Eleanor blinked and nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said through trembling lips.

“Good. Your room adjoins mine. It is at the top of the stairs, the second to the last room on the right. Your bags are already there.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice little more than a squeak.

Daniel smiled but it was not a kind smile. It sent a chill into her stomach even as his fingers against her skin made her uncomfortably warm. “You flinched,” he said. “This must not be how he usually gets your attention.”

“It isn’t. He grabs my neck. Or my wrist.”

“Which do you prefer?”

She shrugged. “I hate them all the same.”

Daniel’s eyes momentarily brightened with suppressed laughter and Eleanor was struck again by how handsome he was. This was going to be a long week.

“Go,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Relieved to be dismissed from his unnerving presence, Eleanor practically bolted toward the staircase. Taking two steps at a time she made it to the top and down the hall to her room in no time. She threw open the door and slammed it behind her, grateful to be safe and alone for once that day. Well, perhaps not safe, she told herself. But at least alone.

He had told her why she was here, what would be expected of her. But only now did the realization that she would be Daniel’s sexual possession this week truly register. She went to the window and peered out, trying to see where Daniel’s property ended and the outside world began. But a new snow had begun to fall and Eleanor had lived in New England all her life. She knew those heavy dense flakes dropping from a deep gray sky meant a snowstorm. She was trapped here, trapped with him. She was here and for now she was his.

* * *

Unpacking had only taken a few minutes and although her bedroom was elegant and spacious with an equally elegant bathroom attached, there was little to be explored. Eleanor tried to read—she’d packed one whole suitcase full of nothing but books—but her mind wandered too much down too many dangerous paths. She was consumed by thoughts of Daniel. Lying on her bed she stared at the ceiling, recalling the rough grip of Daniel’s hand on her face. She’d felt the force in him, felt he was a man to be reckoned with. She lay there until she fell asleep and dreamed she was drowning in a sea of black snow.

An hour or a day later, she awoke shivering in the dark. She glanced around trying to get her bearings. She reached for the bedside lamp and tried to switch it on. Nothing happened. She stumbled to the wall and flipped that switch, but again the darkness remained untouched. Wearing only a white cotton nightgown, she dove under her bedclothes, desperate for what warmth they could offer her. In bed she noticed a light streaming from underneath the door that separated her room from Daniel’s. How did he still have electricity when she didn’t? Curiosity overcame fear and she eased out from underneath the covers and trod quietly across the floor. She considered knocking but the silence in the house seemed too pervasive to break. With a shaking hand, she turned the door handle and found the door unlocked. She took a deep breath and slipped inside.

“Can’t sleep?” Daniel’s voice came from a chair in front of an imposing fireplace. The orange and roaring fire was the source of the light she’d seen.

“I’m cold,” she said and moved nervously toward the sound of his voice. “What happened to the lights?”

“Just a line down from all the snow.” He sounded world-weary, tired. “They’ll be back on by morning, I’m sure.” Eleanor found him still dressed but with an extra button undone on his dress shirt and a glass of white wine in his hand. “You’re welcome to share my fire. I won’t even charge you rent.”

She gave him a tight smile, knowing exactly what he meant by rent, and sat down on the plush rug in front of the fireplace. She wrapped her arms tight about her and breathed the smoky heat into her lungs.

They sat in silence for what felt like an hour, the only sounds in the room the popping and spitting of the wood being consumed.

“I’m sorry.” Eleanor finally broke the silence.

“For what?” Daniel asked, taking a leisurely sip of his wine.

“For what I said about your wife. That was uncalled for.”

“Uncalled for? Yes, I suppose it was. Still, this can’t be the most comfortable situation for you.”

She shrugged. “No one held a gun to my head. I do what he tells me to do, what he wants me to do. Because I love him. That simple.”

“Simple...is it? We’ve never met before today, Eleanor. He expects you, wants you to give yourself up to me. Not very simple from where I sit.”

“He’s infuriating but I’ve known him and loved him since I was a kid.”

“You’re twenty-three, yes? You’re still a kid.”

“But he’s never taken me anywhere I was too young to go. Never asked me to do anything...” Her voice trailed off as she realized the implications of what she was saying. She took a quick breath. “Anything I wasn’t ready to do.”

Eleanor met Daniel’s eyes for the briefest moment and glanced back at the fire.

“Are you ready?” Daniel asked and sat his glass on the table next to his chair.

She counted to ten before answering. She knew the answer at “one” but the little feminine pride she had made her wait nine more seconds.

“Yes.”

If Daniel was pleased by her response, his face didn’t show it. His expression was inscrutable.

He sat forward in his chair. Eleanor studied him as he moved. It seemed he was looking only at his own right hand. He fanned his fingers out, gazed at his own palm. His hand curled tight into a fist. But it was the sound of his fingers snapping, loud and unexpectedly sharp, that really demanded her attention. He snapped and pointed at the floor. She responded with well-trained obedience, rising off the rug and kneeling again at his feet.

She inhaled as he laid a hand on the side of her face. His thumb caressed her cheek.

“I won’t kiss you if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“To be honest, I think not kissing would make it worse.”

“Honest,” he repeated. “Yes, be honest. It’s been over three years for me, you realize. I need you to tell me if it’s something you don’t like.”

“What if...” She stopped and took another breath. His hand was on her neck now, his muscular fingers kneading her skin in a way that made her stomach knot up and the flesh between her thighs damp. “What if I do like it?”

Daniel smiled at her question and for the first time she thought she caught a glimpse of the man he must have been before the pain burrowed in and made a home out of his heart.

“Then tell me that too. Understand?”

She smiled back at him. “Yes, sir.”

“Sir...I haven’t been called that in so long. I’ve forgotten how much I like it. Stand up, Eleanor,” he ordered and she came immediately to her feet. He reached out and untied the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown. The fabric loosened and gave way to his hands. He slid the gown down her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She wore nothing under her gown so she now stood naked before him, shivering, even, despite the fire.

Daniel placed his hands against her stomach before letting them roam slowly over the contours and curves of her body. The act felt strangely unsexual. She felt as much wonder and curiosity in his touch as she did desire.

He gathered her breasts in his hands, cupping them gently. He brushed his thumbs across her nipples and she flinched with pleasure. He took her by the hips and moved her even closer to him, close enough for him to take a nipple into his mouth. She grasped his shoulders to steady herself as he sucked at her breasts, alternating between his mouth and his fingers as he pinched them and kissed them until her nipples were painfully swollen.

Eleanor took slow breaths as he continued his assault on her senses. He slipped a hand behind her knee and lifted her leg, placing her foot on the chair next to his thigh.

Still holding onto his shoulders for balance, she looked down and watched as Daniel slid a single finger into her. She heard a sigh of pleasure but wasn’t sure if it had escaped from his lips or hers.

A second finger joined the first and Eleanor began to pant as Daniel moved them in and out of her until they shone with her wetness against the light of the fireplace.

With his other hand he explored her clitoris, probing gently and slowly until he found her rhythm, the prefect pace and pressure that brought her to the edge of orgasm.

“I can’t...” she gasped. “I can’t stand.”

Daniel immediately took his hands away from her. He gathered her in his arms and carried her to his bed. It was dark away from the fire, and cold. She wriggled under the covers as Daniel lit a smattering of candles.

She saw now that his room was both masculine and elegant; dark wood furniture contrasted with the off-white linens and rugs. But as he stood next to the bed and started to undress, her appreciative eyes fell only on him.

Daniel’s naked chest was even more broad and strong than his clothes had hinted at. His stomach was a flat hard plane of muscle. Candlelight flickered over his skin, throwing every line and angle into sharp relief. Eleanor pulled the heavy covers to her chin, suddenly uncertain at the prospect of seeing all of him.

She rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness that hovered at the high ceiling as he discarded the rest of his clothing. She knew from the shifting of the bed that he had joined her. Then it was his face, his naked body that claimed her field of vision. He pulled the covers down her body, revealing every inch of her to his sight again.

“Spread your legs,” he ordered and it was, without question, an order. She heard the imperative in his voice, the tenor of command. She obeyed. She was trained to obey, trained to want to obey.

As she spread her legs, Daniel reached for one of the candles that burned on the bedside table. He brought it to him, careful to spill no wax. He settled between her open thighs and looked down at her.

“Use your hands,” he said. “Open yourself.”

Eleanor reached down and with trembling fingers spread the lips of her vagina as wide as she comfortably could. “Your clit,” he said. “Show me.” Eleanor blushed in the semi-dark, but embarrassment did not stop her from using her thumb and pulling back the hood of her clitoris. Now nothing of her secret parts remained hidden from his view.

She looked at Daniel as he looked at her. His eyes seemed to devour her. She’d rarely felt so exposed in her life.

“I’d forgotten,” he said quietly, “how beautiful this is.”

He moved the candle to his left hand and with his right he touched her. One by one he dipped every finger into her—his thumb, his index finger...sliding one in, pulling slowly out, and then pushing in the next as if he had to experience her from every angle. With a single wet fingertip he widened her tight entrance with spiraling circles. She was so wet she could hear herself.

Again he pressed two fingers into her. She arched her hips into his hand. He probed along the front wall of her eager body. She gasped when he suddenly pushed hard into her g-spot, her inner muscles clamping down on him.

She heard his soft laughter and she blushed again, this time at her own blatant need for him.

“Responsive little thing, aren’t you?” Daniel teased as he pulled out of her once more and leaned forward to set the candle back on the table. “I wonder how you’ll respond to this....”

Now it was his mouth on her, his tongue inside her. She balked in shock from the sheer ferocity of it. He took her clitoris between his lips and sucked. She dug her hands into the bed, desperate to hold onto something, anything to steady herself as a current of pleasure—so strong it felt as if it would drag her under—washed over her again and again. Daniel brought her once more to the sharp edge of orgasm and stopped. He crawled up her body and pressed his lips, wet with her desire, to her mouth. She tasted herself first, then him. As he kissed her with desperate hungry lips, she felt him reach for her knees. He brought her legs up, positioning them over his shoulders. He leaned in to kiss her again, a move that pushed her knees nearly to her chest.