Tangled Truth(3)

Or perhaps, he corrected himself, the blush on her face had more to do with the subject matter of the oversized photographs surrounding them. More than once, Drew caught a glimpse of Eva when it was clear she thought nobody was watching, and on each occasion she was staring at the artwork with something very like longing. In those moments, she looked far from icy. She looked hot, and Drew found himself picturing her in the poses he’d helped tie Sheila into for the photo series. He couldn’t help imagining Eva’s soft, smooth white skin crisscrossed with black or maybe red ropes, the tender flesh plumping out on either side of the snug restraints. He didn’t imagine, however, that before the evening was out he would get the chance to see even a hint of such a thing in person.

“Drew! Buddy!” called a tipsy Danny from across the room. Drew looked away from Eva to see his friend waving a camera at him. Intrigued, he approached and saw that Danny had tied a mutual friend of theirs to the cowhide-covered Le Corbusier chaise that occupied one corner of the loft. Brandon, the friend, was a study in blue and gold, his light denim jeans and chambray button-down forming a neutral and strikingly conservative background for the intricate web of black ropes securing him to his ultramodern chair. His shock of blond hair and fashionably tanned skin almost glowed in the cool setting.

“It’s his present for hosting this shindig,” Danny explained, fiddling with his camera lens and stalking around the chair as an audience formed. “I promised him a souvenir photo. But Sheila went on a drinks run, so I need you to find me a substitute for her. I want some hands around his shoulders or something like that, tied in something bright. This place needs color desperately.”

“Black and white are the new black and white, Daniel,” Brandon said, obviously unconcerned. He was an award-winning designer, and he had no serious doubts about his decor choices. The black-and-white loft was also a perfect impromptu gallery space, as the evening’s festivities proved. “But if there must be more color, let’s have something warm. Evie’s scarf, maybe. I can wear it as a cravat.”

“Let’s leave my scarf out of this, please,” Eva said with a sniff. “I don’t know where your neck has been.”

The line got a laugh, loudest from those who suspected they knew where Brandon’s neck had been.

“If you’re trying to find a Sheila replacement,” Drew speculated, “it seems like Eva’s the logical choice, anyway. Same skin tones, and she’s already wearing sleeveless.”

“It’s my understanding that our Eva doesn’t care to be tied,” Brandon said with a snarky smile. “Or whipped, or dressed up like a gimp, or anything else like that. She doesn’t sully herself with our sort of low fun.”

Drew heard a murmur of “bitch” from somewhere in the crowd behind him, and he was fairly certain the remark was aimed at Brandon, not Eva. He had to agree with the sentiment. He looked for Eva, angry on her behalf, and was somewhat startled to see that her crisp demeanor hadn’t changed in the slightest.

“I stand by my anti-gimp position, but you can use me and my scarf for the picture if you really must,” she said, startling him further. Drew had to admire the slight swagger with which she approached him and offered her scarf and her crossed wrists in turn.

To a light smattering of applause and laughter, Drew helped Danny ready the shot, holding the light meter and waiting patiently for the photographer to decide how he wanted things. Then, twisting the scarf carefully to form something like a rope, Drew pulled Eva’s slender wrists together and began cinching them. Just a simple tie, as the “rope” was not quite six feet long. A few loops, a twist of the ends in opposite directions, and then he finished things off with a bow that earned a few more chuckles from the crowd.

Then, to his vast dismay, he had to let go of Eva’s hands so she could place them according to Danny’s instructions. Drew itched to pull her back toward him, to trace each margin of silk against skin, to bare her further and wrap more of her up in tidy rows of loops and knots. He was close enough to Eva as he worked to see that she enjoyed the process as well, despite her protests. A great deal, Drew suspected. Her crystal-gray eyes were slightly dilated, and the rosy flush on her cheeks was matched by the reddened imprint on her lower lip where she’d worried it with her teeth. She was breathing a bit too fast, especially considering how innocuous a bind he’d put on her wrists. It wasn’t fear he was seeing, though. It was arousal, and he wondered if she even realized how obvious it was.

“Comfortable?” he asked out of habit. “Nothing hurts, you can feel all your fingers?”