I tried to deny something was wrong, but I could see that he wouldn’t accept anything other than simple truth. So, once more, I yielded to him, and told him how I felt about surrendering so completely.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I amended my words when he started frowning. “I enjoyed what we did. I enjoyed it a lot. But the feelings it leaves me with are less pleasant. I do not like to see this weakness in me.”
The frown disappeared and his eyes widened at my words. “Weakness?” he repeated. “You think giving control to someone else makes you weak?”
I nodded, embarrassed. His hand slid from my chin and down my neck until his fingers were brushing against the bite marks there.
“What you showed, Virginia, is the very opposite of weakness. You entrusted your body, your pleasure and your very life to me, when you couldn’t know what I would do with any of them. That’s not weakness. That’s courage, and audacity. It takes more bravery to surrender to a lover than it does to accept such a gift.”
His words were as seductive as the way his body moved when he danced, as enthralling, and they would have been too easy to accept. So I didn’t.
“Of course you say so,” I replied, leaning back just enough that he had to drop his hand from my neck. “You’re the one in control. You don’t know what being on the other end of it is like.”
There might have been a hint of reproach in my voice, and he answered it with a stare in which flames danced. He stood so abruptly that he startled me, and I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive when he walked around the bar and came to me. The idea of angering him—a vampire—was definitely frightening, even if he had been nothing short of a gentleman so far. And he continued to be as much, offering me his hand to help me off the stool as he said, “Come with me.”
The tone of his voice left no room for hesitation. I slipped my hand in his and stepped down. He led me not to the front door, as I almost expected, but to his bedroom. The lights were low, and the blue walls seemed darker than they really were. He let go of my hand to walk to the white chest against the wall, and put one knee down in front of it before opening it. When he stood again and turned back to me, handcuffs were dangling from his fingers.
I started shaking my head. I had just confessed being uncomfortable at the idea of giving him too much control over me and enjoying it. More bondage games hardly seemed like the solution.
The handcuffs caught the light and gleamed when he snapped one cuff onto his right wrist.
“Your game, tonight,” he said simply.
... continued in Out of the Box 3
