by Eden Bradley
A surge of desire swarmed her body, warming her all over.
How long had it been since she’d felt this sort of attraction to a man? Certainly not since before Nathan …
No, don’t think of him now. He has nothing to do with this.
No, but he was the reason it had been so long since she’d been able to look at another man this way. With lust swimming through her veins.
Stop it.
Just finish up, go home. Have a glass of wine and forget all about this man.
“Alright, I hope to see everyone next time. If you’re interested in joining Pinnacle and exploring further, please see Carrie at the front door for an application.”
As usual, several people approached her, and she answered a few last-minute questions as everyone filed out of the room. Everyone but him.
He stayed behind, standing by his chair, while she talked to people, while she gathered the stack of leftover handouts, put them in her purse. Finally he strode up to the front of the room—there was no other way to describe it—and came to stand before her.
She’d been right; he was well over six feet tall, broad and heavily muscled. And he looked vaguely familiar … and even more amazing-looking up close: large, dark brown eyes, his skin a smooth golden brown. His jawline was finely sculpted, broken only by the narrow scar that ran the entire length of the left side. His mouth was wide and generous, his face a bit too serious.
“Ms. Marchant?”
“Marina, please.”
His teeth were white, even. Perfect other than a small chip right in front.
“I’m James. James Cortez.” His voice was deep, as smooth as caramel with a touch of whiskey in it. “I’ve heard about you. That you’re a Shibari master. I’ve heard how you use meditation and trance states in your work, that you have a degree in cultural anthropology, which interests me very much.”
“My degree is in art, and I work as a private dealer, but I did study cultural anthropology. I nearly got my master’s, but I …” Why was she telling him this? “What can I do for you, James?”
“I think you may be exactly what I need.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” It didn’t seem like any sort of standard pickup line. He was far too serious for that. “What is it you’re looking for?”
He just stared at her for several moments, his dark eyes piercing. Then he said very quietly, “A way out of my own head, maybe.”
She nodded, couldn’t speak for a moment. God help her, he smelled right. Clean and sharp. Male. “Are you asking me to play you?”
The idea made her heart pound, imagining him in the ropes. Her ropes.
“Yes.”
She could see now that there were tiny golden flecks in his brown eyes. Like chocolate and honey.
“I … I don’t play men. If you’ve heard so much about me, then surely you’ve heard that.”
“Yes. I’m hoping you’ll make an exception.”
“And why would I do that?”
Other than the mad fluttering in her chest, the way her legs went weak standing so close to him, inhaling his scent.
Yes, that was exactly why she wasn’t going to do what he asked. She couldn’t stand weakness. Not in a man, and not in herself.
He moved in closer. She took a step back.
“I’ll be honest and tell you, Marina, that I need what you have to offer. I need to find some peace. I’ve tried everything else: standard meditation, silent retreats, hypnosis. I’ve tried to find it in the ropes, but I haven’t found anyone good enough, anyone who uses more than the ropes, the old bondage rituals. I need more. I need you to … help me.”
James watched as her lush red lips parted, made a little o. He hadn’t expected the woman to be beautiful. Capable, intelligent. But not this overwhelming beauty. The high cheekbones, the almond-shaped gray eyes that looked like crystal and smoke all at once somehow. The perfect, pale skin set off by the heavy curtain of dark auburn hair that waved around her shoulders. The tall, willowy figure that was as graceful as the way she moved her hands while she spoke.
He was being too damned poetic.
He was just … caught off guard. That was all.
Marina was shaking her head. “I can’t help you.” She picked up her coat and he reached out, helped to slip it over her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I really can’t help you.”
He held on to her coat for a moment, the black leather smooth and cool beneath his fingers. Her skin would feel like that: silky, poreless.
“I’m not your usual submissive boy. I don’t need all of that. I just need the ropes. I need someone who can understand the head trip. Who can guide me.”
“The ropes are the head trip.” She looked angry now, her gray eyes throwing sparks. “Look, I don’t play with men. I have my reasons for that. And it seems that you really don’t even get what the power exchange is about, so why would I want to play with you?”
“Because I need you. And I assure you, I do get it. Try me and see.” He needed her more than ever, now that he’d seen her. He needed to touch her, to run his hands through all that gorgeous hair.
But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about this in terms of sex. Sex had gotten him nowhere.
Impossible not to think about sex with this woman.
He should let it drop, find someone else.
He didn’t want to do this with anyone else.
“Marina … I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I only mean to explain that I’m not looking for the usual kind of domination dynamic. I’m looking for the trance state. I’m looking to get my head straightened out.”
“Perhaps you should try a therapist.” She picked up her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder. She was still angry. He wasn’t sure why.
“I’ve done that. It didn’t help.” He moved in closer, put a hand on her wrist where a bit of bare skin showed at the edge of her sleeve. Her skin was soft and cool, just as he’d imagined, and he had to ignore the kick of desire in his gut. He said quietly, “I need to find that shadow place. I know you understand what I mean. Not everyone does. I can see in your eyes that you’ve been there. Can you tell me that’s not true?”
She blinked at him, long, dark lashes coming down on her pale cheeks. “No,” she said, her voice a little breathless.
“Then take me there. I can’t do it alone.” Her skin was burning now beneath his palm. “Come with me.”
She was shaking her head, just a small motion, side to side, but she said, “Okay. Okay.”
He smiled then, not in triumph but in relief. She couldn’t have any idea what it cost him to have to ask for this. For anything. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”
“There’s a bar down the street.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She paused, looking at him with those stormy gray eyes. There was something veiled behind them, but there was no way to know what it was.
“Why do I think I might regret this?”
He didn’t answer.
She took a long breath, exhaled slowly. “I’m going to do it anyway. We’ll talk, at least. I’ll give you a chance to try to convince me to do what you’re asking. I’m not sure why. But we can talk.”
“A chance is all I’m asking.”
“Oh, you’re asking a lot more than that. Let’s go.”
THE AIR in the bar was warm, a little too close. Or maybe it was James who was a little too close, only inches away, it seemed, on the other side of the small, round table. A glass of red wine sat before her; she twisted her fingers around the stem of the glass, trying to work some of her edginess off. Why had she even come here?
“I appreciate you agreeing to talk with me,” he was saying, sipping a glass of mineral water.
“I still don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I agreed to this. But since I did, go ahead. Tell me why you think you need me.”
He rested his arms on the table, leaning in, and she caught his scent again, clean and dark all at the same time. To
o good. She picked up her glass, sipped, trying to swallow the lust away. But being alone with him in the half-dark bar was only making it worse.
“I told you I’d heard about you,” he said. “Your name is pretty well known in the bondage and BDSM circles. I’ve read about your lectures on the Internet.”
“You … researched me?”
“I researched the masters of Shibari. You were one of a handful of thoroughly knowledgeable people in San Francisco. And the only one who really addresses trance states in any sort of detailed way.”
“I have done a deep study of meditative spaces: Buddhist monks, the whirling dervishes of Turkey, Catholic nuns, even.” She stroked the wineglass with her fingertips, concentrating on the smooth, cool glass. It was too hard to look at him; he was so intense. “I believe that same sort of trance state can be reached through bondage, if the people involved respond to it, are open to the idea. It’s not for everyone.”
“This is exactly what I’m looking for. What I think I need.”
“Why? I get the feeling this is not some journey of sexual gratification.”
“I can find sex anywhere.”
She was sure he could. But he wasn’t being cocky. “Tell me more.”
“I’ve … been through some pretty rough experiences. I work as a news journalist. Well, I did, until two years ago.”
“That’s where I know you from. I’ve seen you interviewed on television. I’ve read your articles in magazines.”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“You’ve been all over the world. Written for Time, National Geographic, covered all the worst war-torn countries. You did that special on the lost children of Brazil, the street kids. And another on the Serbian refugees.”
“Yes.”
She saw his face shutting down just a bit and had the first glimmer of understanding of what he’d been through, doing that sort of work.
“You must have seen … everything.”
“Yes.” He glanced away, and she watched the rise and fall of his broad shoulders as he drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry, James.”
He turned back to her. “No, don’t be. We all choose our lives, don’t we? I did some good work.” He stopped, drank from his glass, set it down a little harder than was necessary. “This is what I wanted to tell you. I have seen nightmares beyond anything you could possibly imagine. And I’m not saying that to glamorize myself or what I did for a living. No, just the opposite. Ugly is ugly. But this is the shit I need to get out of my head. Or … learn to think beyond. I don’t know yet how it’ll work. But I cannot meditate by any normal means. I can’t quiet my mind. I don’t really sleep …”
“God, James.”
“And I don’t want pity. I just want help. And frankly, it’s hard as hell for me to have to ask for it. Can you understand that?”
His brown-and-gold gaze on hers, boring into her, glittering with need and pain and … she didn’t know what else. And as much as the way he looked got under her skin, heated her all over, the expression on his face went right into her. Touched her in some deep way.
How could she refuse him?
“You think I can help you with these things?”
“I think you can take me where I need to go, if anyone can. Nothing else has worked. I’ve gotten close enough to get a taste of what’s possible, in the ropes. But I’ve never been with anyone who knew enough about anything beyond the patterns and the knots. The power exchange has been there, but not intensely enough for me. I’ve never been with anyone who was strong enough.”
“And you think I am?”
He cocked his head to one side, looked at her as though he was evaluating her for the first time. “I think you’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, Marina.”
She went warm again, the heat making her shiver, making her legs go weak.
Unacceptable.
But she wasn’t going to turn him away. She couldn’t do it.
“I … we would have to set some limits,” she said, her throat dry. She swallowed, her fingers gripping the delicate stem of the wineglass. “There would be no sex.”
“You’re taking me on, then?”
“If we can come to an agreement.”
I must be crazy.
“Of course.”
“I understand you’re no slave boy, and that’s not what I’m interested in. I can’t stand to see a man being weak.” No, she’d seen far too much of that while Nathan was dying. “But I won’t put up with you fighting me when we’re in role.”
“No, of course not. I want to give in. Even if it’s difficult for me.”
Impossible that this hulking man was saying these things to her.
She wanted nothing more than to bind him, to see him give in, to make him yield to her. Oh, too good to think about it, bringing a man like him to his knees …
“I’ll contact you in a few days to make arrangements.”
He nodded. “I appreciate it.”
He put his hand out, as though he was shaking on a business deal. But his palm was a little rough, warm on hers. And it was as though she’d been shocked, a current of electricity running up her arm. She pulled her hand back, but it was too late; that current ran hot in her body. She crossed her legs against the subtle ache that had started between them.
No sex.
Yes, she’d have to stay in control. She could do it. She’d been doing this for years. And once she had him in the ropes, all that masculinity would be gone, or at least diminished, and he wouldn’t seem so overwhelmingly … male.
Would he?
But she was going to do this, despite the warning bells going off in her head. She knew nothing could make James Cortez any less male to her. Any less masculine. Any less dangerous.
Oh, yes, he was a danger to her. To her sense of control. To the walls she’d constructed so carefully after she’d lost Nathan. And even knowing that, she was unable to resist.
She was about to take a tiger by the tail. And she intended to enjoy every second of it, right up until the moment when he would inevitably devour her.
Chapter Two
MARINA WOKE to the quiet, misty light of the morning sun coming through the lace curtains of her bedroom. It was hard to tell what time it was; it was always foggy in San Francisco, it seemed, even where she lived, in the Castro district, which was sunnier than most other neighborhoods. But she had no idea how long she’d slept.
A glance at the clock told her it was nearly ten. She wasn’t surprised; she’d been up until after two, her conversation with James Cortez running through her mind like a movie on an endless loop.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him, about the things he’d told her, what he wanted from her. What she wanted from him.
She wanted to help him.
She wanted to touch him.
She wanted that surge of power that came with bringing a man of his size, his strength, to his knees, literally and figuratively. There was nothing like it. And she hadn’t experienced that for years. Not even with Nathan.
Nathan had been sweet. Not that he was any less a man. But he’d had a gentle nature, had been so naturally submissive. Not her usual type, but it was impossible not to love him.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking of Nathan? And James? It was all tied together somehow.
Maybe playing with James wasn’t the best idea. Yet she felt compelled. And confused. She was usually so levelheaded. This man had thrown her off balance, and she didn’t like it.
But she still wanted him.
Throwing back the down quilt, she got up, padded across the floor in her thin white-cotton eyelet nightgown, found her thick fleece robe. Wrapping herself in it, she slid her feet into her slippers and went to the kitchen, where she started a pot of coffee, sliced some sourdough bread, and laid it in the toaster oven.
She loved this old Victorian house, had bought it with the money from Nathan’s life insurance and spent an entire year renovating it. It had been a lot of work, but she’
d needed the distraction. And everything was perfect, exactly as she’d wanted it. She’d had the old floors reconditioned, the crown moldings and tin ceilings restored, all of the brass grates and doorknobs polished. The kitchen she’d had completely modernized, but she’d kept the vintage look in the marble counters, the old iron stove she’d found at an estate sale. And she’d filled the house with a combination of Victorian antiques and more contemporary pieces, covered the walls in the modern and ethnic art she loved.
Her house comforted her as nothing else did. It felt real to her. Solid. More solid than anything else had since she’d lost Nathan.
A small stab of loss went through her. Would she ever stop missing him? It was different than it had been; it was no longer unbearable. It was simply omnipresent, that sense of having lost something important. She’d come to accept it. Maybe it would never go away.
Her coffee was ready, and she poured a cup, added too much sugar to it before pulling her toast out, buttering it, and putting it on a small china plate, as she did every morning. She found comfort in these small habits. She carried it all to the big whitewashed wooden table by the window overlooking the street. The fog was beginning to lift already, exposing the city like a blanket rolling back.
She loved the architecture in her neighborhood, a combination of gingerbread Victorians, like her own, and the stucco structures built in the 1920s and ’30s. And she loved the diversity of her neighbors. She could feel at home only in a community of people who accepted those in alternative lifestyles. Not that she walked down the street dressed in leather or carrying a whip. But there was an underlying sense that everyone was accepted here.
She ate her toast, watching the activity on the street below: people walking their dogs, filing in and out of the small grocery store on the corner, going about their daily lives. Why did she feel incapable of doing that herself today? She was too distracted.
She had to get James Cortez out of her mind. Or at least get her wandering thoughts reined in, under control.
Maybe she should talk to Desmond. He could usually help her get her head back on straight.
