She didn’t seem comfortable with the pause between them, so she moved forward. Stopping a few feet away, she twisted her hair up, holding it to let the cool air touch her nape. The position cocked her hips provocatively in the heels she was wearing. “Can you dance?”

“I can manage a step or two when pushed to it.”

“I expect you excel at this kind of dancing. At all sorts of dancing.”

“What I want is for you to dance for me, Raina. Make me hard the way you made him hard.”

She pursed her lips, her lashes lowering. “You’re already hard.” But she rolled her hips in that figure eight movement that could scramble a man’s brain, pivoting on her toe as she did it, so he saw it from every angle. She gave him a smoldering look over her shoulder.

Rising, he held out his hand. She backed away, continuing her dance, untying the sash as part of her choreography, her hips shimmying in the brief skirt. She worked her way around him, her fingers trailing along his back, his waist, his hip, and then she pivoted away again, the sash fluttering out, leaving her bare from the waist up.

He caught it, yanked, and sent her spinning back against him. Putting his hand low on her back, he dipped his fingers under the short skirt to tease the indentation between her buttocks. When her lips curved, he knew she’d taunted him deliberately to see if he’d take over. She had no idea how deep and dark a place that was for him when it came to her. But he was about to show her.

“You’re done with your client. Time to deliver on your promise.”

She gave him a look, moved to the wall, to the intercom system. He heard Ellen pick up. “Yes, Raina?”

“Has Marisa finished with her appointment?”

“Yes.”

“Have her rotate hostess duties with Ana and Li. They can let me know if they have any problems.”

“All right. Have fun.” The mischief and amusement in Ellen’s voice didn’t translate to the intensity of what was happening in this room, but then Raina clicked off and it was just the two of them. He came to her where she stood by the doors, slid his arms around her, brought her back to the middle of the floor. Her heart was pounding, her lips parted. He inhaled her scent, a drug he would always crave.

Lowering her to the smooth wood, he let her legs slide between his like a dance maneuver in truth, but when he knelt, he placed his knee between hers, laid his hands on her thighs and parted them, pushing them out and up, bending her knees. He felt the quiver, that female acknowledgment of him looming over her, a potential threat or temptation. “Put your arms over your head.”

That trembling increased, but she did it, with a lift of her chin and a fire in her eyes that said she was doing it because she wanted to do it, not because he’d commanded it. The two went hand in hand with her, and she knew it as well as he did, no matter what games she wanted to play.

“Dance for me now, Raina.” He cupped her buttocks, put his weight on his heels and lifted her up to his mouth, pushing back that skirt with the pressure of his mouth coming to her sex. He teased the labia and clit through the satin of the thong as her hips bucked, rolled, the most carnal dance of all, and a gasp broke from her lips. She was wet, whether from her dance with Jorge or from Mikhael watching, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He was the only male getting to taste that sweet honey.

He flicked her clit with his tongue, swirled over her labia until the insistent grind of her hips said she wanted him penetrating, his tongue fucking her, or his cock. He took her close to the climax, pushing against the clit, that satin friction helping him until she was panting, her face flushed. Then he backed off, because he knew how he wanted her this time, and for that he had to have her hot and wanting, no room for fears in the heat.

Turning her over on her stomach, he caught her hands, tied the sash around her wrists and then wound the sash all the way up to the elbows, cinching them close so she felt the strain in her shoulders, but not enough for true pain. Just the arousing discomfort of bondage, of making her helpless. Her bare breasts thrust out, tempting him.

“Mikhael.”

“Sshh. No talking unless I give you permission. Just feel it, Raina.” He folded her over his shoulder, rising to his feet. He had one hand steadying her by the waist and hip, but before her tension could take over, he put the other back between her legs, finding that wetness and stroking it, keeping up the manipulation that had her making little frenetic jerks against his shoulder, as well as pleading noises that drove him crazy.

Leaving the ballroom, he went down to the private playroom he’d seen on the way. It was empty, so he didn’t have to bark at anyone and send them scuttling. Shutting the door with his foot, he brought her back to her feet in front of him. Tied deliciously, her breasts thrust out, shoulders back, unsteady on her heels so she had to depend on him to keep her balanced. Her hair was disheveled, and he pushed it back from her face, tightening his fingers on it. Her eyes were wide, lips parted, and he saw the uncertainty trying to break through, the fear and memory. She was on the brink of terror, and her gaze went to him, panicked.

“Easy,” he said quietly. Pushing her down with that hold in her ebony locks, he supported her until she made a safe descent to her knees, then kept holding her hair so she had to look at his face, the way he was devouring her with his eyes. It was the picture in her lower parlor, and he saw that memory kick in, calm her somewhat.

“What music do you play to relax?”

“Enya,” she managed. “Watermark album.”

“Pick another. Enya sucks the testosterone right out of a man’s balls.”

Her lush lips curved. “I have a couple clients who’ll disagree with that.”

“They don’t count, because something’s obviously wrong with their wiring.” He cocked his head. “Did you just talk about other men you’ve had? Didn’t we discuss that?”

She tossed her head, trying to free her hair from his grip, but, of course, that just made his grip constrict. “I don’t recall.”

“Let me see if I can help you remember.”

There was a padded spanking bench in the room, beautiful craftsmanship, like everything she bought for Sweet Dreams. Bringing her to her feet, he guided her over to it, made her stand there watching him as he ran his hand over the cushion and woodwork, appreciating it. Then he pushed her down to her knees on the one step and folded her over it. She was quivering again, and he made an incoherent murmur as he secured her to it with straps, enjoying the look of her breasts propped over the opposite side. He combed her hair forward as he put a slim functional collar on her, snapped a tether to it and hooked that tether to the base of the bench. Then he bound her knees to the step, spread apart so he could see what was between them from any angle he wished.

She was silent, but her body was a tuning fork, vibrating with so many responses he couldn’t stop watching her, registering every minute change. He’d worked her up in the other room, and now she was well on her way to mindless arousal. Her hands were opening and closing helplessly in the straps, making him even hotter.

Helpless and his. He stroked down her back, then pulled his blade and cut the skirt off her with a sharp touch of steel, doing the same to the thong. He yanked it all free, leaving her naked except for her restraints and the glorious hair.

“Mikhael.”

“I’m here.”

She swallowed. “Mikhael.” It was a bare whisper, and something he couldn’t resist. Kneeling before her, he lifted her face and kissed her mouth, tugging on the collar. She put a lot of raw need in that kiss, nothing practiced about it, inciting pure male satisfaction. It was desperate, greedy, and it lit a fire inside of him that would be assuaged only when he was balls deep inside of her. But it also called forth something else.

He traced her lips. “I’m right here. You can trust me.”

The room was all rich velvet, hushed anticipation. He picked up a blindfold. Her expression changed, skin paling, but he shook his head, slid it over her eyes. “You’re with me, Raina. You’re safe. You’re mine. Just feel.”

Trembling had become shaking, but she wasn’t saying no. She was getting lost in it, lost in a miasma that could go straight to a heavenly space or right into hell, if he did this wrong. But he wasn’t going to do it wrong.

Her sexual energy had turned almost completely flame orange, with some bare slivers of green that indicated she wasn’t entirely immersed, that some parts of her were still working through the past. He was going to help her burn that house down.

IT WAS A DIFFERENT SIDE OF HIM. TENDER WASN’T THE right word. Maybe tender implacability fit, because he wasn’t going to release her even if she begged, and that refusal was part of what she craved. She knew she was safe and he wouldn’t harm her, no matter what. It was the first time she’d felt that at the hands of a male. She’d promised him everything. Now she called on the courage that had served her in all other parts of her life and gave it to him.

“C-Can’t s-stop-p shaking,” she admitted, and was rewarded by a fierce satisfaction in his voice.

“That’s the way it works at first. When it’s done right.”

“I—I know. Just n-never felt…felt it…m-myself.”

He rose, trailing his fingers down her back again so she could feel he was still there. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first day I met you.”

The clap of his palm against her bare buttock was loud in the velvet room. She jumped but felt a flash of desperate humor, knowing that there were several levels to his declaration, but then, she had no space for humor, for any emotional retreat at all. He gave her a good spanking, until she felt the heat from both buttocks and flinched at the sting, but she didn’t want him to stop. When he slapped her between the legs, she moaned. As he came back around, she was squirming and panting, as close to begging as she’d ever been. He knew it.

“Want to say something to me, Raina?” He wouldn’t use the word that had plunged her into that bad place before, but eventually, she thought maybe he could. He’d wipe all that away with every kiss, every touch.