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Another embarrassingly breathy moan slid from my throat as his lips touched my bicep, moved to the inside, that soft and tender flesh there. Hot soft wet lips, kissing me so intimately, so tenderly, I couldn’t prevent the sound from escaping me. I’d never been touched this way, never been kissed this way. His lips hadn’t touched mine, hadn’t touched me anywhere at all but my hand and arm, and yet I was more aroused than I’d ever been in all my life. I was shaking from head to toe, hot all over, mouth hanging open, barely breathing.

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  “Kyrie…Kyrie…so gentle, so responsive. Do you feel that? I know you do, my sweetest thing. I know you feel it. ” His voice was a low, murmuring thread, his breath touching my shoulder now like a sun-hot wind. “It’s lightning, isn’t it? Pure lightning, arcing between us. Every time my lips touch your perfect skin, you blush and you shiver. I’ve barely touched you, barely begun to kiss you, only just learning the secrets of your body, but already you react so beautifully. Kyrie…Kyrie…you are so beautiful. Such a precious thing, and I simply cannot wait to make you sing, to make your body hum and shiver for me. ”

  I had no breath, heard no sound but his voice and the poetry in his words. If I’d heard anyone else speak that way, I’d mock and scoff. It would sound so contrived, but somehow with him, with his rich and melodic voice, it sounded perfect, natural. And his words, god. I couldn’t help but react to such statements. I felt my spine arch, felt my head turn to the side and my neck curve away, offering the column of my throat to him. No one had ever said such things to me. I’d been called sexy, hot, pretty. One guy had even called me “deliciously f**kable”; I’d had mixed feelings about that one. I’d been told I had a “bangin’ body,” and I’d been told I had fantastic tits. Once, I’d been told my eyes were lovely. That was a good one.

  But…this was different. His voice, a deep murmur in my ear, thick with sincerity, rife with something like awe…it took his poetry to a new level. It made what should have been a fairly common and trite compliment—“so beautiful”—into something different, pushed it into a new realm.

  And…he couldn’t wait to make me sing? Make my body hum and shiver for him? What the hell did that even mean?

  But I had a suspicion. I did feel the lightning. I couldn’t deny that. Mere kisses along my arm, and I was moaning. If he could elicit that reaction from such simple touches, what could he get from me with more intimate attentions? I shuddered as the thought ran through me.

  His lips—now skimming along the ridge of my shoulder and into the curve at the base of my throat—smiled on my skin. “Yes…you feel it. You feel what I could do to you. What I will do to you. ” He trailed kisses up my neck, one…two…three…and then his lips were on my jaw, nearing my chin—is he going to kiss me?—his lips slid up, up, paused just beneath the corner of my lips. “You want me to kiss you, Kyrie? Don’t you? You’re afraid, but you do. I can feel it in you, sense it in you. Ask me, Kyrie. Ask me to kiss you. ”

  His lips hovered, just barely touching my flesh, at the corner of my lips. I trembled all over. The words bubbled up in my throat, crashed against the wall of my teeth. Kiss me. Please kiss me. I clenched my jaw, squeezed my teeth together to stop the words from coming out.

  “No? Not yet, hmm?” His breath touched my cheek, and then his lips descended, ever so briefly, to the swell of my lower lip. He kissed me so softly, so quickly, I might have imagined it. And then I felt a nip, sharp teeth catching my lip, and I gasped. “Very well. I can wait. ”

  I breathed out as I felt him move away, and then I heard a spoon clink against china.

  “The soup is going cold. Open up. ” His voice was neutral once again.

  “You’re going to feed me?” I hated how weak my voice was, how affected I sounded.

  “Yes, of course. Now. Open up. It’s beef barley soup, and it’s to die for. ”

  I hesitated, and then the clenching gurgle of my stomach had me parting my lips. A spoon slid against my mouth, over my teeth, and I closed my lips over it, tasted, swallowed. “Mmmm. You weren’t kidding. That’s amazing. ”

  “Eliza is one of a kind. No one cooks like she does. ” I heard him take a mouthful of soup for himself, and then the spoon nudged my lips again. “Would you like some bread?”

  I nodded as I swallowed, and then felt something scratch my lips. I smelled fresh-baked bread, opened my mouth for it, and tasted the rich, light flavor of a baguette. He’d dipped it in the soup, softening it, and I took the bread from him, bit, chewed, relishing the flavors.

  Thus it went, him feeding me, taking some for himself. It should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn’t. His fingers, as he fed me, would brush my lips, my cheek, and I didn’t flinch at his touch. Once I nearly nuzzled into his hand, and then scolded myself for being ridiculous.

  But it was so surreal, so absurdly romantic and strange, that I couldn’t fathom my own reactions, couldn’t help being swept away, just a little.

  I heard the door swing open, followed by the sound of wheels rolling over the floor. “Was the soup to your satisfaction, sir, Miss Kyrie?” Eliza asked as she removed the bowls and set down something else in front of me.

  “It was amazing, Eliza,” I answered, “thank you. ”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Truly wonderful, as always. ”

  “The main course is salmon,” Eliza said, “freshly caught and baked with herbs. Beside it you will find hand-made garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. ”

  “Ah, Eliza, this looks excellent,” he said, his voice smooth with appreciation. “And the wine?”

  I heard a cork pop, and liquid being poured. “This is a ’96 pinot gris,” Eliza said. “It is from the winery in France. ” She said this last part as if describing something he would be familiar with.

  “Ah, perfect,” he said. His next words were addressed to me. “I own several wineries throughout the world, one of which is in Alsace-Lorraine. While I own it, I made sure the original family continues to run it, seeing as they have been making wine there for more generations than I can number. ”

  He took my hand in his, and pressed a wine glass into my palm. I curled my fingers around it, brought it to my nose, and sniffed. “I don’t know much about wine,” I admitted. “I know you’re supposed to sniff really good wines, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to smell. ”

  He chuckled. “Perhaps another time we will endeavor to teach you the finer points of wine appreciation. But tonight is not that time. For now, simply enjoy it. ”

  I lifted the glass to my lips and took a small sip.

  Holy f**king shit.

  This was as much like the wine I was used to as a Ferrari was like a 1989 Ford Escort. I made a little noise of appreciation, and took another sip. This time, I held the wine in my mouth, swirled it around my taste buds. I’d seen things on TV or in movies where some wine snob, usually wearing a beret and a frilly scarf, took dainty sips and then used absurdly unlikely verbiage to describe the wine, things like hints of verdancy and overtones of oak. What bullshit, I’d always thought. Only, with this wine, I really could taste countless different flavors, undertones and hints and notes. I couldn’t identify them, or describe them, but I could taste them.

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  “Wow,” I ended up saying. “That’s…amazing. ” Lame, totally lame.

  “You’ve never had real wine before, have you?”

  I shrugged. “I guess not. I mean, I’ve had wine before, obviously. But I’ve never had a bottle that cost more than, like, twenty dollars. ”

  “Hah. ” His voice was openly derisive. “That is not wine. ”

  “Well, it’s what I’ve had. I can definitely taste the difference, though. ”

  “That’s good. If you’d said something like ‘wine is just wine,’ I might have had to rethink things a bit. ” He laughed, making it a joke, but I wondered if he’d been serious.

  “You’d just send
me home, then?” I felt for the surface of the table with my empty hand, and carefully set my wine glass down. “Maybe I should’ve pretended to not taste the difference, then. ”

  “It was a joke, Kyrie. ”

  “Was it?” I turned my head in the appearance of looking at him. A habit, an empty gesture.

  His warm fingers brushed a wayward strand of hair away from the corner of my mouth. “Yes. It was. I like nice things. I am extremely wealthy, so I fill my home with the best of everything. But all of it is just…things. In themselves, they mean nothing. I enjoy expensive wines because they taste better than cheap wines. But it’s still just wine. ” His thumb slid across my upper lip, and I had to stop myself from turning into his touch, from nipping at his thumb with my teeth. “And tell me the truth, Kyrie. Would you really go home? Just like that?”

  I had no answer. I tried subtly to move my face away from his touch, unnerved by my own intense reactions to him.

  “Would you?” His voice sharpened. “Answer me, Kyrie. If I told you that you could return home, right now, without breaching our accord, would you?”

  I pulled in a shaky breath, flattened my hands on the table. “I—”

  “I don’t think you would. ” His voice was close, his breath hot on my ear, speaking just above a whisper. “You feel it, Kyrie. If I kissed you right now, I do think you might faint. You’re barely breathing as it is. ”

  “I’m breathing just fine,” I lied. “Would you? Let me go home right now?”

  “No, I don’t think I would. ”

  “Why not?” These two words slipped, breathless, from my lips.

  His breath moved, warming my ear, then my cheek, and then, oh god—I felt his lips on my skin, mere centimeters from my mouth. “This is why. ” As close as our faces were, I still barely heard him.

  My heart was pounding, hammering, thudding in my chest, sending blood pulsing in my ears. My skin was tingling, my hands shaking. Nerves, anticipation…fear? Parsing what I felt was impossible. I only knew I dreaded and needed in equal measure the feel of his lips on mine. So close. Yes. There, please. A kiss, a single kiss.

  I’d only known this man for a matter of perhaps two hours, yet his lips were grazing mine, and he wasn’t breathing, either. How was this possible? I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know what he looked like. I only knew the sound of his voice, the feel of his hands. He could be sixty years old, he could be ugly, he could be so many things. But somehow, in that moment, barely an atom’s breadth between our lips, it didn’t matter.

  “All you need say is ‘yes,’ Kyrie. ” I felt his words, heard them, but just barely. “Say yes. ”

  No. No. No.

  “Yes. ”

  A huge, warm hand cupped the back of my head, a palm rested on my cheek, fingers threaded into my hair, nestled against my ear and along my jaw, cradling my face, drawing me to him. It took but a mere shift of my head, acquiescing by tilting my chin up ever so slightly. Why was I allowing this kiss? I shouldn’t. But…I was. I had to. And it was just a kiss.

  I’m such a liar.

  It wasn’t just a kiss.

  It was power. Control. Acknowledgment of his demands. Conceding to his game.

  Oh…what a game. From the moment his lips met mine, I knew he was a master of this, the art of seduction through a kiss. Slow, hot, wet, insistent. His lips moved on mine, his hands held me in place, not allowing me to pull away until he was ready to let go. He kissed me as if he had something to prove, and indeed he did. He proved to me that this kiss was only the beginning.

  I’d been kissed before. Many times. There were awkward and sloppy kisses, those tension-fraught moments of fumbling intensity as a teenager. There were more skilled kisses, passionate and intentional. There were kisses that stole my breath, kisses that merged seamlessly with the shedding of clothes and the joining of bodies.

  But never, before this moment, had there ever been a kiss that stole my will to pull away, that devoured my capacity for thought, that removed my ability to resist, to feel anything but the kiss.

  He tasted of white wine, light and sweet and slightly sour and cold. I forgot to breathe; he gave me his breath, and then took it back. I had no control over my hands. I felt them moving, felt them lift and reach, and then felt the stubble-rough warmth of his face under my palms. He didn’t pull away; he allowed me touch him.

  It wasn’t a deep kiss, or long. There was no tangling of tongues, no intrusion or demands. It was slow, soft, and exploratory. Introductory. A promise. An invitation.

  When he pulled away, I was left waiting, wanting, wondering. The kiss should’ve continued. I didn’t want it to stop. No one had ever kissed me with such possessive, gentle insistence, and it was addictive. I let out a breath, a shaky, tremulous breath.

  “That’s why. ”

  “Oh. ”

  “Yes. Oh. ” He gave my cheekbone one last graze with his thumb, and then I heard a utensil scrape against a plate. “Open. ”

  At his command my mouth opened of its own accord. A fork touched my lips and tongue, and I tasted metal, and then salmon, light and flaky and perfectly flavored with herbs. He took a bite, and then told me to open again, feeding me potatoes, thick and strong with garlic, and then green beans, buttery and crisp. It was the perfect meal, filling and balanced and bursting with flavor, and even the oddity of being blindfolded and fed like an invalid faded.

  Eliza brought dessert the moment we had finished the main course. It was a crème brûlée, creamy and sweet and thick.

  “You weren’t kidding,” I said. “Eliza is an amazing chef. ”

  “I chose her out of a thousand candidates. I spent nearly a year vetting each individual applicant. I only interviewed four of them, and Eliza, obviously, is the one I chose. She is a miracle worker, truly. ”

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  “A thousand candidates?”

  He made an mmhmm noise as he took a bite of dessert. “To be my personal housekeeper? Those were only the ones who made the initial cut. There were a total of nearly two thousand, more than half of whom lacked the proper skill set. Eliza does nearly everything for me. She cooks, does my laundry, cleans my personal quarters, and sees to any other household needs. Shopping, tailoring, the like. She works more hours than most corporate CEOs, and in compensation I pay her a salary that those same CEOs would be murderously jealous of. ” He fed me another bite of dessert, speaking as he did so. “I demand excellence, and, if I am satisfied, I compensate most generously. ”

  “She cleans this whole place by herself?”

  “Oh, no. I have a private firm that comes twice a week. They are under contract, of course. But they are not allowed in my private quarters. No one is. Eliza is the only person who has ever been there. Not even Harris has crossed that threshold. ”

  “So you trust Eliza, then. ”

  “Totally. ” His voice grew tense with emotion. “She has been in my employ for twenty years. She was my very first full-time employee, and she has seen my business grow from a seedling to what it is today. ”

  “I’m confused. You said you chose her out of a thousand applicants. But you also said she was your first employee. How did that work?”

  He sighed. “You are sharp, Kyrie. A thousand people is a lot, but I chose her from my father’s roster of employees. It was…a kind of test, I suppose you could say. He gave me the freedom to choose any one employee from his ranks, and only one. He wanted to see who I’d choose. ” A pause, the scrape of the spoon seeking the last of the crème brûlée. “The joke was on him, though, because Eliza was from his own personal household staff. She was being groomed to be his housekeeper. ”

  “I bet he wasn’t happy with that turn of events. ”

  “No, he wasn’t. He tried to change the agreement, but I’d made him sign a written contract. ” He laughed. “I learned from the best. ”

  “Who is your father?”

 
His voice went sharp. “Nice try, Kyrie. You will learn my identity in due time. ” I yawned. “It is growing late, and you have had a trying day. Allow me to see you to your room. ”

  “Well, I don’t have a choice. I will have to allow you to do that since you’re the only one who can see. ”

  “The blindfold chafes at you, doesn’t it?”

  “Obviously. I hate relying on anyone for anything. This is the definition of helplessness. ”

  He stood, the chair grating on the floor, and then he took my elbow, sliding my chair out as I stood. “That is the point, Kyrie. Reliance. Dependence, helplessness. You have had no one but yourself to rely on for so long. So long. And now it is your turn to allow me to take care of your every need. ”

  “I thought it was about control. And privacy. ”

  We walked in silence for several moments before he responded. “Yes, that is true as well. The blindfold serves many purposes. ”

  “And when will you take it off?”

  “When I feel you and I are both ready. ”

  “And when will that be?”

  He pulled me to a stop, turned me, and pressed my back to the wall. I felt his presence before me, trapping me, huge above me. His voice, so close, came from well above my head. “Do you trust me?”

  “No. ”

  “No?”

  “Not—not completely. ”

  “Why not?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know what’s happening. To me. Between us. Why there’s an ‘us’ here at all. Part of me feels—I don’t know—coerced. Blackmailed. But you’re right, I do feel a—a connection. A possible connection, more like. A chemistry. That kiss was…intense. But I still don’t know what I want. What you want. ” I hesitated. “I looked at the file. ”

  “You shouldn’t have,” he said.

  “I almost wish I hadn’t,” I said. “But I did, and…thank you. For protecting me from him. ”

  “Of course. I couldn’t sit by and allow him to hurt you. ”

  “So…that goes a long way toward helping me trust you. But…it’s not that easy. Not for me. I don’t…I can’t just decide to trust someone. It takes time. Effort. ”

  “And that is why the blindfold must remain. ” One finger touched my chin, tilting my face up. “Kiss me. ” It was a command.

  “Ask me. ”

  “No. ”

  “Then, no. ”

  “You’re not grasping the arrangement, it seems. ”

  “I don’t do commands very well. ”

  “And I don’t repeat myself. ” His voice grew sharp. “But, just this once, for you, I will. You want to know what I want? What this is about? It’s about trust. Obedience. Compliance. You obey, I learn to trust you. If I trust you, I will give you my name and allow you to see me. Then I’ll allow things to go further. If I don’t trust you, this will take much longer, and be much harder. ”

  “You said you wouldn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to. ”