He kisses my mouth and pulls me into him gently, letting the warm water rain down on us. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“It was amazing.”
He washes me from head to toe, and when he’s done, guides me out of the shower and dries me off. “Stay here,” he commands. “I have something for you.”
I nod and wait. I’m shaking like I’ve just run a marathon.
He’s gone quite a while, it seems, and when he returns, he’s fully dressed and holding up a white satin nightie. “Lift up your arms,” he commands.
I do as I’m told and he slips the nightie over my head and onto my body. I’m confused as to why he’s dressing me rather than keeping me naked, but I’m too fried to give it much thought.
“Come.” He grabs my hand and pulls me out of the bathroom and back into the dungeon. Everything’s been cleaned—there’s no sign of my messy orgasm and absolutely nothing out of place. He guides me to a bed in the corner, lays me onto my back, and wordlessly secures bindings around my wrists and ankles.
“You don’t have to tie me up anymore,” I say, pulling against my bindings. “I won’t try to escape.”
“No. I can’t risk losing you,” he says simply.
A wave of glee washes over me. I know he’s simply following my script, but those words make my skin buzz, nonetheless.
“I’m not tricking you,” I coo. “I didn’t run when you left me alone in the bathroom, did I? You can trust me.”
He pauses, mulling that over. “No,” he finally says. “I can’t risk it. You’re aunicorn.” He shoots me a snarky look, obviously proud of himself for deftly inserting that little gem into our scene. “I can’t risk it.”
“Please.”
He sets his jaw. “No. Now that I know what it’s like to have you, I don’t think I can live without you.”
My heart stops. Was that in the script? Or did Josh say that in real life?
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He makes a face like I’ve just asked him to spellantideluvian.“Um,” he says, apparently pondering the question. “Joshua Faraday,” he finally says.
That’s not at all what I expected him to say. I thought he’d come up with some exotic sex-slave-master name like Magnusson Carmichael III. For my part, I’ve certainly planned a sexy name andbackstory—I’m an heiress named Chantel Giodissimo—but, jeez, if Josh is going to be himself for our role-plays, then I should do the same. And, in fact, now that I’m thinking about it, it’s probably better if we just “be ourselves,” just like the song says.
“Hi, Joshua,” I say softly. “I’m Katherine Morgan. It’s nice to meet you. I sure wish we’d met under different circumstances than you breaking into my house and abscondingwith me.”
Josh smirks. “Abscondingwith you?”
I grin. “Yeah.Absconding.And you gave me a freaking heart attack when you did it, by the way. Oh my God.”
He flashes an adorable grin. “I’m sorry, Katherine. I didn’t mean to scare you when Iabscondedwith you. It’s just that when I saw you walking down the sidewalk the other day, I had to have you.” He glances at the clock and I follow his gaze. It’s a few minutes to ten. He trains his beautiful blue eyes back on me. “Please forgive me if I scared you.”
“I forgive you. You’ve given me intense pleasure, Joshua—pleasure I couldn’t have imagined.”
His beautiful eyes are smoldering at me.
“Will you untie me, Joshua?” I ask softly.
He shakes his head. “I can’t. You’ll run away. And if I lose you, I’ll be wrecked.”
My heart lurches into my throat. He sounds so earnest. I can’t tell if that was Joshua Faraday the Sex-Slave-Master speaking—or Joshua William Faraday?
I open my mouth to tell him I’d be wrecked if I lost him, too, but before I can say a word, the door to the dungeon swings wide open and a slender figure wearing a ski mask bursts into the room.
I shriek in surprise and pull violently on my bindings.
“I’ve come to steal her away,” a woman’s voice says in a lackluster monotone. She holds up a plastic sword. “I saw her and I had to have her.”
