When she reached the end of the piece, she allowed the last note to ring. This was her best work, she decided. Like the melody that had won the Grammy, this composition rang true, as if the notes had always been inside her and had just been looking for an outlet. Kellen had drawn them from her subconscious. She didn't know if he realized his influence.
"Thanks for helping me with the song," she said quietly.
“Is it finished?”
“Mostly.” A bit of that old anxiety twisted in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it wasn’t as good as she thought it was. “Does it sound incomplete?”
"It's perfect," he said breathlessly.
She breathed a sigh of relief. Perfect. That’s what she’d been going for. "I don't think I could have done it without you. Do you want me to give you credit as cowriter?"
"No," he said. "I didn't do anything but listen."
And apparently that was exactly what she’d needed. His presence had helped. The undeniable sexual attraction she felt for him had reached deep inside her and unleashed a daring and incredibly sensual force within her—one she had never recognized existed, but welcomed.
"Dawn," Kellen whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Do you have any rope? Something soft that won't damage your skin."
The surge of moisture between her legs was accompanied by a soft moan. Was he really going to tie her?
"There's a decorative rope along the banister around the upstairs loft," she said. "It has seashells and little red starfish hanging from it, but they’ll come off easily. Will that work?"
"It will have to."
Dawn stumbled as she rose from the piano bench. "I'll get some candles. You get the rope. My bedroom is at the top of the stairs on the right. I’ll meet you there."
"Not on your bed," he said. "On the piano."
Dawn’s womb clenched and her mouth dropped open. A piano didn't sound like the most comfortable place to be tied up or tied down—she still wasn't positive what tying entailed—but it sounded sexy as hell. She bit her lip and nodded, not sure if he could see the gesture in the dark, but if she spoke, she was certain any words would come out as one long moan of longing. Days spent imagining her piano teacher making love to her on the lid of her daddy’s baby grand hadn’t prepared her for the impact of those three words—on the piano—spoken from Kellen’s lips. Like every woman, she’d lusted after men, but not like this. Not with body and mind. Not to this degree. This was completely new for her, and the strength of it made her quiver in places she didn’t know could move on their own accord.
She bumped into him as she attempted to find the kitchen. He caught—and held—her loosely by both arms. She felt his body heat, but he didn’t drag her against him the way she wished he would. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t grab her ass to crush her mound against his erection. Oh God, why wasn’t he doing any of those things? All of those things?
Oh, please, Kellen.
“Are you sure about this?” he said, close to her ear.
If he hadn’t been holding her arms, she probably would have sunk to the floor.
“Does it hurt?” she heard herself ask. Did she care? Some part of her did, apparently, but the primal part of her that he’d awakened didn’t give a fig if she felt discomfort.
“Not at all,” he said. “Being bound is a physical experience, but it affects most people psychologically as well. Being helpless will probably push you out of your comfort zone. If you’re not sure you want to do this, you need to say so now. If you back out once I get started, I’m not sure I’ll survive. I need to see my work finished. This has become a spiritual ritual for me. It’s… it’s hard to explain. I will stop if you make me, but I’d rather not start if you have reservations.”
She wanted to understand his words by experiencing his spiritual ritual for herself. “I’m sure. I don’t have reservations.”
He drew her against him at long last and gave her a friendly hug. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She melted against him, pressing her palms against his back to draw him closer. She wanted more than a friendly embrace. She wanted some heat. Passion. She sensed it in him. How did she unleash it? She turned her face into his neck and couldn’t resist rubbing her lips against his flesh.
He dropped his arms and pulled away. “I’ll go find that rope,” he said. A brief flash of lightning showed his retreating back and then he was gone again.
Was she really throwing herself so willingly at this guy?
A side table scraped against the floor several feet away. “Damn it,” Kellen cursed. “I’m not sure if my toes are going to make it through the night.”
Yeah, she was totally throwing herself at this guy. She hoped to God that he planned to catch her.
She smiled and turned to shuffle carefully in the direction of the kitchen for those candles. Maybe they’d save Kellen’s toes from utter destruction.
Dawn located several pillar candles and the lighter for the grill and hurried back to the family room. She set the candles on a nearby side table—probably the same one that Kellen’s toe had become acquainted with—and lit all three candles. She placed the nearby lamp on the floor and glanced up at the banister that ran the periphery of the second floor loft. The whimsical rope garland that had charmed her the first time she’d glimpsed it now made her shudder with longing. The candles gave off just enough light for her to see Kellen’s hands freeing the long lengths of blue and tan rope. He was none too gentle with the seashells that had hung from the ropes. Several of them rained down from above.
“Almost got it,” he said after a moment.
She couldn’t see him well, but she imagined he had a perfect view of her standing below the loft, gawking up at him. She was so anxious to get started that a cadence of hurry, hurry, hurry began to sound in her head. Not wanting to appear as desperate as she felt, she grabbed a sheet of score paper and sat at the piano to write down the notes of the now completed composition. Her current favorite because it so reminded her of Kellen and all the things she wished he would do to her. If not tonight, then sometime in the near future.
Using a pencil, she marked the notes quickly, the melody filtering through her head as surely as if she’d been playing it aloud. She’d make the piece look pretty before she sent it off, but she had to get it down. The familiar task calmed her and ate away the time that she’d have spent pacing while she waited for Kellen.
She didn’t realize he was standing behind her until she heard a clink against the floor. She glanced over her shoulder. He was watching her with a look somewhere between fascination and terror.
She tossed her pencil aside and collected the score sheets into a haphazard pile. He seemed to be having second thoughts, but she wasn’t going to let him change his mind. She should have gone up to help him with the rope so he didn’t have time to think of that other woman—Sara.
“Sorry, I interrupted,” he said. “If you need to work, I’ll—”
“No.” She cut him off before he could say leave. She knew that’s what he was going to say, and she wouldn’t let him. “I was just passing the time while I waited for you.”
She stood from the piano bench and leaned over to remove the prop that held the baby grand’s lid open. She carefully lowered the lid and slid her hands over the smooth surface. Her heart was thudding like a jackhammer, but she wasn’t going to chicken out. She always worried about doing the wrong thing, about appearances, about disappointing someone, but tonight she was doing what she wanted to do. For once, she’d forget about the pressures of the outside world and allow this man to set her free by binding her body. She still wasn’t sure what that meant, but she trusted that he was going to show her.