“Mariko.” His voice was gentle. “I need to know you’re all right with me touching you intimately.”

Just the way he said intimately was intimate. She wanted to groan and her mouth had gone suddenly dry. She not only wanted him to touch her, she needed him to do so. She swallowed hard and nodded. Slightly. A bare affirmation with her head because that was all she could manage. He didn’t move. He didn’t drop her hair back into place. He stayed behind her, his body very close to hers but without touching other than his hand and his breath. He simply waited.

“Yes. It’s all right.” She needed his touch more than she needed to breathe. How she managed to give him what he needed to continue, she didn’t know. For the first time in her life she felt weak with wanting. With need. Yet at the same time, she did feel sort of attractive. She was aware of herself as a woman, as feminine, when she’d always felt masculine. He’d given her that, and she’d be forever grateful.

His fingers curled around the bicep of her right arm. His touch was firm. Possessive. Held her captured there. “I’m going to put my hand on your upper chest. I want you to just breathe normally. Feel my breath moving in and out with yours. Just let yourself feel those sensations, Mariko.”

He placed his left palm gently on her just above the curve of her breasts. She’d never been so aware of her breasts in her life. How they could ache with need. Burn for him. For touch. His touch. She became aware of his body, standing directly behind hers, his hand guiding her back into his chest, her buttocks pressed against him. He was hard. All muscle. Heat enveloped her. Her body seemed awash in sensation.

His cock pressed tightly against her, right into the small of her back, a sword there, a male weapon, an instrument of pleasure, she didn’t know which, but she wanted to find out. She knew he wanted her, was very aroused, but then, he seemed to be very sexual and she was certain one couldn’t separate this practice from sex and art entirely. It was a sensual bonding between two people. Intimate beyond belief. Very, very erotic. Had all his models felt this way? Had he wanted all of them?

“Relax, farfallina mia, breathe for me.”

Little butterfly. She liked that. She forced air through her lungs and then let herself become aware of his chest rising and falling. It felt like a dance between them. She followed naturally. Easily. He kept his hand on her arm, strong and confident so that she felt safe with him.

“That’s my woman. I’m going to put my hand on your breasts,” he warned.

My woman. Did he call every rope model that? She told herself not to react, to keep breathing, to not wrap herself in his words. His palm slid from above her breasts, over the curve to cover her nipples with his palm. He just pressed heat there, feeling the rise and fall of her breath. He stood quietly, letting her get used to the feel of his hand on her. He was still behind her, taking more of her weight than she should have been giving him, but her legs were trembling.

Ricco’s face nudged aside her heavy fall of hair so his lips could whisper against the nape of her neck. “You’re doing great. Keep breathing as normally as possible. Feel me breathing with you.”

She did as he asked, mostly because the flare of pleasure she got from his praise shocked her. No one ever praised her. She excelled as a rider. Excelled in every area of training, yet not one instructor had ever praised her. Her fellow riders avoided her for the most part. They were never rude. None of the instructors or riders were rude, but they made it clear she was alone. She thought she would always be alone, until this moment. Even among the riders, she was the daughter of a whore, abandoned to the streets. She’d always be mixed race and not quite good enough.

She breathed in and out for him. For herself. To be someone strong and courageous. To be different because she needed to be different just once before she died. She needed to feel the freedom of arousal, and he gave her that. She wasn’t certain how, but he did, but that connection between them was extremely strong and compelling.

“That’s exactly what I need from you, Mariko,” he said softly, his lips caressing her skin and sending little darts of fire streaking through her body. “I’m moving my hand to your belly.”

He did, sliding his arm intimately around her to hold her to him with just his will. His hand didn’t press into her hard, or try to force her closer. He simply stood there, breathing with her. She felt her body relaxing into his. He moved then, sliding his arm from around her, releasing her right bicep as he stepped toward the wall holding the coils of rope, and she felt bereft.

“I was in a foul mood when you came out to the garden, and you’ve already managed to transform that into an inspiration.” He stood in front of the ropes but looked at her. “A pentacle harness I think to start. You’ll get a feel for the ropes and know whether we can continue.”

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t we continue?” What was he looking for in her? Panic rose. He couldn’t already be thinking of replacing her. What had she done wrong? She needed to be here. She needed a base. She needed – him.

“Mariko, this is an exchange. You have to get something out of it as well.”

He was paying his rope model a great deal of money, that was what she was getting out of it, but she kept her mouth shut, because so far, it was much, much more. She’d never felt so close to another human being. He hadn’t even tied her yet and she wanted the feel of the rope. His rope.

“I think green to go with your eyes today.” He pulled the bundle from the wall and ran it through his hands like an old friend.

“My eyes are hazel.” Not green. Not brown. Hazel. Osamu had pointed out to her many, many times even her eyes weren’t special. They were ugly with their combination of green, brown and gold.

He smiled. “Right now, they’re very green. They change color. True hazel, like yours, is actually quite rare and very beautiful.”

She blinked, astonished that she could hear truth in his tone, mesmerized by the way the rope moved through his palm. Sensual. As if part of him. She watched him breathe in and out as he ran the rope through his hand again and again. She could watch him all day and never get enough. It was shocking how much she wanted him.

Ricco took a moment to just look at her, to breathe her in as he folded the rope in two, resting the center point in his palm. She was unexpectedly gorgeous. A treasure beyond any price. She was nervous, but excited, giving him the greatest offering he could ask for – her trust. She was a shadow rider. A woman meting out justice, always in control. She was giving that control over to him.

Mariko didn’t realize the incredible gift she was giving him. He’d watched her. Her reflexes were extremely fast. She was in not just good physical condition but superb condition. A rider needed control always. If she had come there to kill him, as he suspected, allowing him to tie her up was the last thing she should do, yet she was giving him her complete trust. Making herself vulnerable to him. Only to him.