He leaned toward me. I felt the wards flare up on my skin, but I clenched my fists and willed them down, long enough for Duncan Laird to place a chaste kiss on my cheek. “See,” he said, leaning back, “you’re stronger than you think.”

*

I was expecting the dream that night. Liam was there beneath the willow tree wearing nothing but leaf shadow and honeyed sunlight, but I was dressed in a magnificent gown embroidered with a thousand golden spirals.

“Ah,” he said, reaching for my hand. “You’ve found them!”

I snatched my hand away from him. “You branded me!” I hissed. Coils unwound from my sleeve like long supple snakes and hissed with me.

“It’s not a brand,” he said holding up his hand to the rippling coils. “It’s the history of our lovemaking written on your skin.” The coils approached his hand tentatively, as if sniffing, and then slipped onto his hand and wound themselves around his wrist and forearm, twining themselves into golden patterns on his skin. As they travelled up his arm I felt a corresponding tug on my arm pulling me toward him.

“You bound me to you!” I cried, pulling back, even in a dream determined not to give into his seduction.

“I am equally bound,” he replied, looping his arm in the air and wrapping a long skein of twisted thread around his arm. The dress made of coils unraveled as I fell to my knees by his side. The threads spread across his chest and I felt a corresponding tug in my own chest, a tightness coiling around my heart and tickling my bare breasts. My dress had vanished. Golden coils writhed on my bare skin. I knelt naked on the mossy bank beside Liam, entwined with him in a shimmering net of desire.

“Our desire,” he whispered, crouching beside me, our knees touching. “When we make love, we create friction.” He lifted his hand and held it, palm out, an inch above my skin. Gold tendrils quivered in the air between us. My nipples tingled and hardened. He lowered his hand to my navel and twirled his fingers. The spirals coiled back on themselves and formed a knot. There was a tightening in my core, a small knot of tension that felt … good.

“We can shape that heat and tension …” He moved his fingers and the spiral knot began to revolve. The warmth expanded and spread. I moaned. It felt delicious … so what if he was binding me to him …