He had kept himself separate from the women he fucked. He gave them pleasure, but he didn’t give them him. The ropes were part of him. A big part. No matter how sensual other women found Shibari, something in him had always refused to follow through and have sex while they were in the ropes. With Mariko, he wanted sex with or without. Any way he could have her. He wanted ultimate pleasure for her always.

He began to wrap the corset, making certain that each time he moved her body, directing her with his hands, he vibrated the rope. She rewarded him with her gasp of pleasure. He felt her body melting with each wrap of the rope. Each time he tied her, he had the sensation of wrapping her up in him. His arms. His body. His lust and love.

He laid each line with a firm command, but it was his love he was laying on her body so exposed for anyone to see. He knew she thought she was exposed to him – her secret desires, her needs, even her hunger for him. He saw all that. It was there in her body’s response. The peaked nipples, hard as rocks. The damp collecting between her legs – he desperately wanted a taste of that.

She thought it was her exposure, but if she was watching, if she looked with more than her eyes, if she let the shadows tell her, it was Ricco Ferraro laying himself at her feet. She thought she’d given control over to him when she gave him the gift of her body for his canvas. In reality, she had all the control.

He knew with every line, he was exposing his love, his lust, his very need of her. His absolute commitment to her. He’d never felt so raw before or so vulnerable. Every time he’d worked with ropes, he now knew it had been a practice for this moment – with her. The ropes were wrapping her flesh and he knew that each wrap was him sinking into her, deeper and deeper.

He felt his hand tremble, when he was always confident, always the dominant. She did that to him, with the corset of red and black, the deep blue decorative triangle he’d added to the front and the herringbone spine down the back. It was more than decoration. Each pull of the rope sent vibrations teasing her body with the knotted rope wrapped around her, front to back, a part of him seducing her with every touch.

He stepped back to view his creation and it left his heart hammering, his cock hard and pounding with need. He caught the ropes between her breasts and pulled her to him, so that her body melted against his. He took her weight easily.

“Next time, I’m going to tie you on your knees, the ropes in your hair, holding it up off your neck.” His teeth teased her vulnerable nape. “I keep seeing the image of you like that. I know exactly how I’m going to tie it.” He had to distract himself, but there was no distraction, not even trying to think ahead. The moment he thought about tying her on her knees, her head pulled back by the rope in her hair, he couldn’t stop the image of her sucking his extremely painful cock into sweet oblivion.

“Would you like that, Mariko? How do you see yourself tied?” He whispered the temptation against her neck, suckling gently but persistently until he knew there would be a small strawberry there.

Her breath came in ragged little pants. Her eyes were glazed and she fought coming back from the floating euphoria where he’d sent her. He fucking loved that.

“I love any way you tie me,” she said. Her voice was soft. Her body squirmed in the ropes. Needed. Was hungry.

“I want to photograph you. For us. No one else. Are you okay with that? Can you stand where I put you?”

She touched her tongue to her lips. He groaned and traced her mouth. “I love your lips. I’m feeling a little desperate to have them under mine – or wrapped around my cock.” He said it deliberately, watching her reaction closely. He wanted to seduce her, that was true, and he was willing to use any means at his disposal, but he would never want her to feel so vulnerable in the ropes that she thought he might force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

She licked her lips again, causing his cock to jerk hard. “I’ve thought about those very same things,” she confessed. Her voice was soft, but it was confident. “And yes, I can stand while you photograph me, but my body is burning up.”

He flashed another wicked grin. “Good. I love how you look right now. So hungry, farfallina mia. I hope all that hunger is for me.” He hoped it was for Ricco, the man, not only Ricco, the rigger.

She lifted her chin. “It is.” Her eyes met his.

His heart jerked as hard in his chest as his cock did in his pants. He had to move before he did something stupid like take her like a madman right there on the floor. It wasn’t what he wanted with her.

He’d been so focused on creating certain images that somehow the person was just a canvas, no matter how sexual the pose. With Mariko, he was so focused on her that every tie was personal, sexual and erotic. He realized, with her, he could easily be into bondage. He fucking loved how she looked in ropes and it was a complete turn-on to use his erotic secrets on her body.

He steadied her, brushed her neck with another kiss, and then checked her hands to make certain they were still warm. “Wiggle your fingers for me. Are you numb anywhere?” As a rider she was in superb physical condition, and he knew that helped.

“No. I’m fine. Just…” She shivered. “Needy.”

His wicked smile flashed again. He liked her needy. He gave the rope another tug, wanting to keep her right on that edge. He pooled the black lace robe around her bare feet and adjusted the lighting. The camera loved her. He took several pictures with various lenses, from every angle. The longer he looked at her through the lens, the more he wanted her.

Abruptly he put down the camera. He had to know. It was too important to him. His hands automatically went to the ropes. Now they would forever have her scent on them. Her ropes. No one else would ever see or feel them. Slowly he unwrapped her, removing the coils, unknotting each decorative rope, sliding them through his hands to feel her warmth and to make certain there were no splinters.

“Don’t slouch, farfallina mia. I know you’re tired but I don’t want any ropes to pull or move on you while I’m untying. I can cut you out if you’re too tired.”

She shook her head. “I’m not.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice.

Standing behind her, his fingers on the knots, removing the coils from around her body, he put his mouth against her ear. “I want you with every breath I take.”

“I want you the same way.” There was no hesitation.

“Me? Or the rigger? The rope master?”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, baby, it isn’t.” With the corset off, he tugged on the knotted rope so that she cried out softly, her skin flushing a soft rose. “I will agree it’s part of me, but I don’t want or need ropes to make love to my woman. I need to know if you need the ropes to want to be with me.”

Her long, feathery lashes fluttered. Lifted. He found himself falling into those beautiful amber eyes. Flecks of green had intrigued him when he’d first met her, there in the conference room of the Ferraro Hotel. Now her eyes were all amber, exotic, a cat’s eyes.