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  “Guys, this is Eva Godfrey. Eva, this is Ed and Fred.” Drew gestured to the two scientists in turn. Ed gave a gracious demi-bow, while Fred had already returned his eyes to his task. “So what’s happening tonight?”

  “On tonight’s agenda, we are once again looking for supernovae,” Ed reported. “And mainly, Fred’s doing something technical with the calibration on the spectroscope.”

  “Exciting times.”

  “The fun never stops, man. You want to use the small scope? Hayden’s not here tonight, nobody’s up there.”

  “Nah, we mostly came in to warm up and take the shortcut back to the car. We were doing naked-eye observations tonight.”

  Ed winked broadly at Eva. “Naked eye is still my favorite way to look at the stars too.”

  “That’ll do, Ed.” Drew offered Eva his arm and bid the astronomers good night as he led her to a door across the long control room. From there, a featureless beige hallway led to a stairwell, and down a few flights of stairs they came to the front entry of the building. Exiting, Eva noticed the tidy brass sign by the entrance, reminding her of Ed’s welcome.

  “Okay,” Eva said as they started following a walkway by the narrow road, aided by a flashlight Drew procured from his coat pocket. “So why is your name on this thing?”

  “My grandfather’s name, actually,” Drew admitted. “He was an amateur astronomer, and after he retired he threw all his attention and a lot of his money into funding this place for the university. Hank DeWitt was another alum who worked on getting the big telescope built.”

  “Your grandfather was a scientist? So I guess you didn’t follow in those footsteps?”

  “Turn down that gravel path, it’s a shortcut,” Drew said, using the flashlight to point out the way. “No, he wasn’t actually a scientist, except as a hobby. He was a lawyer, and then later a law professor. My dad’s a lawyer too. My brother and I are the black sheep.”

  She laughed. “I just realized, Drew, I have no idea what you actually do for a living. I mean I knew you didn’t only help Danny tie girls up, but I never thought about what you were doing the rest of the time.”

  Drew took her hand, ostensibly helping her pick her way down the rough path. “I’m an enterprise architecture consultant.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “We’re almost to the car. Watch your step. You still have no idea what I do for a living, right?”

  “No idea, that’s true.”

  “Say a company wants to find out what kind of technology they might need to implement their business plan. I go in and help define their goals and then help figure out what hardware and software they’d need for that. Work out sourcing options and all that. Mostly my minions go in now, though. I mainly supervise. And spend as much time as possible out of the office playing computer games and tying up pretty women.”

  The path ended at the edge of the rough gravel parking lot where they’d left Drew’s car. The huge observatory dome was nearly invisible from this vantage point, showing only as a faint silhouette against the starry sky. In the darkness, Drew’s car and the handful of others would have been easy to miss without the flashlight.

  “That sounds nice. The part about having minions, I mean. I could use some of those. What does the other black sheep do? Your brother?”

  “Economics professor. Here at the university.” He opened the car door and held it for her, smirking.

  “Your poor parents must be so ashamed,” she said coolly as she slid into the seat.

  “We’re a source of constant disappointment,” he agreed, then shut the door and jogged to the driver’s side to get in and start the car. “So can I interest you in stopping somewhere for some fancy decaf latte or hot chocolate or something before I take you home?”

  “God, yes,” Eva said, rubbing her hands together and then placing them in front of the quickly warming vents with a relieved sigh.

  “Awesome.”

  “That’s still on this same date, though.”

  Drew sighed, resigned. “Gotcha.”

  * * * * *

  They had just sat down with their coffee when Drew got the call from Sheila. The reception was spotty, and he had to ask her to repeat herself to make sure he’d heard correctly.

  “Hang on,” Sheila said, and Drew heard rustling and a lot of noise he couldn’t identify, before the signal cleared. “Is that better? I had to get near a window.”

  “Yeah, it’s better. Where are you?” He held one finger up at Eva, who was mouthing an inquiry about who was on the phone. “Is everything okay?”

  “At the hospital,” Sheila said. She sounded exhausted. “Danny’s hurt. He’s going to be okay,” she reassured Drew, “but his left hand and wrist are broken in about three places.”

  “Holy shit! How did that happen?”

  “He fell off his bike,” she said, with a faint note of incredulity. “Lost his balance right at the corner while he was waiting for the light to turn. You know how he likes to balance and see how long he can stay up before he has to put a foot down? Well, he didn’t know his shoelace was caught on the pedal. When he realized he was tipping too far, he couldn’t get his foot free. Fell straight over and caught himself on his hand.”

  Drew winced, picturing the accident all too clearly. “Jesus. What do you need me to do?”

  “Well, we still have a ton of work to do on the new book, and Danny can’t operate the camera properly or do much tying with only one hand. And not even his good hand. You know he’s left-handed, so I’m going to have to be the photographer for the rest of the shooting,” Sheila said. “Which means I won’t also be able to model.”

  Drew could hear the hesitation in her voice, the hedging around. “And…” he prompted.

  “And I need you to help me talk Eva into modeling in my place.”

  Drew looked over at Eva, wondering if she could hear any of Sheila’s part of the conversation. But the coffee shop was crowded despite the lateness of the hour, and the steady clamor was enough to afford him at least that much privacy.

  “Uh, hang on, Sheila.” He tipped the phone away from his mouth and addressed Eva, who was still looking at him with growing concern. “Danny fell off his bike and broke his hand. Sheila’s calling from the hospital. I think he’s okay other than that.”

  “Is she there?” Sheila asked. Drew returned his attention to the call.

  “Yeah. We’re at Benito’s, having coffee,” he said casually, as though such a thing were an everyday occurrence. “We went out to the observatory and it was a little cold, so we’re just warming up.” He realized he was using “we” an awful lot and wondered how Eva felt about that. Her face, still full of concern for Danny, gave nothing else away.

  Sheila chuckled. “Listen to you, being all smooth. Well, maybe this will be easier than I thought, if you guys are a thing now. How long has this been going on under my nose without my knowledge?”

  With Eva still eyeing him curiously, Drew decided against a direct answer. “If you weren’t aware of it, why did you think I’d have any particular success in doing you this favor?”

  “I can’t tell you.” Sheila made a snorting noise that sounded suspiciously like a stifled snicker. “It would violate the sisterhood code. But I thought if anybody could talk her into letting herself get tied up all pretty and photographed, it would be you. And it has to be Evie, is the thing. She’s the only one I know with the exact same coloring, even the same body type as mine. If we don’t show her face, people won’t be able to tell it’s not me in the pictures. We really wanted a consistent look for the book and we don’t have time to reshoot the whole thing with a different model. Not to mention we can’t afford to hire a different model. Oh, hey, I have to go. Danny’s talking to the doctor again. I’ll call you tomorrow. Work on her, okay?”

  “Okay. Good luck. Tell Dan he’s a bonehead.”

  “Already done.”

  Sheila hung up, and Drew put his phone away with a thoughtful gaze in Eva’s direction. S
he was sipping her cappuccino cautiously and had a very faint mustache from the froth on top. Drew wanted to lick it off but suspected he wasn’t quite on solid enough footing yet to try it.

  “You have a little…” He gestured to his own lip, and Eva took the hint and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

  “So what happened?”

  “He fell off his bike. Sheila said his hand is broken in three places, or maybe it was his hand and wrist. Anyway, he can’t work a camera. Which is a problem, obviously.”

  Eva knew the couple well enough to know what a problem it was. “Their book! How are they ever going to make their deadline?”

  Although the question was rhetorical, Drew saw an opportunity to provide an actual answer. “Sheila is going to take over all the actual camera work, of course.”

  “Of course. You can do the rope work alone, I suppose. But then…”

  She fell silent for a moment, and Drew almost filled in the silence with Sheila’s request. But something told him it might be better to let Eva come to that conclusion on her own, and about five seconds later she did just that.

  “I should offer to fill in for Sheila,” she said after another sip of her hot drink. She sounded more resigned than enthusiastic, but Drew would take it. The little rim of foam had resumed its place on her upper lip, making her look deliciously lickable once more. “She’s been trying to get me to pose for them for years, anyway. Do you think I could get her to leave my face out of the pictures, if I did that?”

  Drew hid his grin behind his own huge coffee cup. His mind was already offering up vivid images of Eva, delightfully tied by him in a variety of ways. He tried to ignore the tightening of his cock in his pants and keep his voice casual as he answered. “Sure, I think she’d probably be open to negotiation.”

  Chapter Four

  “The braid rocks.” Danny was circling Eva, fussing with the light meter and calling out ideas to Sheila as Drew finished the final step of the tie he was working on for the first series of photos. “We need to get some shots with this hairdo when you’re in one of the full-body binds. No, Evie, your face won’t have to show. We’ll take it from the back. It’ll be very tasteful.”

  “It’s an illustrated book about bondage,” Eva pointed out, grimacing as Drew started cinching in the ropes that bound her forearms together from elbow to wrist. “I gave up on tasteful when I agreed to do this.”

  “Too much?” Drew murmured, tracking his fingers back along the ropes, testing for slack. Eva shook her head and looked away from his hands as he carefully worked the ropes tighter.

  “Just because it’s about bondage,” Danny insisted, “doesn’t mean it can’t be tasteful. You can make anything tasteful. Think Mapplethorpe.”

  “Think Man Ray,” Drew suggested, remembering her fondness for surrealist art.

  “Or maybe not,” she retorted. “He was a fan of the Marquis de Sade’s work, you know.”

  Drew smiled and tugged on the final knot before pulling Eva’s arms closer so he could stage-whisper in her ear. “Yes, I know.”

  “That’s about as far from tasteful as it gets,” muttered Eva, but she shivered at the brush of Drew’s lips against her earlobe. He thought she would be tense by now, ready to be freed, but instead she had softened with each new twist of the rope as if she’d been bound from head to toe already and given up the fight. It was a delightful notion.

  “Miss Godfrey, you’re a vision,” Drew said with an appreciative smile as he examined his work on Eva’s arms. She was perched on a simple black wooden stool in front of a draped dark canvas, and her forearms were held down in front of her body, clearly displaying the complex series of knots that bound them. In a skin-toned body stocking, she looked as close to nude as she could without actually being nude. Her simple hairstyle, a French braid that ended a few inches past her shoulders, was elegant and made her neck look even longer.

  “You should let me do some beauty shots, Evie,” Sheila said. “Just head and shoulders. After we get the ones for the book, I mean.”

  Drew watched Eva’s face, surprised at how expressive it could be given that she usually looked so reserved. She was bemused now, and her lips curved up at the corners in an incredulous little smile.

  “You said no faces. I’m not even wearing any makeup.”

  “I know. And yet you look all fresh and pretty. It’s sick.” Sheila took a final slurp of coffee from the insulated mug she’d been nursing all evening, then jumped up behind the tripod-mounted camera. “Okay, honey, let’s make some more magic.”

  It only took a few minutes to complete the last series of photos that would illustrate the technique Drew had used. After that, Sheila took the camera off the tripod and goofed around, taking candid shots of the group as Drew untied Eva’s arms and Danny attempted to help using only his hopelessly uncoordinated right hand.

  “How long will these marks last?” Eva asked, frowning at the crosshatched red imprint of rope decorating both arms from elbow to wrist.

  “Not long,” Danny assured her. “There wasn’t any chafing, right? They should fade in a few minutes, maybe half an hour.”

  “It depends,” Sheila added. “They’re beautiful, though.”

  Eva frowned down at the marks, but Drew privately agreed with Sheila. He had been able to contain himself throughout the shoot, but something about the marks on Eva’s fair skin made him long to see her entire body marked that way, flushed and damp, with post-coital bliss written all over her face.

  “Are we getting dinner now, or what?” Sheila tossed the question over her shoulder as she carefully stowed a long lens in its section of the camera bag.

  Eva’s gaze flicked to Drew’s in a silent message he couldn’t quite read. A plea? If so, for what?

  “I’m heading home, actually,” she said as she disappeared into the cramped bathroom with her street clothes in hand. She left the door cracked enough to allow for conversation, but Drew couldn’t see anything interesting through the small opening. “I have some work to do. Maybe tomorrow, though.”

  “Me too,” Drew said, hoping he was making the right choice. “I’m pretty wiped out, gonna make it an early night.”

  Sheila’s head came up like a herd animal on alert. She opened her mouth then closed it again when Danny cleared his throat at her. He smiled blandly at Drew, who rolled his eyes at the whole thing and tried not to let his hopes rise too high when, a few minutes later, Eva asked him to walk her to her car.

  They made it as far as the curb when she turned, and a startled Drew nearly knocked her over. The movement brought them short, with Eva’s back to her car, Drew bracing himself with one hand on either side of her shoulders. He could feel icy metal under his gloved fingers, the steam of her breath, the stirring below his waistband that always happened when he got this close to her.

  When she didn’t move away or protest, he eased closer, letting her feel his stiff heat against her belly. Drew brought one hand to Eva’s cheek, holding her face, not wanting to let her look away from him. From his need for her.

  “Just tell me what you want,” he whispered, his words visible as puffs of white that vanished into the chill. He pressed closer still, a brief pulse against her body, and gasped when she pushed back with a moan.

  “I want you,” she replied, her own breath coming as rapidly as Drew’s. Her eyes looked huge, almost unearthly, in the sodium glare of the streetlight. “I want you. But not—not all that other stuff.”

  “No ropes,” Drew hastened to reassure her. Nothing up my sleeve, he thought. Cross my heart. “I told you, I don’t need all that stuff.”

  And for her, he would even try to mean it. For her, he almost wanted it to be the truth.

  * * * * *

  If Drew had said, “I like vanilla sex sometimes too,” or perhaps, “I’m not in the lifestyle, it’s just one of my favorite hobbies,” he would have been on firmer ethical ground. But then he would probably not have been in Eva’s apartment ten minutes later, pulling her swe
ater over her head, if he’d said either of those things. On the whole, he thought he’d made the right choice at the time.

  They were trying to share the important, topical information in a hurry, between heated kisses. It was a conversation that might have been awkward if their motivation had been less immediate.

  “Do I need condoms?”

  He was on his knees, kissing his way down her stomach and working her jeans down her hips. Her response was prefaced by a loud gasp as his mouth found a particularly keen spot.

  “Yeah. Have you been tested?”

  “Oh my God, what do you even call these things?”

  “Tanga panties.”

  The panties were pale blue and lacy and wonderfully revealing, and Drew wondered if it might be possible for her to somehow keep wearing them while he fucked her from behind. “Tested a few months ago. I haven’t slept with anybody since before that. I’m clean as a whistle. I have a condom in my wallet. What about you?”

  “Ooooh.”

  He had pressed his mouth at the bottom of the soft patch of hair beneath the lace, working his lips there and then breathing out slowly. Eva melted a fraction more.

  “Evie?”

  “Mm. Yeah. Um, clean too. I haven’t had sex in almost two years. Oh God, do that again.”

  He did it again, and she slid her fingers into his hair and held him there, arching her hips into the heat and pressure. Drew decided the panties, awesome though they might be, needed to go. Soon. He needed to have better landmarks to work with, and he wanted to see her.

  He wanted to see her wrapped in a network of ropes, barely able to move a finger as he had his way with every exposed inch of her delicate skin.

  “Fuck.”

  “Drew?” She tugged gently on his hair.

  Pushing the vision firmly down the basement stairs of his mind, closing and padlocking the door, Drew inhaled and let the sweet, tangy scent of Eva’s arousal spur him forward. He stood up and kissed her. Hard, unequivocal. His teeth grazed her lips and he tried to pull himself back, pace himself. But she groaned and leaned in for more.