Crazy Sweet by Tara Janzen Page B

tight enough for her to know it wasn’t going to accidentally fall off.
    There were no accidents in this game. Never.
    The cloth was soft. She felt the edges of it across the bridge of her nose and across her eyebrows, creating darkness, the place of fear.
    The loss of sight was complete.
    Her breath started to come short, running along the edge of panic, and his mouth came down on hers in a drugging kiss. Wet, serious, taking and wanting, his tongue pushing deep, again and again, consuming her mouth, demanding more, and she gave him everything she had. It was the only way. She slid her free hand up into his hair, tangling her fingers through the long strands, holding him close and moving her mouth with his, pressing herself against him, curves molding to angles, the firm softness of her body coming up against the rock hardness of his. The taste of him filled her, the gentleness of his breath against her skin, the strength of his arms around her.
    Then he was gone, and she felt a strip of soft cloth going around and around the bottom half of her face, covering her mouth, fitting snugly against her jaw, wrapping around the back of her head and coming up the other side, binding her, stealing her voice, enough cloth to keep her from being able to scream.
    Her heart started to beat faster, to race, and his hand was there, sliding up her torso and cupping her left breast, his palm warm, his fingers callused but gentle.
    Her panic eased, but an edge of fear remained and grew sharper when his hand left her and she felt him at her feet, tying her ankles together with the other end of the rope. It took some time, the intricacy of the knots and stringing the rope through the ring in the floor, to keep her from being able to move, at all, in any direction.
    When he was finished at her feet, he brought the same rope up and tied it around her waist. The tug of each successive knot tightened the one before, one after the other. She knew what came after her waist, and she started to fight, but he caught her to him hard, his hand capturing her free arm and holding it behind her back.
    He tied it there, tied her wrist to the rope at her back, and she was in bondage, in the limbo of the unknown. Fear and anticipation rolled through her, holding her in place more surely than the ropes, bringing her to a perfect standstill, balanced on her toes, her raised hand gripping the rope leading from her wrist to the bracket on the wall—and being careful to breathe, she waited.
    TRAVIS took a step away from her and dragged his hand back through his hair.
    Geezus . What a piece of work. Just looking at her was enough to make him hard again. The arch of her feet, the length of her legs, the incredible curve of her ass, her whole body licked with a sliver of light. She damn near shimmered, her skin was so pale. Full, lush breasts, wild hair, and two bands of black across her face—it was always like this between them, dark and sweet, so hot he ached even when he was inside her, and just a little twisted.
    Yeah, he needed a shrink, to love this the way he did, to love her the way he did.
    Yeah, Doc, I’ve got this girlfriend, you see, older woman, complicated, amnesiac, and so fucking beautiful—especially when I tie her up naked in the moonlight.
    Yeah, Doc, you heard it right.
    And he meant tied. She wasn’t going anywhere until he released her. That was the point. No half measures would do for Red Dog. The girl worked without a net—all the time, every time.
    And every time, she pushed him straight to the edge. The gag and the blindfold kept him right there, balanced on the edge between his commitment and his conscience. It was a damned uncomfortable place to be—and yet it turned him on. Someday, he was going to look into that, kind of check himself out, see what the fuck was up with him; until then, he just went with it—to a point. He’d spent days designing the rigging, testing the knots, practicing tying them. Timing was everything with