“Raina.” The one word was demand, desire…reverence with a dangerous edge, a desire to pillage the temple as much as worship in it. He had that dichotomy, and when she registered it, as she did now, she trembled, a little quiver over her skin.

She moved behind him, threaded her fingers through his hair, tugged at his scalp. “Did you ever wear it longer than this?”

“No. Too easy for an enemy to grip it.”

“Always the warrior.” Then she yanked, pulling his head back and trailing her nails over his jugular, leaving scratches along the pumping artery. When she bent to touch her mouth to the skin beneath his ear, his fingers dug into the chair, his muscles rippling against those bindings so he felt the burn of their hold. Despite being solid wood, well made, the chair creaked. He could destroy it if he allowed the power building within his chest to expand. He could blow out the walls of this room with it. He roped it down, a binding within Raina’s bindings, and let out a feral growl as she ran those nails down his chest, tugged his hair there, then scraped his abdomen. Her breasts pressed into his back, and he inhaled her scent. That blue-green-gold field of power was expanding from her as well, that aural mist enclosing them in this moment that belonged only to them.

Then he muttered an oath as she opened his jeans all the way. Straightening to take her hands down his back, she slid her hands fully into them, taking a hard grip on his buttocks, squeezing.

“Goddess, I love your ass,” she murmured against his shoulder blade. “Lift up some. The bindings will allow it for a second.”

He did, and just as she’d indicated, he had the slack for only the amount of time she needed to shove the denim and the cotton boxers out from under him. Coming back in front of him, she bent and removed them. Because the bindings were magical, the cloth passed right through them. Well, mostly. He noted the smoking burns on the fabric and she shrugged, giving him a teasing look as she dropped them to the side.

Turning, she curled her hair behind an ear and held it there as she bent over the table and considered the music choices on his player. It positioned her bare ass directly in his field of vision, right in between his knees. “Where’s that paddle?” he muttered. He’d leave bad girl in big bold relief on those quivering cheeks and then kiss away every welt.

She tilted her head so he saw a glimpse of her profile, her coy smile. Then she made her music choice. “You Look So Fine” by Garbage, a gritty song about raw love, with a sultry beat and provocative lyrics.

Turning to face him once more, she came within the span of his knees, the heat of her body so close. He might be the one tied, but he made sure his gaze was a Master’s heated appraisal of what belonged to him, and when he got to her thighs, he had to clamp down on that power surge through his muscles again. Honey trickled from the sweet flesh of her labia. Slowly, she pivoted and then folded forward, so now her cunt, glistening with that dew, brought a scent that tested his control further. His growl was back, a lethal sound of need.

She let out a purr of approval, the lioness teasing her mate, and came back up just as slow. Straddling one thigh, she rubbed her sex against him, working her hips in a circular dance, then turned to shimmy in front of him, her breasts so close to his face he made a snap at them, but she undulated back, an impressive dip of movement, particularly when she pivoted on her heel and brought her ass back against his fully aroused cock, treating him to a lap dance so thorough he fought not to come. She stroked, rubbed, teased, and then, when he was a breath away from saying the hell with it and turning the chair to kindling, she turned once more to face him. Her exotic eyes fastened on his face, she sank to her knees, her hair brushing over his cock, teasing his balls, his inner thighs.

She dipped her finger in the pre-cum on the head, used it to lubricate her cleavage, and then cupped those large, perfect breasts around his shaft. Working him between them, she reminded him vividly of what it had been like to be inside her. Bending her head, she swiped him with her tongue, tasting more of that viscous fluid gathered on the head.

“Raina.” He’d had enough, and it was in his voice, in every rigid muscle. Her head lifted, her gaze meeting his. Something became very still between them, him staring down at her between his knees, her looking up. She moistened her lips, and he felt that shift, hungered for what it meant. Her endgame had dovetailed into his, and now he had a feeling, whether intended or not, that was how it was meant to be. He’d never wanted to possess anything the way he wanted to own her.

Her expression, poised between animal hunger and a woman’s need, showed her desire for his dominance. She wanted him to prove he could master her, no matter how many bindings she put upon him. It just inflamed him further.

“Take me deep. Stretch those fuckable lips of yours.”

A feral light flickered in her gaze, lip curling back from those sharp canines as they unsheathed, became fangs. Though mature succubi didn’t drink blood, their dormant fangs became visible when they became agitated…or highly aroused. When she bent her head, he closed his eyes as her mouth sealed over him, sliding down, down, down. She took his full length, something a courtesan would know how to do, but this was more than that. Her grip on the base of his cock flexed with convulsive movements, an emotional reaction, a quivering. He wanted to touch her, hold her, but this moment was key. Mastery wasn’t about restraints; it was a tango of two minds, a power exchange. Between two minds like theirs, it had the complexity of a game of chess. He thought of the demon who’d enslaved her, and he wanted to kill the bastard. To win this woman’s willing submission…it was one of the most valuable treasures in the heavens, the Underworld, or anywhere in between, and should have been cherished as such.

He sucked in a breath as she scored him with her fangs, and he felt her smile against his cock, the fiendish, sexy bitch. The heat of the bindings was lessening as she focused more of her attention on him and her own desire. Though it took some effort with that devil-blessed mouth working his cock, he began to counter with his own magic, an inexorable push against her bindings that loosened them, and then made them let go, absorbed by his energy such that the color changed to bronze and black flame.

She stilled. Her tongue still caressed him, but the rest of her was tuned in to the fact that barbed energy was now crisscrossing over her back, under her arms…around her throat.

It lifted her chin, brought her off him, tilted her head back to look at him. “Come up here,” he said.

She rose as those bindings tightened around her breasts, framing them and constricting them for his pleasure. The rope wound around her throat again and again, forming a wide cuff like the corset collar. By the time she was standing, she was nearly wound up in his magic, and he was free, though sparks of her energy still smoked on his skin, little pinpricks like a kitten’s claws he was sure she could turn into the talons of a lion in truth. But her attention was riveted on him, her breath short, waiting.

Too short. She swayed and he caught her waist, flexing his hands to draw her attention from the deep well into which her mind was falling. “Breathe,” he ordered. “Stay with me, and breathe. I’m not him, Raina. Say it.”

“You’re not him,” she whispered, her gaze clinging to his face.

“I’m taking you now. I’m not waiting another fucking moment.”

Pulling her onto his lap, he guided her thighs around him. When he angled his cock and thrust hard into her, he found her all slippery heat. She moaned, leaning back against his hands, her inner muscles spasming against him. Hell, she was as close to coming as he was. He held her on that point of decision, felt her convulse around him, heard the catch of her breath as she raised her head to stare at him again. Her eyes had gone the green of Ireland, with mere flickers of the gold, those thick mink lashes framing them. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, inside and out, the dark and light twined in a way that would keep him searching all the shadows for centuries to understand her.

She was starting to panic, feeling those bindings coupled to the strength of the climax that would take away all control. “Fuck me,” she demanded, but her voice broke. She was warring between what she thought she needed to be and what she truly desired.

In answer, he pulled her off him, despite her struggles, her vicious protest. Turning her around to lay against him, he collared her throat with his hand as held her up against his shoulder. Her feet scrambled for purchase, but he stretched out his legs, pinning them between his calves, so she was lying back against him, legs held closed, dependent on his strength to hold her in the awkward position. His bindings adjusted to the new position. Shifting his hips, and gripping himself with the other hand, he worked himself inside her again, a difficult angle that didn’t make contact with her clit, denying her the pleasure of that friction. He pushed her down on him, hard, kept himself there, moving a hand up to squeeze her breast, pinch a nipple. Then he dropped to stroke her clit, denying her the full thrust of his cock as she squirmed and panted, cursed and called him names.

He kept it up until she ran down and figured it out. “Please,” she gasped. “Please.”

“That’s better. Ask me, Raina. Ask me the right way.”

The wet mouth of her sex pulled at him like a vise, her backside quivering against him and breasts pressed against his forearm. Fuck, he was dying here, but he wasn’t giving up on what he wanted most.

“Accept me as your Master for this moment, Raina,” he said, low. “Do it honestly; let yourself have that. Don’t be afraid to do it.”

He felt her anguish then, the warring of the past with the present, the fear that rose like a dark tide. It was going to take her over, and they would both lose. They weren’t quite there yet. Muttering a quiet curse, he shifted his hold, releasing the magic that held her so the bindings disappeared, flickering away like tongues of flame from a bonfire. Flipping her so fast to a front straddle she gasped, he reentered her in one thrust. When she cried out, he held her there, still and tight, his hand gripping her hair so she stared into his eyes.