“No,” Ivy says.
“Are you sure?” I ask. I’m not mad. I don’t care if she says no. I just want to make sure. “Because this is what you have to do if you want me to tell you the whole story.”
“Did you rape her or not?”
“I already told you no.”
“Did you tie her up?”
“You’ll have to give in to find out.”
Ivy takes a deep breath, struggling with her decision. Should she give in to me, put her fear aside, even though everything in her body is telling her I’m dangerous? Or should she get up, walk out, and never look back?
Truthfully, I’m not sure which answer is right for her.
She exhales and lowers her arms in front of her. Palms pressed together.
I smile. “I like the double braid because it’s soft.” I start wrapping it around her wrist, lining each pass up end to end, so it’s flat, and elegant, and strong. “And I like the yellow. I have a thing for yellow, Ivy. Which is why I really liked that bikini you were wearing at the pool yesterday afternoon.”
“What are you going to do?” Ivy asks, her voice slightly panicked now that she’s given me control. I’ve already got the rope the way I like it and I tuck the loose end underneath, near her wrist to fasten it.
“If you ever get stuck, just FYI, the rope stretches. I don’t put it on tight, it would cut off your circulation. So if I ever leave you for some length of time and you become afraid, think I won’t come back, or you’ve had enough—just wriggle around until it loosens. It might take a while, but you’re not stuck, Ivy. Got it?”
She swallows hard and nods.
“Good. Because I’m going to leave you right now.”
“What? Nolan—”
“Stop,” I say. “I’ll be back.”
I get up before she can say anything else and leave the room.
Chapter Twenty-Four - Ivy
I hear him in the house. Down the hall. Downstairs. The beeping of something, like he’s arming the house alarm. Then silence. Just me, lying here naked, my wrists bound together by soft yellow rope.
He’s into something weird. Some bondage thing. He wants to tie me up and hit me with a riding crop. Put those clamp things on my nipples or… whatever. I’m not really sure what kinky guys do. And I haven’t read the books everyone has been talking about the past few years.
But Ivy Rockwell, you have to admit, you like it enough to be here.
Right.
A part of me might find it intriguing. In an academic kind of way. I mean, I have to wonder. Why the hell do people like this stuff? I certainly don’t feel sexual right now. Lying here on the bed, hands in front of me, chewing my lip as I wait for Nolan to decide to come back.
It’s the anticipation, I get it. He’s definitely got my mind spinning. But—
“Hey,” Nolan says from the bedroom doorway. “Zoning out or what?”
I didn’t even hear him come back. “No. I was just getting irritated, actually. For you taking so long.”
“Well, no one put you in a corner and called you bad, Ivy. You could’ve gotten up. Looked out the fucking window or something.”
“I know that,” I snap. But I… didn’t know that. Didn’t understand it at least. I just stayed here. Where he put me.
“I’m not dominating you, Ivy. I’m not going to ask you to lick piss up off the floor just to prove to me you’re interested. That’s not what I’m about.”
I wait for it, but he holds it in. He wants me to ask. That is what he’s about. Control. He’s not going to give anything away. I have to come get it. He is dominant. He does like submission. He just does it in a way I’ve never heard of before. He’s some kind of cutting-edge deviant. And I’m his new project. He’s going to use all his magic charms on me and see how far he can get before he has to throw me away and find someone new.
“What are you about?” I ask.
He grins a grin that sends a chill through my bare nipples. Like a breeze just passed over my body. He made me react.
“Pleasure, Ivy. I’m about pleasure.”
“You want to slap my face while you fuck me.”
“Wow.” He laughs. “Those are some dirty words coming from the preacher’s daughter’s mouth.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“Because I matter. You’ve got me—”
“Ivy,” he interrupts, his voice stern. “Relax. Enjoy.” And then I see what he’s holding in his hands.
“What’s that?”
“Paper. And charcoal pencils.”
Oh. I forgot. Jesus Christ. I take a deep breath and try to shake off my fear.
“You still want me to draw you?”
“Yes.” I have a million little justifications for this want. I don’t believe him. I think there’s more to it than what he’s saying. I think he’s sick, that he and his friends raped that girl, and then somehow, some way, the five of them got her killed.
At least I should think those things. Nothing Nolan Delaney has said to me is convincing. And I probably do think them. Do believe them, at least a little bit.
But that’s not why I want him to draw me.
I like the way he’s looking at me right now. No man has ever looked at me like this before. Nude. Stretched out on his bed. Pretending to be helpless, even though he just told me I’m not helpless.
“Then relax.” That grin again. It says a lot. It says he does have secrets. Deep ones. Dark ones. And he’s right. Once I know them, I can never unknow them. “I’m gonna pose you, OK?”
Nolan steps forward, kneeling on the bed, and sets the pad of paper and the charcoal pencils down as he crawls forward and wraps his hand around my ankle.
I nearly come undone. By a hand on my ankle. Has anyone ever touched my ankles before? Is it supposed to feel this way?
“Shhh,” he says when I jerk my foot away from his touch. “It’s not time to be afraid yet, Ivy.”