"It's true."

"You insult us both. And you're lying-either to me or to yourself."

"Don't lecture me about my own heart."

Mikhail closed his eyes. She could hear his inner turmoil. He might be more confused than her. Which was saying something, because she was on the verge of a full blown panic attack. She couldn't think in captivity, only beat her wings against the bars.

"Fine," he said abruptly.

"What?"

"I won't marry you. I don't want you to bear my name. I don't want your goods or territories. In fact, I don't even want to live with you."

Alya just stared at him, confused. He couldn't walk away now. Neither of them could. His words were measured, but desire radiated off him, hot as a furnace. He said, "I don't want anyone to know this ever happened."

"But it did." Saying it aloud made it real. Made it huge.

He agreed. She saw the enormity of it in his eyes. "It did."

They'd fed on each other. She lowered the knife. A long silence pa.s.sed between them as she remembered drawing his body into hers and drinking his crystalline soul.

"All we have to do is complete the blood bond."

Alya choked. "That's all?"

"It doesn't make us Siamese twins. Once the bond is complete we can live separately. We'll be able to feed as usual, and we can learn to control our minds, to give each other privacy."

"You mean, make this a disease we can live with?" It was a dubious premise.

"I've been angry. But we both have responsibilities beyond ourselves. What will happen to your territories if I kill you tomorrow?"

"More to the point, what will happen to yours if I kill you?"

"Let's make a deal. Neither of us takes Minnesota."

"That's fine. I never wanted Minnesota. I wanted New York."

One corner of his mouth quirked up, not so much amused as rueful. "You already have New York."

Alya's stomach flip-flopped. Who was this man? Why was being near him so sweet and bitter and scary?

"You've had me for a long time." He stated it as a plain fact. "Give me your hand."

Alya locked her hands behind her back. "No. You have to fight me tomorrow. For your own good. Otherwise..."

"Otherwise what?"

She drew a shaky breath. "Otherwise you'll end up marrying me."

He threw his arms wide and shouted, "I came here to marry you!"

"I can't." She retreated, her stomach threatening to heave. Couldn't he see what a bad idea it was for both of them?

"I don't want to be your cage. I want to be your shield. Give me your hand and let me prove it."

Blazing with righteous sincerity, he thrust out his hand. She glanced at the door, hoping for an attack. Where were the bad guys when you needed them?

He didn't withdraw his hand, and she knew she couldn't hide from him anymore-not when he lived in her heart and swam in her veins.

She put her palm across his. Their fingers intertwined. A faint electrical charge pa.s.sed between them. The rope came to life. It slithered over their joined hands and headed up her arm.

Terrified of being bound, she tried to jerk away. When he wouldn't let go, she aimed a kick at his kneecap.

"Easy!" He dodged her foot. "It's for you. I'm giving it to you."

"Why?"

"Because a knyaz makes his own rules."

The rope had reached her shoulder. She wanted to rip it off. Mikhail wasn't making sense. She needed to get out of there. "I don't understand."

For the first time in this conversation he faltered. For a moment he seemed unable to speak at all. "We'll live apart, but I imagine sometimes we'll...visit."

His mind pressed against hers, flashing images of their skin sliding together, their mouths joined, his c.o.c.k hot against her thigh.

Alya's mouth went dry. "Visit? Under...uh...what terms?"

His expression flat, he began to unb.u.t.ton his shirt. "I'm willing to meet your terms of engagement."

Alya had never been a nervous virgin, but suddenly she felt like one. Pretending to be uninterested in his state of dress, she said, "Are you?" She gestured at the equipment surrounding them. "Do you really understand how I prefer to engage?"

Spreading open his shirt, he shrugged it off first one shoulder then the other. The rough A on his chest stretched and contracted, riding on the muscles that girded his lean torso.

"Didn't I give you the rope?"

Holy h.e.l.l. "Are you saying you want me to use it on you? That you want me to tie you up?"

Instead of answering, he sat on the spanking horse again and began to pull off his shoes.

"What are you thinking? Someone might come through that door any second."

"No one is coming."

"Dominick is-"

"Matchmaking. It's the only logical conclusion. He wants us to work it out."

"What if you're wrong?"

Mikhail leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his bare, high-arched feet vulnerable and tempting beneath the hems of his tailored trousers. "You trusted him implicitly, you said. If you can't trust your own judgment, what can you trust?"

Nothing. That was the problem.

"Trust me. I'm sure of it. We're safe." His focus shifted to the rope on her arm. He eyed it like an adversary.

"I'm not going to do it." Even as she said it, the rope slid across her shoulders and down her opposite arm, delighted with the idea, apparently. Irritated, she shook her arm and it calmed down. "This isn't your scene. I'm not going to blue ball you into doing something absolutely contrary to your nature."

"I want the rope." He spoke to the ground.

She squatted next to him, tried to see his face behind his hair. "That's impossible."

He jerked his head up, meeting her eyes for a brief, intolerably intense instant. "This is about the bedroom. Only the bedroom. And I said I was making my own rules."

Confused, she shook her head. "Just because I have to...because I can't...?"

"Not just that." He clasped his hands together and brought them up to his bruised face, like he was praying. "Not just that. When you took me in the living room. Took me. I'd never felt so free. And on the roof. Bound, with you on top. I swear to G.o.d I knew I was dying but I've never been so happy." He made his hands into fists and brought them to his knees.

"Mikhail." Her hand hovered over his shoulder. G.o.d help me if I touch him I'll never let go.

"I'm not ashamed." The words were a lash, his posture anything but submissive. "This is our path. I understand that now."

Of course she remembered how completely he'd let go when she'd blown him, and how much she'd enjoyed taking him over the edge. There'd been little time for her to think about it, but she'd categorized that encounter as just another kind of fight in a night of battles. And the roof-he'd actually enjoyed it?

"I'm not sophisticated. Not this way. I don't understand this world, this scene, whatever you call it. I don't know what you do down here. I don't know what this makes me or you. The outside world might think me weak-"

No one would ever mistake him for weak.

"Test me."

And he said it with such vehemence that a shiver pa.s.sed through her. A prince yielding to her. Mikhail yielding to her. All that strength, that enormous will. The possibilities...

She inclined her head, accepting the challenge.

Chapter Fourteen.

It was like walking into a dream, but she a.s.sumed her role effortlessly, natural dominance wrapping her like a cloak. She stepped closer, so that the toes of her boots threatened his bare feet, sending a little thrill of erotic pleasure through her.

"You say you wish to be tested, Mikhail. How? By pain?"

"Pain? Pain is my friend. It's pleasure I don't know anything about."

She folded one of his hands between hers. His skin was freezing. "You truly desire this?"

"I want it. Yes." His eyes glittered in the low lights. "I feel like I did when I met my first formal challenge."

Alya knew that feeling well, how the adrenaline that made the heart pound, the nausea that rose but was soon forgotten, the narrowing of her focus until she could see nothing but her enemy.

He said, "I'm ready."

Mikhail Faustin was a submissive.

Her whole world had just turned upside down and inside out.

A little dazed, she went to her treasure chest, thinking about how best to challenge him. This first encounter should be more about her learning about his mind rather than him being impressed with her equipment. If he was faking it, or simply confused, she wanted to know that, too.

She bypa.s.sed all the whips and paddles, clamps and plugs, choosing only two coils of rope, one white and thick, the other black and slender like the bride rope, and, after some consideration, a black leather half mask, the sort a bandit would wear. But instead of having eyeholes, the leather was molded into the shape of closed eyelids. It was a blindfold.

He stood where she left him, rapt, taking in the rope and mask. She walked slowly, making each movement deliberate and provocative. By the time she stopped in front of him, the air between them buzzed.

She showed him the mask. His jaw clenched in response. Blindfolding threatened him, definitely.

Laying it aside, she uncoiled a length of the white rope. "Take off your trousers."

He obeyed and stood naked in front of her, semi-erect. She looped the rope around his neck.

"What is that for?"

She put her fingers to his lips. "No questions. You may only speak when spoken to, unless you're telling me to stop. I have no safe words. If you tell me to stop, it's over."

As she spoke, his gaze flicked rapidly from side to side, reading her, memorizing the details of the room, perhaps planning an escape. He'd gone hyper-vigilant. She could almost taste the adrenaline coursing through him. As for his thoughts, he had a tight seal on thosefor the moment.

Resisting the impulse to kiss his worries away, she tucked his hair behind his ears and tied the mask at the back of his head. The cord cut into his heavy, silver blond hair. The black leather, b.u.t.tery as it was, appeared coa.r.s.e against his alabaster skin. Beneath the mask's tranquil sleeping eyelids, Mikhail's lips tightened into a thin line.

Mikhail clamped down on the urge to rip off the mask. He often dreamed of going blind in the middle of a fight, at the worst possible moment. This was no time to be blind, either.

"You're inconveniently tall." Her breath stirred the hair at his nape and warmed his skin. She was the tallest woman he knew. The only one he'd not have to stoop to kiss.

Kiss. His lips parted at the thought, his chest swelled. She heard his wish. He heard the echoing desire in her. Using this sonar, he realized they could please one another perfectly. But she didn't listen to it. She was still afraid to listen.

He was following the spider web path. It led to the truth between them, but it was a hard path to follow. As in his nightmares, he had to fumble along in the dark.

Letting her blindfold him was part of it.

Accepting this truth about himself was part of it.

The hope that lit her face when he made his confession was part of it.

This dungeon version of Alya surprised him. She wasn't nervous or sarcastic anymore. Instead, she radiated serenity. He'd expected whips and chains, but her hands were gentle and her throaty voice buoyed him in the darkness.

She wrapped his torso in heavy rope. He tried to picture what she was doing. She asked him to raise and lower his arms, tied knots here and there, pa.s.sed the rope between his legs and over his shoulders. Every so often she slipped her fingers beneath the rope and let them rest against his skin.

He liked the rope's soft texture, the pressure of it as it tightened, Most of all, he enjoyed Alya's light, deft touch. His breathing slowed. He forgot to be vigilant.