“One…two…three…”

I take off toward the living room, keeping my footsteps light but loud enough that he can hear, then I turn to the kitchen where there’s a small pantry. I open the door and close it softly, hoping it’s just enough to reach his ears.

“Seven…eight…nine…”

My steps become silent as I backtrack across the house. When I pass the mouth of the corridor to the front door, I only take a step when he counts to lessen the chances he’ll notice.

“Eleven…twelve…”

I dart down the hallway to the bedrooms and enter the guest room, lying on my back beside the bed so I can shuffle into my hiding spot from the last time I was here. Working my way to the wall, I press my side against it, my heart rioting in my chest not because I’m panicking, but because I fucking love this game. I want to win. But I also don’t.

“Eighteen…nineteen…twenty,” Kaplan calls from the front door. “Ready or not, sweetheart, here I come.”

I set the alarm on my watch and slow my breathing, straining to listen for any sound. There’s nothing. I don’t even know if he’s left the door. There’s no way he wants me to win, though I’m sure he would enjoy what I have in mind if I do. But that beast inside him is a hunter. It doesn’t just want to run me down. It thirsts for victory.

I check my watch. One minute and twenty-six seconds have elapsed. I’d love to believe that my trick worked and he’s simply at the other end of the house, looking in the kitchen cabinets or the pantry. I’m just not that naive.

There’s no sound. Nothing.

Maybe he thinks the silence will spook me into giving up my place? He’s wrong, if so.

Two minutes and ten seconds.

I hold my breath and listen, but all I hear is my heart thrumming in my ears.

Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Over halfway there.

I’m just letting my breath out in a slow stream when two hands grip my ankles and pull. My legs buck on impulse and I squeal, hitting my knees hard on the metal frame. My bare legs and ass squeak on the hardwood floor as Kaplan slides me from my hiding spot with a vicious tug.

“There’s no point in fighting,” Kaplan says as I claw at the bed frame. I nearly get my fingers around the slats before Kaplan tugs again and I’m laid out on the floor, free of my cover. I could kick him off, and I squirm like I want to, but I don’t.

Kaplan pins one of my arms with his knee and the other with a large hand. He smiles down at me, triumphant. Hungry. Feral. He leans his face closer to mine. “Hello, sweetheart. I told you I would win, and I am very much looking forward to my prize. I made a promise, Bria. Are you ready to beg?”

My breath comes in pants. My core clenches with an empty ache that yearns to be filled. I press my thighs together as arousal dampens them. “Yes,” I say, glaring at Kaplan’s smug grin.

“And you’re going to behave yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl,” he says as his smile widens. He whips a hemp rope from the floor and knots it around the wrist he traps in his hand, then binds it to my other one. Then he hauls me over his shoulder with a grunt and carries me to his bedroom, tossing me down on the mattress like a prized stag he’s shot down in the woods. I scramble to my knees and he tugs at my wrists. “Don’t move.”

Kaplan rummages in drawers as I kneel in the middle of the bed. My blood boils and foams in anticipation. A thin line of sweat dots my hairline, but a cold chill sluices down my spine. The distinctive sound of metal links forces gooseflesh skittering across my arms and legs. When Kaplan straightens, he deposits chains and ropes and cuffs beside me.

“Ankle,” he commands, his voice as rough as tires crunching across gravel. I twist my body and offer a leg. He slips a leather cuff around my ankle and attaches a chain to the metal ring before demanding the next one. When both cuffs are buckled, Kaplan secures the other end of the chains to the posts at the foot of his bed. He tightens them until there is no slack from where I sit, my legs spread wide and open for him. He looks at the glistening, pink flesh between them for a long moment before he tears his gaze away and starts working one of the knots free on my wrist.

“One day, we’ll do this properly,” Kaplan says as he unleashes my other wrist and then twists my hand behind my back. He bends my elbow so my hand rests between my shoulder blades. A softer rope winds between my thumb and forefinger and then across my arm. He passes it over my chest and to my back again, securing my other hand with the first. By the time he’s finished, my hands are immobilized in a web of ropes. The soft strands press into my arms and chest, my breasts still covered by the purple lace of my bodysuit but framed by the twined hemp.

Kaplan surveys his work and then meets my eyes. “You won’t be able to tap out, obviously.”

“Do you think I would anyway?” I ask with a daring smirk. His pupils blow wide beneath his hooded lids.

“No. But I need you to pick a safe word.”

“Done. Tweed.”

Kaplan barks a laugh. “Fine. Tweed it is.” He shifts backward until he’s able to stand at the foot of the bed. He looks down at me, my arms subdued, my breasts trapped between rope, cuffs and chains spreading my legs wide so he can see all the evidence of how much I want him. Kaplan keeps his eyes on me as he undresses, scouring my body with his scorching gaze.

When he’s done, Kaplan goes back to the drawers and opens one, pulling out a bottle of lube and a purple vibrator that’s nearly the same shade as my lingerie. Then he climbs up onto the bed and sets the toy and bottle down next to him as he kneels between my thighs. His hand flows up my body to rest at the back of my neck and he pulls me closer. His eyes bound between mine as he pushes me down onto the bed.

“Don’t forget to beg,” he whispers.

“Don’t forget to make me.”

There’s a beat of time that seems to last an eternity, and then Kaplan’s mouth is on mine in a kiss that’s brutal and unforgiving. Our teeth clash. He bites and nips. He fucks my mouth with his tongue. And his hands roam my body, tracing the lines of the ropes against my skin, pulling the lace to the side to pinch my nipples, drifting lower to press my clit in hard circles.

When he breaks the kiss, Kaplan bites and nibbles and sucks on my neck, not caring where he leaves a mark. I’ll be covered with bruises. He means to claim every inch of my skin and takes his time with both sides of my neck and then the flesh of my breasts. He sucks hard on my nipples and scrapes them between his teeth when he lets go, and when I cry out the second time, it only spurs him to bite harder.

Kaplan carves a torturous path of longing down my body, cutting a trail of tooth marks and bruises in his wake, until eventually he gets to my pussy. The chains rattle as my legs squirm with the need for friction, my arousal slipping down my ass to dampen the sheets. My arms and shoulders burn beneath my weight, but the discomfort only adds to my desire.

When he finally rests between my thighs, Kaplan blows a thin stream of cool air onto my flesh and I whimper with desperate need. “You need to come so badly, don’t you, sweetheart,” Kaplan says as one of his fingers traces a line through my slick folds and circles my clit. “Don’t you.”

“Yes,” I say in a breathless whisper.

“Such a shame you haven’t started begging then, isn’t it? What if I don’t let you come?”

He blows another thin stream of air across my core, the coolness of it only reminding me further of how much I burn for his touch. “Please,” I say. It sounds so foreign coming from my lips, but yet it’s right, somehow. “Please make me come.”

“Tsk-tsk, baby,” he purrs, then circles my clit with a stroke of his tongue that is far too gentle. My nerves spark like misfiring fuses. “You can do better than that.”