The Bound Heart (14 page)

Olive walked up the stairs to the attic. An oriental woman in a wonderful traditional dress let her in and just nodded to the stairs. No questions, no need to say who she was, who she wanted to see. Were women coming and going from Jamie’s house so often that it was a no questions entry?

Her forehead got all tight thinking about that.

The simple bookbinder, the mysterious, broody bookbinder was fast turning into a man who had more women than a man needed. He was who he was and wanted what he wanted from the women who came his way, she understood that. Knew that in order to be with him she had to accept that.

For a moment, she wanted everything to be as simple as when they saw each other in the workshop above the bookshop. Those days when she thought of him as a man who needed a woman to love him; now, she wasn’t very sure he needed that at all. But he had come to check on her, had gone to some trouble according to what she’d heard from Evie and her sister.

And he’d asked her to come back tonight.

It had been another long trip over here. The omnibus was over-full and she’d nearly toppled when it lurched as she tried to find a seat on the roof-top seating platform. But she had Jamie’s money and took a cab from where she would have had to walk.

The last two days she’d thought about what they had done. It gave her time to think how she felt. The physical part was simple. Just as she had worried she was now ruined for another man. Her body was branded with the way he touched her, the way he claimed her.

Oh, God, and then there was the rope. There was no understanding what it did to her. The way it was an extension of him.

Jamie was not going to be a simple man to be intimate with, and there was no real promise that there was anything but a few times of pleasure between them.

But he’d come looking for her, had made it clear he wanted to see her again. That meant a lot to a woman, maybe more to her with her own peculiarities. Very few men wanted a woman who wore her dead brother’s brace when her own legs were perfectly functional without it, despite being uneven.

There were voices up in the attic workshop above, footsteps walking back and forth.

The door was ajar as she rounded the landing and took the last flight of stairs.

A tight knot sat inside her. Her fingers pushed against the wood of the door.

A large metal circle hung suspended from the main beam, which also supported a large backdrop. At this angle, it was not clear what of.

Jamie was up a ladder threading red rope through the metal circle.

Olive pushed the door open wider.

Edgar was looking through his camera as it faced the space where Jamie worked.

Olive pushed the door fully open.

A woman, the beautiful one from the first night on the street outside, was sitting in a chair with her bare legs over the arm of it reading a periodical. The robe she wore barely covered her, and her immense comfort in her half-dressed state rolled out a sensual invitation to anyone who would run their gaze over her.

Olive gave the door a small knock then stepped into the room.

Edgar looked at her first and scowled. He shook his head as he turned toward Jamie.

“You’ve a guest.” Edgar said. His tone none too happy about her presence.

Jamie looked over to her, his face unreadable except for a slight lift in the corner of his mouth.

“Olive, come in, I think you and Edgar know each other. Madeline this is Olive; she’ll be helping us tonight.”

He continued what he was doing.

Olive moved further into the room and headed towards him.

Madeline looked at her but didn’t smile. The woman gave her one of those assessing looks women gave each other.

“What? She’s here? That cost me dearly, Jamie. Evie had no end of things to say and I was going to get a…” Edgar stopped speaking when their gazes caught. “You”—Edgar pointed at her—”You tell Evie you are happy and I got you in.” He huffed back to his camera and started playing with the front lens as he looked through it.

“Will you hand me the rope next to the ladder, Olive?” Jamie held his hand out.

“This one?” She leaned down and picked up a bolt of rope.

“That’s it.” His finger slid over hers as he took it.

“What do you want me to do?” she whispered.

A lazy half smile picked up one side of his mouth. “You can help me. Madeline is an artist.” His voice rose. “She won’t stoop to playing go fetch. And as you’ve already heard, Edgar complains too much.” He winked at her then and the awful tightness in her chest eased back.

Over the next hour, the preparations for the photos came together. Olive handed up ropes, rings, and held bamboo rods, as the scene was set.

“Roll the blinds down, Olive.”

Edgar moved some large squares of sheet. A line of gaslights blazed from two beams. Somehow, the way the light hit the sheets, the space was both lit up and shaded.

Then, Madeline dropped her robe, walked naked into the light and the camera’s view, taking her place in the center.

Olive’s heart beat fast and tension ripped through her chest as Jamie took Madeline’s arms and rolled them in his hands, rubbed down her legs. He worked with her, slipping his arms through hers from behind and lifting her off the ground in a languid stretch. A dance of sensual movements and exercises.

Every movement, every caress Jamie administered seemed to take all the stiffness out of Madeline. She became loose and relaxed letting her hand reach out and roll over his shoulder, his back, her fingers gliding through the short hair at the base of his neck.

Touches, which were very irritating to watch and made her hands curl tightly together so her nails pinched hard into her palms.

Olive’s jaw got tighter as Jamie and Madeline slipped into a world of their own. A hand curled around Olive’s upper arm, Edgar. He brought his finger to his lips, motioning her to be silent and pulled her back.

Quietly Olive moved into the chair that Madeline had sat in. The chair held Madeline’s scent. The one that made flowers grow out of the stone paving.

Over the next twenty minutes, Jamie worked. He and the rope moved around Madeline, two men courting a woman with touch, the rope an enforcer of the man’s will. A record of his command in red hemp.

Each rope was precisely placed, his hand following over it, then his fingers sliding under it.

He wrapped a large satin sash around her eyes. Tied a large bow, the end short and clipped ensuring all the rope work was displayed.

Then she was tugged up in the air. Bound in an erotic layering of rope, which displayed her breasts, splayed her legs, and bound her arms. A woman held in place for the taking.

“Let me look.” Jamie looked through the camera. “Down a fraction I think?”

Edgar peered through the lens next. “Yes. And a better angle.” Edgar picked up the tripod and camera and moved it a few feet to the left.

They both looked through the camera again.

Jamie lowered Madeline a fraction then they checked again.

Edgar took photos, the flash blinding for a few seconds.

Jamie went back to Madeline spoke softly to her then started working the ties, she moved into a different position still suspended. He stepped back; they moved the camera a few times then took more shots.

The rope bound her in shapes and silhouettes of beauty as Madeline, hung there. Suggestions of power, of sex, of something deeper being drawn out… exposed. In Madeline as the model, Jamie the creator and Edgar and her as observers.

This happened once more then a timer went off. Edgar started to pack away the gear.

It took some time for Madeline to be untied.

Edgar picked up his camera, motioned for Olive to follow him.

Her heart ached.

Watching this, her body woken with need, with tension, and jealously.

How did she fit in?

Madeline gave him what he wanted. Jamie had taken Madeline out of the ropes and was whispering to her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms as she curled into him. Clutching at him as if he was the only steady thing in the whole world.

The door clicked behind them as Edgar closed it. They made their way down the stairs.

“Best leave them after a session. They’ve been doing this for years. They sometimes like to have time together. Madeline said she wouldn’t need a lift home tonight.”

Pain laced her chest and her foot slipped on the stair twisting her ankle. Edgar was still chatting and moving down the stairs. Olive stood there. The pain in her ankle was a blessing, a distraction to the real pain that twisted through her.

“Olive?”

Her heart surged and she looked back up the stairs.

“Jamie?”

“I think I should go.”

“Wait in the parlor for me.”

She looked down the stairs.

Could she do this? Could she be with a man who thought nothing of doing what he’d just done for twenty minutes. Every photo had been a session like this.

“Olive.”

His steps came down the stairs.

Blast him.

She shook her head ‘no’.

“Give me a chance. Wait for me in the parlor. His hand turned her to face him. Wait for me, I’ll be done soon.”

There was a tight band across her chest. Leaving wasn’t what she wanted and staying was going to be equally hard. And, she wasn’t a coward.

“I’ll wait.”

His eyes ran over her face, was satisfied she meant it. He nodded before heading back up the stairs.

Sometime later, Olive heard them come down the stairs and then proceed down to the ground floor.

Then a while after that, Jamie walked in and stood in the doorway.

His eyes as he looked at her held the look she loved; the one he used to give her from across the workshop. His pupils were large and black. He looked as if he would eat her.

But she hadn’t put that need in him. No Madeline had.

Olive stood, her hands fiddled then dropped down. Her breathing was fast, her heart the same, as she took the few steps to stand in front of him.

Then she thumped him in the chest.

He stepped back, surprise flashing across his face.

“Olive!”

She thumped him again before he caught her wrists.

“I didn’t like that! Why did you ask me here? That was very cruel.”

“I want to be with
you
. I sent Madeline home.”

“You are all sexed up.”

“Yes, I am.” He pulled her closer.

Her hand pushed against his chest.

He grabbed her wrists and tugged them down.

“Madeline did that to you, and now you want to work it out with me. Didn’t she want to stay?”

“I’m all sexed up because you were watching me. Because I imagined doing what I was doing to Madeline, I was doing to you.”

His hands released her wrists and moved to hold both sides of her face as he came closer to her. His breath on her lips, his eyes open, so close, so intense, and she found it impossible to look away.

“I’m all sexed up because I was thinking of YOU. I was thinking of this.”

His tongue came out to run along the seam of her lips then pushed in.

The taste of him reminded her of how it had been with them. The pleasure he had given her. The way he had given her his attention, had seen to her pleasure again and again. More than any man before him.

The slide of his tongue eased her pain, stoked her own needs that the session had built.

He pulled away and led her to the coach; sat down and put her on his lap. He kissed her again. Kissed her so she could hardly move when he stopped, so she could just rest against his shoulder as his hand glided over her in soft strokes and touches.

“I work with Madeline all the time, Olive. She has been my lover, but not for some time. She tried it on today, probably because she knew you would be here. I told her I’m not interested.”

“But the way you touched her…”

“Rope is an act of trust, Olive. I need to make sure she’s ready for the session and guide her through it and out of it. How would you have felt if I hadn’t touched you when we worked with the rope?”

Memories of the last time, his voice murmuring, making her feel safe as the haziness wrapped around her. His touches were the anchor along with the rope.

“I would have felt lost.”

“That’s right. Imagine how you would feel being suspended, the solidness of the ground beneath you gone. I become the anchor. My voice and even more so, my touch.”

She could understand that.

“You told her I would be here today?”

“When I asked her to come for a shoot, I let her know.”

That sent a surge of pleasure through her chest. A smile tugged all on its own across her face.

“Even when doing rope for work, it’s sensual. There’s a current of sex. And of intimacy. You learn a lot about a person tying them up; it naturally makes you closer to them. That doesn’t mean I want to have sex with everyone I work with.”

His lips took hers again. Another deep kiss of tastes and strokes of his tongue. It eased the hurt, washed at the tension. Then slowly built a heat, a want to be the one he touched like he had Madeline.

“Will you let me tie you? I have fresh ropes ready. I left the ring.” His hand ran up her side, cupped her breast as he dipped down to nip along her jaw.

“Say yes, Olive.” The words brushed over her lips as soft as she imagined the air would be around her body if it was suspended.

Her fingers curled in his shirt.

They would do what they did last time, play with the rope, and then have sex. It wasn’t something she was worried about, not after the last time when the feel of him pushed deep in her and had broken her apart with pleasure. No, she wanted, wanted what he offered.

“I didn’t like seeing you with Madeline.”

“I wanted you to know what I do. Know what happens when I work with someone.”

She valued that honesty. Another man might have seen the risk that she’d leave and not show her what he did. This, him being open, showed he respected her enough to let her choose knowing what would happen if she stayed.

If she walked out now, he wouldn’t come after her.

She would have to step in, find her place in his world if she wanted him. And that, of all the uncertainty of her life right now with temporary rooms and no job, was one thing she knew for sure. Knew it from the first moment she’d seen him two years ago, and despite the unexpected developments about who he was and what he did.