Gage managed to avoid me for the rest of the afternoon. We broke out into small group work, and while I was with Aaron and some PR people, he was huddled with Nikhil and tech R&D. In what seemed like both a handful of minutes and endless hours, the day was done and people began to talk about dinner.

I hesitated when Aaron and Bobbie asked me to join them for dinner in the village further down the mountain. If I was honest, I wanted to see what Gage was doing. I wanted to ask about his afternoon, and tell him about mine—as an employee, of course, conferencing with her boss.

Oh hell, who was I kidding? The man had me wrapped around his ankles like a stray cat.

Without any communication from him, though, I didn’t see a way to adroitly avoid going out for pizza for Aaron and Bobbie, and now Susan too. It wasn’t until we met in the lobby with our coats on that I finally spotted Gage.

He’d changed out of his casual clothes and was back in office attire, his jaw tight and his black hair sticking up in a few places as though he’d been running his hand through it.

Standing by the ever-burning fireplace, my body heated up quickly until I was looking forward to the cool air outside. Then he saw me, and if I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I might not have noticed something loosening in his expression—like an elastic band stretched too tight then easing.

Bobbie waved him over, but there was no need; he was making a straight line for me, his gaze never wavering from me. In fact, he may not have even noticed her gesture, so intent was his focus on me. I undid my coat, suddenly roasting beside the fire.

He stopped in front of me, blinking. “Madeline.” It wasn’t a question or admonition, but almost a compulsion to softly say my name. The sound of his voice made me quiver, but I remained mute.

“We’re going down to that pizza place in the village,” Bobbie explained. “You want to come?” Aaron and Susan chatted in the background, while I held my breath waiting for his answer.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I’m a bit tied up here.”

My lips parted then curved into a smile. Of course, he would have to make a rope joke. His eyes danced at me, as if daring me to say something. Anything. His magnetism had paralyzed me once again. His affect on me seemed to be magnified at this altitude, like thinner oxygen.

“All you do is work,” his sister complained.

He was unperturbed, until Aaron moved closer to us and brushed Bobbie’s hand with his fingers. Gage did a double take, his Adam’s apple moving under his dark evening shadow of scruff as he swallowed whatever he wanted to say. I reached out and touched his hand to calm him, but instead the sensation of the dark hairs at his wrist against my fingertips made me all kinds of unsettled.

“It’s okay,” he mouthed at me, twisting his wrist around to capture my fingers with his and squeezing lightly. It all happened within a few seconds, like a magician’s sleight of hand.

I’d gotten over the emotional maelstrom the Leap of Faith had wrought in me, and come to peace with the fact that I wanted him. If he made a move on me, I would be inclined to turn into pudding in his arms. Yes, it was a big, dumb decision. And with him, there would be no going back.

“Slave driver,” Bobbie muttered.

“He doesn’t ask me to do anything I don’t want to do already,” I said firmly. Not once did my gaze flicker over to his sister as I reassured her. Gage and I were in a bubble. “Let me know if you want to, um, pin anything down later.”

Like me.

His smile was so wide that his teeth flashed white like a wolf’s in the firelight. “Oh, I will.”

“Let’s go, I’m starving!”

Bobbie’s interruption popped our little bubble. She prodded me out the door, Susan and Aaron following behind us. The tingle running up my spine told me that Gage watched us go, and the dampness in my panties told me that I couldn’t wait to get back.

The pizza was good, but I barely tasted it. The conversation was lively, but I was subdued. Bobbie gave me a few strange, measured looks, but I couldn’t possibly explain to her that I was struck dumb and senseless by the thought of fucking her big brother.

Yeah, I couldn’t imagine that going over very well.

The red wine we shared helped my mood a little, but by the time we got back to the hotel, my shoulders ached with tension. Trying to foist off Susan’s questions about working so closely with Gage didn’t relax me much. It was pretty obvious that she had a crush on him, but as far as I could tell, it wasn’t reciprocated.

At least, he hadn’t rocked his erection into her ass and bit her neck like a stallion in heat. He’d saved that for me.

The memory of earlier made me blush. I peeled off my coat and folded it over my arm in the elevator, but my body continued to simmer with every step I took down the hall towards our suite. The door shutting behind me sounded so damn loud. I threw my coat over the back of the couch as I toed off my shoes. The light was on, but Gage’s door was closed. The door to my own dark bedroom gaped open.

I let out a shuddering sigh, unsure if his absence was a relief or disappointment. Maybe it was a good thing, I thought as I turned on the shower in my en suite. Getting involved with my boss would be a phenomenally stupid thing to do, especially in this job market. The hot water helped my stiff muscles but did nothing to alleviate the arousal pooling in my belly. It had been a long ass day.

After a quick shower, I padded back into the bedroom, reaching up to rub my hair a little with a white towel.

“Madeline.”

“Agh!”

Gage sat on my bed, leaning against the rustic looking headboard. The towel fell to the floor; my hair licked my back with dampness.

When he leaned over to flick on one of the bedside table lamps, I saw that though he was still in business clothes, his feet were bare and his shirtsleeves rolled up and buttons undone halfway down his chest.

On his lap, in his hands was a black silk tie, like the blindfold we’d used the night before at dinner, and a length of climbing rope. He twisted both together around his hand.

“Gage, what the actual fuck!”

My heart pounded in fright, and I was paralyzed by embarrassment and astonishment. Fresh arousal closed in on me, squeezing my insides just like the rope that was biting into Gage’s long, straight fingers. He folded his thumb over his palm to hold the end of the tie then began idly wrapping it around his hand like a bandage.

“You scared the shit out of me!” I yelled, deciding that the best defense was a good offense.

With a trembling hand, I crouched down to grab the towel that had fallen to the floor. Seeing as all my other defenses against Gage were shot, right now the towel was my only option other than retreat. As a shield, it did diddlysquat against the wicked gleam in his eyes as he surveyed me.

“Can you at least turn around?”

He stopped winding the rope, twisting his torso to look awkwardly at the wall, then back at me with a smirk.

“Then close your eyes like a gentleman.”

His eyes snapped shut, his lips still crooked and mocking. His thick lashes carved inky shadows at the top of his cheeks, and his eyeballs twitched under the smooth skin below the gashes of his eyebrows. Without his gaze to distract me, I noticed the crease across his forehead deepening.

“How was dinner?” he asked as he unwound the length of silk from around his palm. It curled onto his lap like an apple peel.

Quickly I retrieved the hotel robe from the closet and pulled it on. “Fine. They have a wood-burning oven, and make a damn fine thin crust. Really? You want to talk about the pizza?”

“Not really.”

I tightened the belt as much as I could and held it with my hands in case of slippage. “Okay, it’s safe.”

His eyes were dark even when he opened them. “Is it?”

The black blindfold draped around his wrist like a cuff, and he looped the rope between his hands like it was soft yarn.

“What are you doing here?” I asked lamely. I knew why he was there. We both knew that I knew it.

“We didn’t finish our little talk about committing yourself to something earlier. It occurred to me that maybe you don’t understand the relationship between that commitment and power.”

His hands spread wide, making the rope snap together in the middle. I jumped despite myself. My breath caught in my throat. I was stupid to believe we weren’t going to arrive at this moment. It had been dancing through both our imaginations for the past twenty-four hours like a giant pink elephant in a tutu. Maybe even twenty-four days.

“What do you want from me?” I’d asked him that earlier at the ropes course. At the time I’d been frightened and belligerent.

He cocked his head, considering the question. “Everything.”

Well, that was clear as mud. Everything? As in my body, my soul, or my 401k? “What are you expecting in return?”

“Everything.”

My breath whooshed out of my chest. “You know you’re a bit of a control freak?”

“I’ve been told that before.” Yeah, understatement of the century. “But there are advantages to being in control, you know.”

I hummed noncommittally.

“Let me ask you something,” he said.

“Do I have a choice?”

He gestured for me to sit on the bed—my bed, which he appeared to have little intention of moving from. His gaze held me still as I waited for his big question.

“Did you like tying me up last night?” he asked.

I gaped at him. That was his question. That was what he asked me. Tying him up.

“Yes. You, me, this.” He held up the black silk tie; apparently I’d processed his bizarre query out loud.

My eyes widened and my lips parted. “I, uh…”

“Yes or no, Madeline.”

“No,” I blurted out.

Tilting his head, he looked at me curiously. His attention unnerved me. Twisting my fingers in my lap, my gaze flew to the blindfold and rope he’d just dropped on the bed beside his hip.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Honestly?”

“I told you before—never lie to me, Madeline.”

“It’s not that I didn’t like tying you up,” I said slowly. I mean honestly, what self-respecting underling wouldn’t?

“But?”

“It didn’t seem fair, me being blindfolded and your hands—” I waved my own hands between us.

“How so? That was the point of the exercise, wasn’t it?”

I didn’t understand. “To be unfair? I thought it was to ‘communicate effectively?’” I made air quotes while rolling my eyes.

Gage made a snorting sound in the back of his throat. “It was about flipping the power dynamic. You didn’t have the ability to see me, to interpret my cues. Body language still talks, Madeline.”

“You don’t say.” I folded my arms over my chest, the robe pressed against my bare breasts. The pull of the fabric parted the robe to reveal more of my thighs. He had a point. I’d definitely felt vulnerable, despite knowing that he was restrained at the time. I hadn’t realized how much I interpreted from his facial expressions or the way he moved, until I was denied it.

Yet, if Brian Gage thought that simply manacling his hands reduced his power, he was delusional. With a single raised eyebrow or a brusque demand, the man could compel me to do almost anything—except jump off a three-story building. Was that what this was about?

“Where are you going with this, sir?”

Arched eyebrow time. Damn, did he know what that did to me?

“I want to try something.” He ran his palms over his outstretched thighs, like he was brushing dust off his pants. Then he held up the rope and silk tie in front of me.

My insides clenched deliciously. It was a good thing I was sitting on a towel, more or less.

It was one thing to fantasize about doing inappropriate things with Gage, but another entirely for him to sit on my bed and promise them, expect them—in the very immediate future.

I waited. He swung his legs off the bed then shuffled down to where I was sitting at the bottom of the bed. The starched cotton of his shirt rustled against the sleeve of my robe, and his spicy, intoxicating scent drifted toward me.

My lap was utterly fascinating, my bare knees pressing together under the robe. I couldn’t look in his eyes, afraid of what I might see. Gage’s intensity intimidated me at the best of times. Now naked and faced with—let’s face it—sex toys—I assumed I would just go up in flames.

I shifted on the bed, my robe coming further apart. Beside me, Gage dangled the silk tie between my legs, tickling the inside of my thighs.

Holy Jesus.

“Which is the more powerful sense? Sight or touch?”

“Sight,” I answered, without thinking.

“Why?”

I paused. “Knowledge. I learn more from seeing things. You know how sometimes people ask whether you’d rather be deaf or blind? I’d rather be deaf. I guess I’m a visual person.”

He let out a thoughtful hum. And reached for my hand. The heat of his fingers around my wrist made me jump. “But then you wouldn’t be able to hear music.”

“I could read, watch movies with subtitles.”

“Okay, let’s test your theory. I’ll tie you up and you blindfold me. We’ll see where things… go, and then you can tell me who has the greater handicap.”

“Handicap in what?” My voice was low as his thumb strummed the inside of my wrist like the fret of a guitar.

“This.” His fingers circling my wrist, he held my hand up to his mouth and kissed my palm. I trembled.

“Gage…”

His lips moved over my wrist and the inside of my arm as he pushed up the sleeve on my robe. Little pinpricks of fire broke out all over me, like a jagged wheel was being run over my skin. In my other hand, he placed the wad of silk.

“I want to kiss you, Madeline.” He shook his head. “Correction—I’m going to kiss you.”

Never let it be said that Brian Gage wasn’t direct. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. “Th-that’s very efficient communication, sir. But…”

“But?” He splayed the tie across my hand and pressed his palm against it. The thin silk was a useless barrier against the heat of his body.

“But isn’t this a bad idea?” Oh god, this was happening. I felt electrified but still, like an exposed wire waiting to spark against another.

“It absolutely, positively is,” he agreed. We were on the same page, just of a naughty book. Still, I hesitated.

“You have to commit, though, Madeline. This time, you have to go all in, or not at all.” He leaned toward me, his breath tickling my neck. My head tilted ever so slightly and my eyes closed, my body unconsciously begging for his touch.

With his hands wrapped around my fists, he shifted us to face each other. Only our hands touched but I felt his nearness on every inch of my body. I looked in his eyes and saw total, unflinching determination.

What would it be like to feel that kind of certainty? I wondered. I lived a lot of my life by the seat of my pants, but it was an approach borne out of anxiety, not confidence.

“A leap of faith,” I murmured to myself.

His eyes widened, then crinkled at the sides as a knowing grin transformed his face. An intense, serious Gage was heart-stopping, but a gleeful Gage was downright dangerous.

“Please,” he said. “See, I know how to ask now.”

Well, when he put it that way… How’s this for commitment, sir? The teasing thought danced through my brain as I touched my lips to his. I could go “all in,” as he said, but my cards weren’t great. Would he call my bluff?

Yes, he would.

Lightning quick but like a gentle puff of air, he pushed me back until I lay on the bed and he hovered over me. He raised my hands above my head, our fingers still laced together. His darkened gaze drank me in, and he groaned before capturing my mouth again.

My nipples hardened against the inside of the robe, which was slowly slipping open with every move I made, every fevered wriggle. The knot I’d tied was not up to Gage’s Boy Scout standards.

He kissed me, over and over, until my lips were tender and the dark shadow of his beard rasped against my neck.

“Give me the blindfold,” I gasped as his tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of my throat.

“Fuck it, I’ll do it myself.” He knelt back, draping the rope over my quivering, exposed abdomen like a back-up belt. His hands flew to the back of his head as he secured the material over his eyes.

I sucked in a breath as he loomed above me, the blindfold in place. He reached out, his hands grasping and his fingers curling in his search for me. He licked his lips and I gasped as he found me.

With more grace than I thought possible, he swiveled us around so that he was sitting up against the headboard and I was straddling his knees.

“Time for me to tie you up,” he said, squeezing my thigh.

This was almost certainly a terrible idea, and it thrilled me. I wanted him to tell me what to do. Gage was wrong—I didn’t want power over him. Maybe this was something he couldn’t conceptualize, but I liked someone taking charge, taking care of me, and relieving me of my already-pathetic decision-making ability.

Part of me wondered what spurred this on in him, what pushed him over the edge of whatever container his attraction for me was held in. Why make a move now? To punish me for my hesitation on the pole earlier? To get me back for my impudence the night before?

Did it matter? I was hot and wet and ready to climb him like the ropes course.

I shrugged with false nonchalance. “I’ll try anything once.”

His frown disarmed me almost as much as his grin did. “That doesn’t sound very committed.”

“I should be committed,” I mumbled to myself. Enough teasing, I thought. “Are you sure you can do this without seeing?” I asked him.

He parted my robe, running his knuckles down my body from my collarbone to my navel. “I can see you just fine, Madeline.”

Oh. God.

I bit my lip as I ground my throbbing core onto his knee. Those pants were definitely going to the drycleaner on Monday morning.

He whipped the length of the rope over my head, almost like a lasso, catching me around the shoulders.

“Such a good girl,” he crooned as he tugged on the ends to pull me in. He sat up to capture my lower lip between his teeth, right where I had just bitten it. “You. Taste. Amazing,” he said between light kisses—too light.

“You’re teasing me.” I wriggled against his legs.

“Madeline…” he warned. He was trying to look stern, but totally failed. I tried to look unaffected, but was similarly unconvincing.

So I reached for the buttons on his shirt, and he untied the belt of my robe like he was unwrapping a Christmas present. My fingertips dragged through his very, very happy trail as I opened his shirt. He let out a hissing noise when my knuckles skidded over his abdominal muscles.

“How does it feel to not see what I’m doing to you, sir?” Did the element of surprise frustrate him or turn him on?

“Fucking amazing.”

Turn him on, apparently. The bulge in his pants grew.

“Oh,” was all I could say when he peeled the robe off my shoulders. Rather than take it off, though, he pulled it halfway down my arms and tied the ends of the sleeves together loosely, effectively putting me in an Egyptian cotton straightjacket.

“Do you know what it was like to have my hands tied last night?” he asked me darkly, those same hands hot on my breasts, squeezing and weighing them. “To watch you hang on my every word, every instruction—blind as a new kitten, and know that I couldn’t touch you?”

I moaned. He was certainly touching me now. “Fuck, Gage. More.”

He plucked my nipples with a maddening delicacy. “Then you left me there with my hands tied behind my back, Madeline. Helpless. Frustrated. Hungry.”

Forget the drycleaners. His pants were a complete loss. I tried to rub back and forth on him, desperate for some friction. My nipples rose in hard points against his palms. I had never been so turned on in all my life. Granted, my life had been fairly short until then.

There was so much freedom in being invisible to him. I felt like I could revel in my arousal, let all my inhibitions go, and he couldn’t see the expressions on my face. With a blindfold on, he wasn’t my boss. He was just… Gage.

My gasp was loud as his thigh found a hidden spot on me. His hands went to my hips, stopping my ascent. “Easy. Not yet.”

I warmed all over, my brain turning to mush once he kissed me again.

No light brush against my lips this time—his tongue swept inside my mouth, taking my breath away along with all my inhibitions. His kiss was as demanding and uncompromising as he was, and all I could do was try to meet him halfway. His hands slipped under the robe around my lower back, his fingers digging into the fleshy dimples above my ass.

“How far are you prepared to go?” he whispered against my lips.