices.

“Christ, but you’re soaked.” His voice had turned to raw gravel, low and full of desire. “Makes me want to just . . . yeah.”