“Good girl.” I praise her as I step closer. So close, her cheek brushes against the aching throb pressing the fabric of my trousers.

When Ivy feels it, her eyes fly open, and everything else seems to disappear. I’m lost and bewildered as I stare into her strange eyes, and she seems to be aware of this as she sucks in a breath.

Abruptly, I sever the odd connection by turning away and stalking to the nightstand, where I have left the items required for tonight’s ritual. When I return with the blind mask I ordered especially for her, Ivy gives the tiniest shake of her head, but she should know her pleas are useless.

I secure the heavy silver mask over her face, obscuring her vision from the world around her. Her chest heaves as she draws in a breath, her nipples crying out as they poke upward. For a moment, I can’t do anything else but stand there and admire her. She can’t see me now, and I have been waiting all night to indulge.

Her body has all the qualities I admire in a woman’s flesh. Soft skin. Perfectly rounded breasts. Curved hips. They are not anything I haven’t seen before, yet those features look more enticing on her than any other woman I have ever had the pleasure to look upon.

Perhaps, it is simply because I know she will only ever be mine.

I lean down and help her to her feet again. Her fingers wrap around my arm, clinging to me as her guide when I lead her toward the bed. It’s the strangest sign of trust I don’t expect, and I find that disarms me too. But her trust wavers when I pull her arms up over her head to secure them to the rope around the bedpost.

“Santiago.” Her voice is pleading.

The undercurrent of fear in her tone hardens me like nothing else ever has. I have to take a moment, closing my eyes to resume control of the situation before I give in to my baser desires and ravage her without forethought.

I resume the task of securing her wrists and then step back to admire the art of her body. She’s arched at the hips, slightly bent forward, arms straining upward. Her nerves are a powerful aphrodisiac, and already, I can smell the arousal between her thighs. She thinks she knows what comes next, but the uncertainty makes her shiver.

When my fingers caress the length of her spine, she curves into me like a cat arches into its master’s palm. I don’t even think she’s consciously aware of the fact that she’s doing it. And it’s a shame that she should hope to find a protector in me when I can only ever be her tormentor.