"Or am I going to keep you here? Keep you here for as long as I like?"

And those eyes. The predator, the tender lover, the man of danger.

For a moment, I panicked again, and then it became that strange feeling where adrenalin intensifies everything. Danger. Risk. That's what he was, and it did things to me I'd never known before.

Just then I didn't know if I was his lover or his captive, and just then I didn't care, as his mouth worked lower and he reached down and roughly spread my legs.

Just then, I was his.

Part four: Her Desire It's all the silly little questions that run through your head...

Like was he a hand-holder, or did he prefer to avoid such public shows of affection?

I didn't know the answer to that, even though Will and I had got together several times, including one rather awkward date in London, lunch at the House of Lords, and the most romantic evening of my life when he flew me out to his hotel in the Austrian Alps just for dinner.

Are you a holder of hands? I'd have to put him down as a very probable 'no' for that. Too many barriers. Maybe somewhere deep inside the real Will was a hand-holder, but the public Will would never show that kind of vulnerability.

Do you wear anything in bed? Well no, not that time when I'd slept over in Austria, but that was hardly typical.

Do you leave the seat up after you've peed?

Do you like animals, or funny birthday cards, reality TV?

What's your favorite movie, your favorite color, your favorite member of the Beatles?

Trivialities; silly details. These are the things that you might find running through your head as you lie there on that wide bed in your lover's penthouse apartment, your body aching from s.e.x, and from the need for yet more s.e.x, because you can't get enough of him... lying there with your arms stretched wide up above your head, and your wrists secured to the bed frame with heavy-duty metal handcuffs.

Now, with morning light slanting in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he lay on the bed by my side, Will Bentinck-Stanley, his body half-curled, one leg drawn up tight to his body, his breathing steady, quiet. He looked good like that: peaceful, slim, supple; his body hard with well-toned muscle. He looked so at peace, sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

I hurt. Oh my but how I hurt!

I'd never had a lover like Will Bentinck-Stanley. He was strong, and he had so much stamina... He could switch from hard, fast, urgent, to tender and attentive; he could keep you right on the edge, taking you to the brink so many times before finally pushing you over. He was skilled with c.o.c.k and fingers and tongue, with all the surfaces of his body and yours; going from another man to Will was like comparing an inept lover's clumsy ma.s.sage with the attentions of the most skilled ma.s.seuse.

He'd done this kind of thing before. I knew that. The handcuff bracelets were lined with soft leather to prevent chafing and pressure sores this was serious kit. None of those flimsy cuffs you get from a High Street adult store for Will. The leather was worn thin in places, and scuffed pale; these cuffs were clearly well used.

And of course there had been Sally Fielding, may she rest in peace.

They called it the Stockholm Syndrome. When a kidnap victim becomes so attached to her captors that she adopts their mindset and becomes one of them.

I was no kidnap victim.

I was here by choice. I'd called him. I'd come here of my own free will. I'd let him sweep me off my feet, and carry me to the bedroom. I could have said 'no' when he'd said to me, "You like it a bit rough? You do, don't you. You know what you like, what you want. Don't pretend that you don't. You like the thrill as much as I do."

I didn't have to nod when he produced those handcuffs, looked at me with those dark, predator eyes, and said, "You like danger?"

I am a successful professional woman. I am strong. I am not the brainwashed victim of some syndrome or other.

I was here by choice.

Here, with my body aching, and my shoulder sockets on fire with pain from being cuffed all night.

Here, in a semi-dream-like state where nothing existed for me beyond this room, this man... where the pain I felt was transformed into something else, an intensity of sensation, a deeply s.e.xual thing, a different kind of ache, a need.

I was here by choice.

"Do you need to stop? Do you need a break? Just say the word, and I'll unlock you."

This was attentive Will, sensitive Will, a side of him that rarely broke through his many protective layers.

"Make love to me," I said, meeting that dark look. "Now. I'm not done with you yet."

When you're tied up, or cuffed, to a bed, you're the one being controlled. Or so I had always thought. But being the one who submits can actually give you more power than your lover who holds the keys. The looks, the little signals of the body, the words you say... At that moment, it was as if Will was the one in restraints, and I the master. And I wasn't finished with him.

He didn't hesitate, his hard lips kissing the inside of my outstretched arm, so tender, so delicate in contrast to the sc.r.a.pe of his morning stubble.

I craned my head so that I could take in the sight of his body as he uncurled from his sleeping position. His muscles looked as if they had been sculpted. My eyes moved down from those strong arms, across his chest, down his rippling belly to where his manhood was steadily growing hard. I watched as it straightened and expanded, filling out like some kind of desert flower emerging from the ground after a deluge... as it pulled away from his thigh with a sudden twitch as if seeking me out; as the foreskin peeled slowly away from its shining, purple head, wet already with his juices.

He caught my eye, then, and followed the direction of my gaze. Slowly, he moved a hand so that he could hold it flat against himself, pressing the shaft against his belly and rolling it slowly from side to side. As I watched, his thumb slid across that wet, purple bulb, over and over, as if he was polishing it.

I pulled at my cuffs, shaking the bed-frame, demanding his attention.

He moved so that he was kneeling between my spread legs, that hand still rolling his hard c.o.c.k against his belly, that thumb still polishing.

I arched my back, straining my aching legs to lift my body up, offering myself to him, presenting myself.

He leaned forward and that hand shifted so that it was wrapped around his shaft, rubbing it in long, slow strokes.

So close!

That swollen glans was almost touching me...

I couldn't hold myself like that for long, and I slumped back down.

He paused, fixing me with those dark eyes. Then he leaned forward, supporting himself on one hand.

Finally finally! I felt that hardness against me, the head of his manhood nuzzling into my l.a.b.i.a, parting those soft lips, gliding across their wet inner surfaces as he continued that languorous stroking.

I pushed up against him again, wanting to take him deep, wanting that glorious filled-up sensation, but he gave a slight shake of the head, his eyes still fixed on mine.

He pulled himself away, shifted position again and then oh my G.o.d! that heavy member slapped down against me, striking my mound, and the hood of flesh that shielded my c.l.i.toris.

I cried out at that first blow. At the sudden stab of pleasure that raced through my body.

Again, he raised his c.o.c.k and then, with a flick of the wrist, slapped it down against me. This time the head hit my c.l.i.t and the shaft slapped down against my l.a.b.i.a.

Another time. Harder, and now it was impossible to draw a line between the aches in my body and the throbbing ache caused by those blows, the ache that was both pleasure and pain.

A slight lift of one eyebrow from him. I nodded in response, and then he slapped against me again.

Slowly, steadily, relentlessly.

It was like an incredibly s.e.xy form of Chinese water torture, that thud, thud, thud of his rock hard p.e.n.i.s against me.

I shifted, wanting to be able to squeeze my legs together and keep that pleasure going, wanting to pull him down to me, into me.

Thud. And as he pulled away he swept the head of his manhood down, briefly teasing my entrance before pulling away.

Thud. Eyes locked on mine.

Thud. My body alive to every sensation, my body taken over by that relentless beat, by the waves of pleasure that swept across me each time he struck me.

Another blow and suddenly I was right at the edge, just waiting to be pushed...

Another, and my whole body heaved against its restraints. An explosion in my c.l.i.t, my p.u.s.s.y, my belly, pulsing out in every direction through my body in great, crashing waves, as that hard c.o.c.k kept slapping against me, over and over again.

Finally, my body slumped, spent.

With one final slap against my c.l.i.t, he dragged his c.o.c.k down, between my lips, pressed it against my opening, that hand still working his shaft.

Sliding into me, slowly. G.o.d I was so wet!

With his eyes still locked on mine, he pushed himself deep until he could go no further. The coa.r.s.e, wiry hair at his crotch ground against my mound, his pubic bone hard against my c.l.i.t, his b.a.l.l.s against my a.s.s.

I felt it building again, taking me by surprise, as he held himself there, deep inside me, not moving, and then, as my p.u.s.s.y tightened around him, there was a deep pulse inside me, a blossoming, a hot explosion of juices as he climaxed, throwing his head back with a deep, caveman grunt. His body was hard, tight, as he held himself inside me, pulsing and throbbing, as we both came together.

Some time later.

"Okay. You can let me go now."

Every muscle and joint in my body was alive with pain. I don't know how long I'd been locked up, how many times we had f.u.c.ked and made love. It was all a blur.

"You hear? I said you can let me go."

Breakfast at a table overlooking the Thames. He must have paid a fortune for a penthouse apartment with views like this.

Orange juice, coffee... strong, black coffee. Toast and a perfectly poached egg.

I wore one of his t-shirts and he was in a long, white robe. We made small talk while he poured the coffee. It was all incredibly civilized, given that I'd spent the night and most of the morning locked to his bed while he made love to me and f.u.c.ked me, went down on me, jerked off over me, face-f.u.c.ked me and more. And to think that we'd still only had one proper date.

"So what's your favorite color?"

He looked surprised, then shrugged, the front of his robe hanging loose. "Turquoise." He p.r.o.nounced it the French way: turkwahz.

"Your favorite Beatle?"

"Ringo." The glue that held the other three together.

"The PIN for your credit card?"

"2468. For all of them." No hesitation. But that didn't mean it was true, not with Will.

"Your favorite music?"

"Robert Johnson. All 41 scratchy recordings that we have left of him."

"Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kremes?"

His face was blank. "You know," I said. "Or don't they have donuts in your world?"

Deadpan, he said, "Of course we do. I have a patissier who makes the best in London." Then, in that seamless way of his, he switched topic, and mood: "I was wondering if you'd accompany me on Friday?"

Friday... What was Friday? And then it clicked. The funeral of Sally Fielding.

"I..." I didn't know what to say.

"I know it's a bit odd, asking you to come with me to the funeral of a girl I once locked up for a fortnight, a girl who keeps kept popping up with demands for money and none too subtle threats of blackmail. But how about it?"

Which Will was this? Those dark eyes were watchful, calculating; his tone was flippant, almost jokey; his manner was nervous, as if he was risking something, exposing something vulnerable of himself to me.

I reached out and took his hand across the table.

"When you put it like that, how's a girl to refuse?"

Will's driver, Maninder, was waiting in the elevator to accompany me down to the car, standing there impa.s.sively with his arms folded across his broad chest as if he had been waiting like that since yesterday. Perhaps he had.

Up until now I hadn't checked my phone, had barely even given the outside world a thought. Now, as we traveled down in silence, I saw that I had three voice-mails and a whole bunch of emails from Ellie, my a.s.sistant at Ellison and Coles.

I called. "Hey, Ellie," I said. "It's me. Listen, I"

"Migraine again?" she asked, her voice just loaded with innocence. "Like that other time? They can be so bad, can't they? My cousin Amber gets them sometimes. Often she can barely walk after one."

"I..."

"So was it good? Was it who I think it was? Don't worry, I've been through your schedule and rearranged to clear today. You are coming back I a.s.sume? He hasn't got you tied to a bed in some exotic foreign castle, has he?"

I coughed, suddenly aware of Maninder's eyes on me. What must he think? He must be used to how Will lived his life. Was it racist of me to wonder if this indulgent western lifestyle might be alien to his culture? He was probably as English as me. More so than Will, given his descent from immigrant Dutch traders.

"I'll be for the rest of the afternoon," I told Ellie. "But I'll be out again Friday for a funeral. I don't know how long for." Or when, or where... "Might be all day."

"'kay. Ciao."