Rafe had researched tattoo artists and found a man renowned for traditional work. He’d made arrangements with the artist, then for lodging and possible medical care; he’d learned young to prepare for the unexpected. No surprise with a father like his. He’d discussed the design with the tattoo artist, the necessary time to complete it, whether the elderly man was willing to commit to the long hours. He couldn’t be absent from school for more than a week.
The Hokusai tattoo had been deliberately provocative and ultimately successful in breaking him free of his father’s noisome ideas of a youth’s education. For purely personal reasons, his father detested all things Japanese. A business deal had gone bad, his opponent at the helm of the other company a woman who’d taken a huge sum of money from him and taunted him mercilessly in her victory. Maso had issues with women, huge issues. Deep-seated, Freudian issues.
As the proverbial icing on the cake of his liberation, one of the few signed Hokusai woodcuts of The Great Wave figured largely in his father’s botched deal; a bonus, as it were, to the victor. An empowering goad for Rafe.
With the first glimpse of his newly inked dick, paternal oversight disappeared from his sex life. Although, in a way, it was a Pyrrhic victory; Rafe had already been ruined, wounded, scarred, call it what you will, and his father knew it. For that smug conceit he’d wanted to kill Maso more times than he could remember.
At base though, beyond murderous urges, what screwed with his head even more was the fact that he’d learned what he’d learned and ultimately enjoyed knowing what he knew. For that schizoid mind fuck, he hated his father most.
Nicole glanced over her shoulder as she climbed into bed. “Hey, get your clothes off,” she said. “You’re holding up the show.”
Rafe swung around, blinked, then dragged himself back into the world. “Give me a minute. I haven’t come down from everything yet. I’m edgy and pissed, mostly for nearly being destroyed by the same assholes who’ve tried it a dozen times before. Can I tie you up? You’ll like it.”
“I beg your pardon?” The shift in subject was so abrupt she wondered if she’d misheard.
“I said, can I tie you up?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I was afraid that’s what you said.”
“You’ll like it,” he said again, matter-of-factly.
“Ummm—I don’t think so.”
“How do you know if you don’t try it? I can almost guarantee you will,” he said, like he’d say “Nice day if it doesn’t rain.”
“What if I don’t?”
Rafe shrugged. “Trust me. I know you will.” He didn’t say that domination was one of his coping mechanisms, that he used it to normalize a discordant world, that he’d been encouraged in his taste. That there wasn’t a woman who hadn’t been sexually gratified when he’d untied her.
After a long indecisive pause, Nicole decided there was only one way to find out. “Okay,” she said.
He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath, that it mattered she allowed this. “I’ll be right back.”
His gaze had been so vague, she felt a small frisson of uncertainty. When he walked back in from the dressing room, carrying the Japanese box of rope, she didn’t feel any better when she saw that his mouth was drawn tight. “Hey, earth to Rafe. You’re scaring me.”
He looked up and shook his head. “Sorry, it’s feels like I’ve been lost in a maze for most of the day with a deadly Minotaur breathing down my neck. Ganz is fucking good but it still wasn’t a piece of cake. Annihilation was a real possibility.” No way was he bringing up his psycho father.
“I understand.” She smiled. “Just so you know who I am.”
“Of course. You’re my sweet pussycat.” He set the box on the bed, leaned over, and gently kissed her. “I’m here. I’m glad you’re here. I’m happy, okay?”
“Okay.” She wiggled her fingers in the direction of the box. “But if I say stop you have to.”
“Not a problem.”
He spoke so casually, it was unnerving—like maybe he wouldn’t stop, or he knew she’d enjoy it so much she wouldn’t ask him to stop, or that he was so good at this every woman he’d ever tied up adored him for it. “Tell me you haven’t done this before.” Even knowing she was being completely irrational, she wanted the fiction. “Lie if necessary.”
“Never. I told you before we went to the club that this was my first shipment of rope.”
“Jeez, you’re a good liar.”