One Night with Sole Regret 05 Tie Me by Olivia Cunning

his erection. Oh God, why wasn’t he doing any of those things? All of those things?
    Oh, please, Kellen.
    “Are you sure about this?” he said, close to her ear.
    If he hadn’t been holding her arms, she probably would have sunk to the floor.
    “Does it hurt?” she heard herself ask. Did she care? Some part of her did, apparently, but the primal part of her that he’d awakened didn’t give a fig if she felt discomfort.
    “Not at all,” he said. “Being bound is a physical experience, but it affects most people psychologically as well. Being helpless will probably push you out of your comfort zone. If you’re not sure you want to do this, you need to say so now. If you back out once I get started, I’m not sure I’ll survive. I need to see my work finished. This has become a spiritual ritual for me. It’s… it’s hard to explain. I will stop if you make me, but I’d rather not start if you have reservations.”
    She wanted to understand his words by experiencing his spiritual ritual for herself. “I’m sure. I don’t have reservations.”
    He drew her against him at long last and gave her a friendly hug. “Thank you,” he whispered.
    She melted against him, pressing her palms against his back to draw him closer. She wanted more than a friendly embrace. She wanted some heat. Passion. She sensed it in him. How did she unleash it? She turned her face into his neck and couldn’t resist rubbing her lips against his flesh.
    He dropped his arms and pulled away. “I’ll go find that rope,” he said. A brief flash of lightning showed his retreating back and then he was gone again.
    Was she really throwing herself so willingly at this guy?
    A side table scraped against the floor several feet away. “Damn it,” Kellen cursed. “I’m not sure if my toes are going to make it through the night.”
    Yeah, she was totally throwing herself at this guy. She hoped to God that he planned to catch her.
    She smiled and turned to shuffle carefully in the direction of the kitchen for those candles. Maybe they’d save Kellen’s toes from utter destruction.
    Dawn located several pillar candles and the lighter for the grill and hurried back to the family room. She set the candles on a nearby side table—probably the same one that Kellen’s toe had become acquainted with—and lit all three candles. She placed the nearby lamp on the floor and glanced up at the banister that ran the periphery of the second floor loft. The whimsical rope garland that had charmed her the first time she’d glimpsed it now made her shudder with longing. The candles gave off just enough light for her to see Kellen’s hands freeing the long lengths of blue and tan rope. He was none too gentle with the seashells that had hung from the ropes. Several of them rained down from above.
    “Almost got it,” he said after a moment.
    She couldn’t see him well, but she imagined he had a perfect view of her standing below the loft, gawking up at him. She was so anxious to get started that a cadence of hurry, hurry, hurry began to sound in her head. Not wanting to appear as desperate as she felt, she grabbed a sheet of score paper and sat at the piano to write down the notes of the now completed composition. Her current favorite because it so reminded her of Kellen and all the things she wished he would do to her. If not tonight, then sometime in the near future.
    Using a pencil, she marked the notes quickly, the melody filtering through her head as surely as if she’d been playing it aloud. She’d make the piece look pretty before she sent it off, but she had to get it down. The familiar task calmed her and ate away the time that she’d have spent pacing while she waited for Kellen.
    She didn’t realize he was standing behind her until she heard a clink against the floor. She glanced over her shoulder. He was watching her with a look somewhere between fascination and terror.
    She tossed her pencil aside and collected the score sheets into a