Bound: The Mastered Series

by Lorelei James

  Her traitorous skin broke out in goose bumps when his rough-tipped fingers connected with her flesh as he zipped her up.

  “Now will you talk to me?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head.

  “Baby. Please. What is going on with you?”

  That’s when she spun around and looked at him. “How did you expect me to react when you trussed me up and left me in a secret room full of ropes and God knows what else? What did you plan to do to me?” The fear returned and she started to cry.

  “You said you trusted me.”

  “How can I trust you when it’s obvious I don’t even know you!”

  Ronin’s face showed no emotion.

  “I want to leave.”

  “It’s one o’clock in the goddamn morning.”

  “I want to leave,” she repeated stubbornly.

  “And you’re planning to do what? Walk home?” His gaze swept over her. “Dressed like that? I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll call a cab. Just . . . let me go.”

  “Jesus, Amery, don’t be ridiculous. I’ll take you home.”

  Shaking her head, she slipped on her shoes and walked to the elevator. On her phone, she scrolled through the information for taxis and called the first one on the list. After rattling off the address, she learned it’d be a ten-minute wait.

  After she hung up, Ronin said, “You’d rather get in a car with a stranger than trust me to take you home?”

  Amery looked away.

  “I’m not a killer. And it wounds me in ways you can’t even begin to imagine that you’d think that of me.”

  You know he’s right.

  “I thought you’d be okay with the binding, since I’ve used scarves and belts and ties on you before.”

  “But not ropes.”

  “Is it really the ropes that set you off?”

  “Yes. And the swords. And . . . everything.”

  “I’m sorry that scared you. I . . .” His jaw muscle flexed. “I should’ve told you.”

  “About the secret locked room?” Even saying that sounded scary and surreal.

  “That and other things. The ropes are for . . .” His face hardened. “Don’t look at me like that. The ropes aren’t for torture. I use them in kinbaku and shibari bondage.”

  Amery wrapped her hands around her upper arms and shivered. “What the hell is that? A jujitsu thing?”

  “No, but that’s where shibari and kinbaku came from,” he said evenly. “Please come back upstairs with me and I’ll explain everything.”

  Did she even want to know?

  Yes, she did. But her emotions were too raw, too unstable to process anything right now. She managed to choke out, “You should’ve told me.”

  “I know. So will you please come back upstairs?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. Not now.”

  “If I give you a few days, then will you talk to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “This is killing me,” he said softly. “Absolutely fucking killing me to see you so miserable and scared and looking at me like I want to cause you harm. When all I wanted . . .”

  Amery wiped her fingers under her eyes, completely unaware she’d been crying. “When all you wanted was what?”

  “For you to understand who I am. To show you this part of me.”

  That caused her to cry harder.

  The tense silence between them stretched until Amery felt a black hole had opened up, threatening to swallow them both.

  The cab pulled up out front.

  Before Ronin unlocked the door, he stood behind her and spoke into her ear. “This isn’t over between us. I’ll give you time to come to terms or process or whatever you need. But you owe me the courtesy of a conversation. You need to listen to me with an open mind. And sooner, rather than later, would be better for both of us.”

  This was the Ronin she knew—the one she wanted. Reasonable, but determined. Amery wanted to throw herself into his arms, bury her face in his neck, and just breathe in the scent of him. Pretend nothing had happened.

  When his words for you to understand who I am echoed back to her, she realized this secret would’ve come out eventually.

  The cab honked.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “One week,” he said hoarsely. “You call me or come to me within a week or I’m coming to you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHE didn’t sleep well. Tired of tossing and turning, she rolled out of bed at nine and cleaned her loft from top to bottom. Pathetic that she’d fallen into that old habit of scrubbing the shit out of everything when she was upset. Next would she start wearing the finger-to-elbow rubber gloves her mother favored?

  No. You are not your mother.

  Marion Hardwick would never put herself in a situation like the one with Ronin in the first place. But if she had made a judgment error, she’d walk away and never look back. She’d never give him a chance to explain. She’d never satisfy her curiosity about what made a man like him tick.

  So, if she wasn’t like her mother . . . then why was she acting exactly like her? Cutting Ronin off at the knees and refusing to hear him out? She hadn’t already judged him . . . had she?

  God. This was so fucked up.

  Since she’d had such a good go of numbing her mind with cleaning, she tackled her office. By the time she’d showered off the grime, the clock read five. All she wanted to do was hole up and eat pizza and a pint of Oreo mint ice cream. Lose herself in bad TV. Watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of Storage Wars was better than fretting about the fact that she’d called Ronin a killer.

  A killer, for god’s sake.

  Talk about a knee-jerk reaction out of fear.

  Talk about stupidity.

  She’d immediately judged something she didn’t understand as . . . bad? Wrong? Scary? Freaky? When she’d been fine with it before when Ronin used scarves instead of ropes? When she didn’t know what it was besides that it turned her on?

  She didn’t know enough about bondage or whatever the fuck it was to form a subjective opinion. Since education was the only way to dispel fear, Amery cracked open her laptop and punched shibari in the search engine.

  Holy shit. Over eighty thousand hits showed up.

  Okay, maybe she was living under a rock; obviously it wasn’t as obscure a practice as she’d initially believed.

  The first thing she looked up was the definition.

  Shibari/kinbaku is the technique of using ropes to create sensual, dramatic, and erotic bondage that has roots in 16th-century Japanese martial arts, 18th-century historical Japanese judicial punishments, and 19th-century Japanese theatrical productions.

  She read further and learned that the practices were originally based on the jujitsu bondage punishment called hojojutsu. No wonder Ronin had an interest in it, since the practice had been borne out of the martial arts discipline he’d trained in his entire life. As far as she could tell, hojojutsu had been around since the time of the samurais. When samurais transported prisoners, they’d used ropes to bind and control them after capture. Some samurais became well known for their rope handiwork, which had to be functional and yet humane. Competitions arose between the samurais—the more intricate and distinct designs, the more respect the rope master garnered.

  Amery also learned the terms were slightly different branches of the same bondage discipline. Shibari was more artistic, focusing on the beauty of the finished rope design on a human canvas, composed of elaborate patterns and often demonstrated as performance art. Kinbaku, while employing many of the same knots and wraps as shibari, was more sexual in nature. A bond between the rope master and the one being bound focused on skin contact during the tying process, oftentimes with knots strategically placed to heighten sexual response.

  When Amery finally closed her laptop a few hours later, her head was swimming. But the questions foremost in her mind remained. Where had Ronin learned how to do it? If kinbaku was as much a part of him a
s he’d claimed, then he’d need to practice to reach master status.

  Do you really think with the way he looks and his forceful persona he’d be short on female volunteers to be stripped naked and tied up and then fucked by him?

  No.

  It wasn’t anger that surged but jealousy. And that was just too fucking weird because she had no right to it.

  Did she?

  Frustrated, she shut off her laptop and flipped on the TV.

  • • •

  MONDAY morning Chaz pressed her for details about the gala. Amery regaled him with tales of who she’d seen, of what the ballroom looked like, and she dished on the food and the clothes. She got the appropriate expression of outrage from Chaz that she’d been subjected to spending time with Tyler. He was satisfied enough that she didn’t have to tell him what’d happened afterward. Because chances were high she’d break down. But she couldn’t tell the truth because Ronin deserved privacy about his lifestyle choices.

  Molly had hung back during the conversation. As soon as Chaz and Emmylou were off bickering in Emmylou’s studio, she approached Amery.

  “That isn’t all of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you did mention how fantastic Master Black looked a couple of times. But beyond that you didn’t talk about him at all, and that is not normal for you . . . so what gives?”

  Amery recalled that during her years spent as the bookworm in the corner, she’d honed her ability to read people since none of them talked to her. It shouldn’t have surprised her that Molly was so intuitive—they were a lot alike. “Ronin and I had a big fight. I’ll spare you the details, but we’re in a cooling-off period for a week.”

  Molly rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry. I know you really like him.”

  Like. Not liked, past tense. That’s when Amery realized she didn’t want to think of Ronin in the past tense either. “Thank you.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’re doing it.”

  “I imagine you’re not coming to class with me this week?”

  That was another wrinkle; he’d hired her and she hadn’t completed the last phase of the project—she’d been dragging it out as another way to keep in touch with him. After their conversation about Brazilian jujitsu, she’d designed new graphics to promote the newest discipline offered at Black Arts, that is, if Ronin ever followed through with it and hired an instructor. She’d enjoyed the challenge, but the bottom line was she needed the work and she couldn’t quit just because there were issues in their personal relationship. In the last year many of her clients had started bringing design work in-house. If business didn’t pick up soon . . . She didn’t even want to think about having to let Molly go. She worked more hours than she got paid. Plus, she excelled at creating Web sites, animated banners, and ads where as Amery preferred to work with text, images, and personalized photography—which was why they made such a good team.

  “Amery?”

  She glanced up. “Sorry. I guess we’ll see. Can you help me today? I’ve got a bunch of shots to do for the Wicksburg Farm flyers.”

  “Sure. What props are they sending this time?”

  A large portion of Amery’s clients catered to organic food consumers, so she’d carved out a niche in the natural food market crafting unique ad campaigns. She had a different approach and it was the one aspect of her business that was easily recognizable in her design work. “They’re sending a bunch of different kinds of mushrooms and they want them photographed in a natural environment, so . . . they’re delivering dirt today.”

  “I’ll get the vacuum. What else?”

  “I just hope they’re not bringing the beehives for the honeycomb photos.”

  Molly grinned. “Funny. But I have my EpiPen just in case.”

  Later, after she’d sent Molly home for the day and she’d sorted photos into folders, her e-mail dinged. An unfamiliar name on the subject line. Hopefully it was someone looking for graphic design work. She opened the e-mail.

  Hardwick Designs,

  I was browsing on your Web site and saw that you do custom photographic work. I love the perspectives on inanimate objects as well as how you’re framing them. I’m an author and I’m looking for a unique—not stock photo!—image for my next book cover. Is that something you’d be interested in giving me a quote on?

  Thanks for your time and hope to hear from you soon.

  Cherry Starr~

  She knew a few freelancers who’d jumped on the digital book bandwagon and offered design services from covers to formatting for authors trying their hand at publishing their own work.

  While she was interested, she wasn’t sure of the industry standard pricing structure for custom photography versus revamping stock photos to suit the client’s needs.

  She headed to Cherry Starr’s Web site to see what types of books she wrote. Oh, wow. She wrote naughty books. The stuff Amery’s mother would’ve called filthy porn. Then again, her mother hadn’t balked at all when it came to sneaking True Confessions magazine.

  The world was full of judgmental hypocrites.

  The title His Whip-smart Mistress had an intriguing cover. A half-naked woman in knee-high leather boots, a miniskirt, and a bustier, wielding a whip over a man on his knees, his arms tied behind his back with rope, his head bowed.

  That’s when the first warning bell chimed.

  Amery clicked on the next title Hog-tied and Whip-kissed. That cover featured a bare-chested man holding the end of a whip to the woman’s bright red lips. Her torso was completely wrapped in rope and she was bent at such an angle that part of her butt cheek showed—a butt cheek that the guy had his hand on.

  So today, of all days, she would get contacted by an author who writes books about . . . the type of tying-up things that Amery was dealing with understanding about Ronin?

  Bullshit. She did not believe in coincidences. Ronin had to have given this woman her contact information. Projects of this nature did not just fall in her lap. Amery hit REPLY.

  Cherry Starr,

  Before we get into the quote stage, may I ask how you got my name?

  Best, Amery Hardwick ~ Hardwick Designs

  Rather than fuming about Ronin’s stealthy approach—throwing her a new business bone in the hopes it’d spur her to contact him sooner—she closed up shop for the day.

  Needing fresh air, she strolled down to the Sixteenth Street mall. The Greek place still ran a four-dollar gyro special on Mondays, so she took her sandwich and salad outside beneath the umbrella and people-watched, hoping it’d clear her mind.

  Fat lot of good that did. She saw scarves hanging in the windows and thought of Ronin. She saw candles in the window and thought of Ronin. She saw a display of men’s ties and thought of Ronin. The Japanese takeout place reminded her of Ronin.

  That’s because this issue isn’t going away. You can’t ignore it. And your biggest problem is that part of Ronin intrigues and excites you as much as it scares you.

  That stopped her in the middle of the sidewalk.

  She had liked it when Ronin used scarves or even her own clothing to tie her up during foreplay and sex. She’d found an odd kind of freedom in knowing it pleased him.

  Didn’t that make her subservient? Putting his needs above her own?

  But Amery couldn’t come up with a single instance where Ronin hadn’t seen to her needs first. Every. Single. Time.

  Plus, Ronin never made her feel subservient. She wasn’t there strictly for his pleasure. If anything, the opposite was true. He went above and beyond giving her pleasure . . . and always first.

  Now that she’d sorted that out, what did she do next?

  By the time Amery had returned to her loft she hadn’t come up with an answer.

  Out of habit she turned on her laptop and checked her e-mail. Well, well, another e-mail from Cherry Starr.

  Amery,

  I know your work because you’ve done some brochures and flyers for my family’s
campground. And sorry for coming off mysterious, but Cherry Starr is my pen name and no one in my family knows I write erotica—and I’d like to keep it that way.

  Before we go any further, is there such a thing as client confidentiality?

  Cherry~

  Amery had done several brochures over the years for different campgrounds. Some camps were church based; some were family focused and wouldn’t allow singles or couples without children to camp there. She understood Cherry’s reluctance to reveal her identity without some guarantee Amery wouldn’t blab. She typed back:

  Cherry,

  Yes, I can promise you client confidentiality. I’m not trying to be rude, but I see that you write books about bondage, and I’m wondering if you’d be willing to tell me about the BDSM lifestyle. What does this have to do with your cover design? Not a damn thing. So my questions really are more on a personal side.

  A~

  Two hours later, a response popped up in Amery’s in-box.

  Amery,

  I actually don’t mind answering questions—knowledge is power, and I’m happy to use my experience—limited as it is—to clear up misconceptions.

  No, I’m not in the life. I’ve dabbled and done a few “drive-bys,” but I haven’t found a situation or a man who . . . fit me. That said, there is a difference between BDSM and bondage.

  In the BDSM lifestyle one person is the Dominant and the other submissive—even if they’re “playing” for only one night. The relationship between the Dom and the sub is sexual—more often than not.

  Things are . . . a little trickier when it comes to explaining bondage. It’s a release for some people to be tied up to the point they can’t move, they can’t think, they exist solely as a vessel. Some rope enthusiasts want to be bound by someone they have no other intimate relations with, so the binding process is not always sexual. Sometimes it’s strictly psychological. Then there are the artistic bondage disciplines, where the beauty of the ties and configuration of knots is more about showcasing the rope master’s artistry than emphasizing the sexual aspect of the scene.