Chapter One

Trapped in his web, Winter wriggled, but Mack’s rope work was flawless, as usual. His eyes shimmered in the candlelight. So did the knife. The drool that had pooled behind her ball gag was dribbling down her chin. At the first touch of the weapon, she squealed. It had been in the freezer for hours, along with several other things. She hated cold. He loved that she hated it.

He traced the blade along skin that was already abraded and bruising from his earlier work. There was no doubt he’d cut her, but when? She groaned then panted around the gag. Mack’s exquisite face was twisted into a cruel mask. The expression in his eyes alternated between emotionless and cold, to intense and arresting. To someone who didn’t know him, they’d assume he was a psychopath with the lack of emotion he showed as he made the first shallow cut. Carefully, very carefully. He didn’t like leaving scars, although she already had a few by his hand.

The slice in her skin burned and stung, mixing with the sweat that sheened her body. She bit back a scream, clamping her teeth on the gag. The strangled noise caught his attention and he chuckled.

“What’s the matter? Should I stop or do you want more?”

She babbled behind the gag and he laughed darkly.

“You’re fucked, Winter. I can’t understand what you’re saying when you get this excited. I hope you can safeword if you need to.”

Bastard. He knew they had a non-verbal one too, but he had a bad habit of pretending he might not notice. It was all part of the Mack experience. He didn’t want her to trust him, but she did implicitly.

He flicked the clamps carefully off of her throbbing nipples and she squealed. At least he was mindful of her piercings. The knife went onto his tray of sterilized toys and he popped an ice cube in his mouth and attacked her nipples with his chilled tongue.

Squirming backward in her bonds got her nowhere. He snickered then bit the ice between his teeth and slid it over her skin, down her belly to her throbbing clit.

Winter whimpered but he dragged the ice back and forth on her defenseless slit until she was screaming garbled profanities at him. The bastard knew what she wantedand he was making her fucking wait. She fought to smack him, knowing she wouldn’t be going anywhere until he untied her.

Mack spat the ice cube back in the glass and ran his long, slender fingers over the sterile blades on the tray. The caress was sensual and Winter often felt he loved touching the sterile metal almost as much as he enjoyed touching her. Watching him do it felt as dirty as secretly watching someone masturbate. Did he even know he was doing it?

Scalpel. The blood in her veins itched and she shivered once, hard. Mack with a scalpel in his hand made her heart beat oddly. Her breath came fast and a keening wail escaped the gag even as heat flashed through her body.

“You want to feel this don’t you, twisted girl. You want me to cut you, to slice your skin.”

She was panting now, unable to decide if she wanted the blade or his cock. The pull of different pleasures warred for a moment then she grounded herself by concentrating on the cold cement floor under her feet. There was no need to choose. She was entirely at his mercy. Her fate was his decision.

The scalpel traced over her skin, scratching slightly but not cutting. She tried to lean into it, but there was little slack in the rope.

“Please?” she begged. The word was clear enough, even with the gag.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Should I cut you now or go take care of supper?” Mack untied the ball gag and threw it on the knife tray.

“Please, cut me? Just a little. Just one more?”

Slowly, he licked her bottom lip then stood back and looked at her thoughtfully. His faint scent of sweat and lust addled her brain.

“Please, Mack. Cut me, fuck me...don’t leave me like this.” She whimpered and he chuckled, tracing her face with the handle of the scalpel. As he dragged it lower, the feel of cold metal against her skin hardened her nipples and made her more hyper-aware of her body.

“But Winter, my love, we have to eat then go pick up that new guy downtown. Do the possibilities he represents mean less to you than coming?”

“Coming always means more, you know that.”

“If you’d never coaxed me past vanilla, you wouldn’t love me as much. Admit it.”

She was mildly offended, but didn’t deny it.

“Luckily for you I turned out to be a monster.”

“But you’remymonster.” She narrowed her eyes and smirked. “And I know you want to cut me and fuck me before we go act all normal with the new guy. Do you really want pizza more than you want me?”

He crouched and bit a path along her ribcage. “There’s no meat left on you. You need to eat.”

Fuck. The bastard was going to leave her hanging. Literally.

Faster than her hazed mind could follow, his face was between her legs and he flicked at her clit with his tongue.