Elena didn’t want to picture it, yet somehow she could. He would have looked like an older version of Dimitri as he stayed hidden in the back of the car, waiting, heart pounding as he made the choice to die to avenge his wife’s murder rather than stay alive for his son.
“This is why I am afraid to try to give you what you ask,” Dimitri said.
“What do you mean?”
His eyes closed, and she lost herself counting his long lashes fanned out on his cheeks.
“There’s a darkness inside me, kiska. My life has been full of pain. It has shaped me in part to need things I cannot ask of you. You aren’t made for my darkness.”
“Don’t you think I have darkness in me?” she asked quietly. Her hand had traveled to his lower stomach and paused, resting against the steel-hard perfection of his abdomen.
“You are light, pure and bright. There is no darkness in you.” Dimitri said this with such conviction that it surprised her.
“You’re wrong. Let me prove it to you.” She sat up in bed. “Before Vadym . . . before he took me, I was not some sheltered virgin who dreamt of fairy-tale princes. I had hungers, Dimitri, ones that align closely with your own.”
At this he sat up as well. “No, kiska. You don’t have to prove anything to me.” He growled the words as his dominant side began to emerge.
Elena controlled her suddenly fast breathing. “Maybe I need to prove it to myself.” She slipped out of bed and left the room. She went into his room next door, and she found what she was looking for before she returned to him. He had gotten out of bed too and was standing in her doorway. His eyes fell to what she held in her hand, a gray silk tie. She extended her hand, offering it to him.
“Kiska . . . ,” he warned in that addictive voice.
“I just want to try it. Just the restraint . . .” She wanted him to be the one who held her down, who controlled her. If she could trust him and trust the experience, it would be a huge leap forward for her.
She pressed the tie to his chest. Then she skirted around him and walked back to the bed. She climbed in and lay on her back, waiting. He turned around slowly, the silk tie glowing pale and silver in the moonlight from the wall of windows that faced the sea.
Dimitri coiled the tie around his hand, pulling the fabric taut. It was similar to what Vadym had used to do with a leather belt. Her heart slammed against her rib cage, but she didn’t take her eyes off Dimitri. He wasn’t Vadym, and when he was near her, she felt the way a woman was supposed to feel when she was with a man she desired.
He approached the bed, storm clouds still hovering in his eyes. Even in this simple action, she was mesmerized by his raw, commanding power.
“Come here.” He pointed to the side of the bed. Elena sat up and moved to the edge and let her legs drop off the side.
“Hands.” His tone was gentle but brooked no argument, just the way a Dom in her deepest, most secret fantasies would sound.
Elena extended her wrists out to him, and he pulled the tie from around his clenched fist. Then he began to wrap the silk around her wrists, binding them together. He pulled the tie tight enough to trap her hands together, but when he was finished knotting the silk, she could feel proper blood flow. Vadym had never . . . She shook herself free of any more thoughts of that man. She was with Dimitri now, and that was all that mattered.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “Red, yellow, or green?”
Those words were far easier to use while her mind was flooded with thoughts and reactions. “Green . . .”
“You don’t sound sure.” He sat beside her on the bed.
“Green with a hint of yellow,” she clarified. “Could we . . . try more?” Her heart was racing as her mind caught up to what her body wanted.
“How much more?”
She bit her lip. It was so embarrassing to explain what she wanted. A good Dom would have been able to just act and let her slow things down when she got to a point she wasn’t ready for. But these were far from normal circumstances for them both.
“Um, what if we just sort of keep going and I’ll tell you when it’s too much?”
Dimitri’s brows pulled together into a scowl. He looked like he hated the sound of it, but Elena didn’t want to stop. In the light of day, she would never be able to ask him to do this, but the night had given her some power back, and she didn’t want to waste it.
“Please, Dimitri.”
He held her bound hands and stroked the backs of her knuckles in light little caresses.
“I shouldn’t agree to this,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
“I need to see how far I can go.”
He finally answered with a slow nod and got up from the bed.
“Where are you going?”
He was at the door when he spoke. “To get more ties.”
8
Elena held her breath as Dimitri stepped back into her bedroom with more silk ties. He tossed them onto the bed before he bent in front of her and lifted her to her feet by tugging gently on her bound wrists. He walked her to the glass windows facing the sea.
“Watch the ocean,” he commanded, then stepped behind her. Little apprehensive tremors moved through her. She didn’t like her back exposed.
“Dimitri . . .”
“Kiska, you will use red, yellow, or green when I do something you have a strong reaction to, good or bad, do you understand?”
She nodded.
He curled a hand around her waist. “Did Vadym order you to call him master?”
She flinched at the vile, debasing memories that resurfaced.
“What would you prefer to
