How had his voice not been terrifying as we sat eating dinner on the cliff edge? Now he reminded me of every psycho movie I’d ever seen and my heart was thundering like a posse under my ribs. Gianni GianCarlo’s eyes traveled to my clamped breasts.

They must have been trembling with every resounding thump underneath because he stroked the side of one, like you would a scared pet. I stared at him, holding his eyes, colder than the ice cube, desperate to read his intentions.

The main question galloping through my brain was what was he doing in Valentine’s chateau.

“We are entirely – godless,” he said as he tugged hard on the clamp until he extracted a sharp gasp.

He walked around my hanging basket, examining the fruit poking through and his spiteful fingers again trailed across my pussy, eliciting a shudder.

“Don’t cringe,” he commanded. “Do not cringe from me.”

He walked away but there was no relief. The absolute certainty settled into every pore that I was not going to be living very much longer. Strangely, my heart stopped thudding and a calm wrapped around me. My ears were stretching to hear his movements. The clink of metal on stone. The snap of an old clasp.

His soft footsteps creeping back toward me. I steeled myself, expecting the vicious pinch of a clamp on the flesh he’d just engorged with the ice cube.

With all my anticipation focused on my naked spread, the sharp point in my cheek made me jolt with a gasp.

“Oh my pretty, don’t be afraid,” Gianni burred as he dragged the glinting knife along my thigh and back up. “It won’t hurt after the first cut.”

“Cut,” I mewled, stupidly.

My brain had cut out. He seemed very far away. The sharp burn in my flesh was someone else, not me. Gianni GianCarlo was about to slice me up.

My mind was a whirlpool, spinning, swirling, down, down.

The voice was very far now. Barely audible.

“Get. The. Fuck. Away. From her. Asshole.”

The dagger probing my flesh dropped away as the sound of metal on stone reverberated around my head. Everything around me was telescoping, like a lens zooming in and out, blurred and way too fast. A flash of black and a thud. Gianni was a ragdoll on the floor, his shoulder propped into the stone wall. For the first time I stopped swinging in mid air and felt myself supported.

“Answer me, Andie,” the voice cutting me down ordered. “Are you okay, baby?”

“Jay?” I moaned, my lips refusing to operate.

“Thank fuck,” he growled. “It’s okay. I’ve got you now.”

He did. He’d cut me down from the hanging pulley with Gianni’s knife but I flinched every time he tried to cut through the tight cobweb of knotted ropes binding me.

“Fuck,” he swore as I cringed again from the chill metal touching my skin. “We don’t have time.”

“Who am I?” I moaned groggily, lolling against Jay’s solid chest where he’d propped me while he removed his dinner jacket.

“Andie Cannon, interior designer and perfectly beautiful woman, that’s who,” he snapped out.

“Where?” I forced my lips to enunciate. I meant to say where am I. “Did you miss dinner?”

“Stop talking, Andie,” Valentine said.

He wrapped his jacket around my shoulders then hefted me up, fireman style, as though I were a weightless doll, over his shoulder. He palmed my ass and I realized he was making sure I wasn’t exposed as he headed out of the dungeon and down the stone passageway.

Valentine was powerful, his shoulder felt solid as rock face under my tummy. He moved swiftly down the corridor and up the stone steps that looked like they belonged in a real dungeon. This was no room I’d ever seen in the winery, ancient and damp. Again I mouthed the word ‘Where’ but Valentine was too occupied with getting me away.

At the top of the stairs, he took another passage. So damp there was green growing at the corners. I lifted my head to look around but I was still bound into the cocoon of rope, hog-tied. Tossed over Valentine’s strong shoulder, I saw only the ground, and then a pair of huge boots.

The owner lumbered up from a chair, surprised by our arrival. Valentine’s arm clamped me onto his shoulder and I felt his body tense as he prepped for confrontation. I twirled and jolted, feeling like I was being tossed on a fairground ride. Valentine drop-kicked the guy dashing at us, then spun around to elbow him, grab him and face plant him into the stone wall.

“I’m going to be sick,” I whimpered. Being up side down and thrown about had my stomach heaving.

Valentine leapt and we went flying through the air, then landed.

He hefted me off his shoulder and set me down on terra firma for the first time in days. Except the ground was now bobbing up and down on a current. The blood suctioned out of my cheeks and I heaved for real. Valentine picked me up in his arms and took me to a white leather bench. There he set me on my knees with my face over the side, staring at myself in the reflection of the green water.

His hand rested on the small of my back, so comforting, so safe. My need to puke disappeared at the same moment as the strength in my knees. I crumpled in a heap onto his lap.

He scooped me up against his chest, encircling me into his arms like two iron bands clamping around me, still bound like a fly in my rope web.

“Jesus,” he swore profusely, noticing the clamps on my nipples.

Very carefully he removed each one and tossed it into the water. My eyes came into focus at last, like I’d popped back in after an out of body experience. I lifted my gaze up to Jay and found him looking down at me so tenderly, with so much care, tears popped right up in my eyes.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re safe,” he gritted out, stroking my cheek and hair. “With me.”

He lifted me in his powerful bridegroom hold, the same one I remembered from when he carried me to my room after our first night together. This time he took a few steps across the deck of the boat and sat me curled up in the shotgun seat. After tucking his jacket around me snugly, he turned the ignition key and the speedboat glided out of the dock onto – holy crap – the Grand Canal.

“What am I doing in Venice?” I whispered.

But the throttle kicked in and the nose lifted as Valentine powered the craft down the black-green water lined with ancient huge palaces.

I lay curled in my seat, weak and very naked even covered by Valentine's voluminous jacket. This ought to be the most romantic night of my life instead of the most terrifying. In Venice, under a starry sky with the man I loved. The man who just came for me, rescued me from something to vile to contemplate.

We rounded a wide bend and a glowing white building came into view, illuminated against the black night like a beacon. Warmth infiltrated every pore and I felt incredibly safe from the sight of the massive church with the huge dome. And from Valentine at my side to protect me. I had no clue what the hell was going on and I was too exhausted to wonder.

Valentine cut the engine and maneuvered the long boat to align with a wooden dock. He dropped the rope around a striped pole sticking out of the water then lifted me into his arms. He climbed out of the boat carrying me as though I were weightless. Perhaps I’d lost a few pounds during my incarceration.

He strode down the planks and marched into a grand building, all gold and liveried servants. I shriveled into his broad chest, humiliated at being so publicly exposed. Even though his jacket was around me, my thighs were bare, I wore no shoes. I must look like a waif he picked up out of the plague.

“Sir,” the concierge ran forward and trotted alongside as Valentine walked to the reception desk.

Thank god it was the middle of the night and a thousand tourists weren't milling around the swanky lobby.

“Key?” Valentine held out his hand and one was immediately dropped.

“Does madam require anything?” the concierge inquired.

“Send up tea, some hot milk, a bottle of cognac. Fruit, cheese and that stuff Americans eat at breakfast.”

“Oatmeal, sir.”

“Yeah, that. And the biggest pair of scissors you can find.”

The doors closed on the elevator and we rode up.

“Are you okay, Baby?” he asked.

“Am I heavy?” was my response to which he laughed.

“You’re as light as a fairy princess,” he said and tipped his head down to kiss my forehead.

Okay, where is Jay Valentine, what have you done with him? Apparently all the men I thought I knew had done complete personality turnarounds.

Jay opened the door, doors rather, to a huge suite and kicked them shut behind him.

Jay crossed the room and lay me down, very gently, like placing a priceless object on its velvet pillow.

I had never felt such a blissful cloud of mattress, after dangling in ropes for god knows how long. He looked at me and all I could detect aside from concern, was adoration. But I was probably projecting, like always. Dumping the emotion that suffused hotly through me onto him.

“You’re lucky I’m tied up,” I whispered as he climbed onto the bed beside me, leaning on one elbow so his bicep flexed under the white shirt.

“Yeah, why’s that?” he husked.

He started unpicking knots. I noticed he was having a hard time not trailing his eyes over my naked body all trussed up.

“Because I’d throw my arms around you and never let you go.”

“Plenty of time for that,” he rasped and tipped his head to plant a kiss on my shoulder.