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He could guess what she was thinking, and it killed him she thought he’d force himself on her, but he couldn’t lock her in here and leave her to her own devices any more than he could chain her up in his playroom. She’d be out on the balcony and slipping back through the living room, trying to escape him. She had no chance of that, but she’d run and he’d chase her, and there was only one way that would end. Her beneath him, his beast in control. He couldn’t lock her in the bathroom, either. Too many sharp implements, and she might be desperate enough to climb out of the bathroom window. No. This was his best option. A tried-and-true method of restraint. He secured the second scarf around her other wrist.

“No, no, no. Please!”

She was frantic now. Begging him. Struggling as if her life depended on it. He shut out her cries, avoided her lethal heels as she kicked out at him, and looped the scarf around the far bedpost.

He was going to need to gag her, too. She was a witch. He couldn’t risk her spelling herself out of her predicament. He opened his drawer and stared at his selection of gags—a ball gag, an O ring, a bit—curling his fingers into fists. Putain. The thought of her taking one of his gags… His whole body was strung tighter than a metro commuter during rush hour, and his cock… Alain didn’t think he’d ever been this hard for a woman. It verged on painful. But despite his earlier plans for her and this evening, the turn events had taken promised little chance of release.

“People know I’m here.”

Her words snapped him back from the brink.

“They’ll come looking for me.” The quiver in her voice belied her doubt. “And they’re not very nice people.”

More fear, this time not of him. Interesting.

He grabbed another silk scarf, the safest option, and when she opened her mouth to say more, he gagged her with it. He snatched up her flailing feet, removed one shoe, then the other, and tossed them into the corner. She’d be more comfortable without them, and less likely to do damage if she got in a lucky kick. Then he forced himself to step away from her before he did something stupid, something he’d regret.

For a breathtaking moment, his vision was brought to life. Her, tied to his bed, her pale-yellow gown rucked up around her golden thighs, the Swarovski crystals twinkling in the light. It’d been over a decade since Alain had been considered a young Dom, but his body was about to stage a coup the Parisians who’d stormed the Bastille would’ve been in awe of.

Her chest heaved, her dark eyes pleaded. Because she was afraid. But he could change that.

It hadn’t been much of a kiss in the kitchen—a brief taste, no tongue—more than tame by his definition. But that little puff of breath, not quite a sigh, the arch of her spine pressing her breast into his hand… His mouth watered. With a few touches… A kiss, a brush of his tongue across her lips, his hand kneading, pinching, soothing, he could have her ripe for the taking. And, putain, he wanted to take, to have her screaming his name over and over again as he pleasured her for hours in ways her naïve little soul had never dreamed of. Then as she lay there satiated and boneless, when his body was primed to its absolute limit, he would slide into her and claim every beautiful inch of her body.

His grip on the door frame was the only thing holding him in place, keeping him from pouncing on her. Coarse, dark hair sprouted across his knuckles and the plaster threatened to buckle beneath his hands. Merde. Alain had never been so close to throwing all his self-control, and his reputation as a responsible and respectable Dom, over the balcony railing as he was now.

He released the door frame, retreating before he could change his mind. He needed space, a chance to breathe without her scent spicing up the air. A moment to collect his thoughts, make a call, and decide what the hell he was going to do with her. What he should do with her, not what he wanted to do with her.

In the kitchen, he wrenched at his bow tie, removing the constriction. He tossed his cuff links on the counter, then poured a generous glass of the pinot noir and chugged it down, barely tasting it, as if it, or anything, could douse the fire the woman now bound to his bed had ignited. He poured himself another glass and, a little calmer, he sipped it, giving the wine its due. Letting it slide down his throat and getting lost in its flavors.

Alain set his glass down and opened her clutch, emptying its contents on the counter. Another vial of herbs—Angelica root, black pepper and white oak bark. The same as the one she’d left at his front door, if his nose didn’t mislead him. Herbs for protection, useful when breaking wards. Oh, she had come prepared, all right. There was a scrap of paper with a phone number on it. From the first two digits, it belonged to someone in France. No way of telling if the owner was in Paris or belonged to a government department. Maxime had hinted that was a possibility. That the Faucherians’ connections might be more influential than their own.

There was also a hotel key card, a phone, a passport, an American driver’s license, a credit card from Wells Fargo bank, and a hundred euros. They’d not get any useful information from the key card apart from the room number and the dates the room was booked for. The phone used biometrics. He leaned against the kitchen counter and hung his head. He was not ready to go back into his room and face her. Not yet.

Instead, Alain straightened and opened the passport. Grace Williams. Born in Aliceville, Alabama. Twenty-nine years old. Date of issue, six weeks ago. Under a fake name? Forged? If it was, it was a good one. There were no irregularities that Alain could spot. The driver’s license and credit card were also for a Grace Williams. The issue date on the license was three years ago, and both it and the credit card showed signs of wear.

Was it possible this was her first trip out of the United States? The thought was unsettling. Cordelia had connections, and everything he’d been told about her from the twins and Gabriel suggested she was as wealthy as the Langeais wolves. She could’ve hired anyone to do her bidding. But she also had the gift of second sight. Why, out of all her options, had Cordelia chosen Grace to steal the grimoire?

He called the twins.

Pierre answered on the first ring. “What have you got for us?”

Alain gave them the phone number from the scrap of paper, the hotel she was staying at, and the details from the passport. He didn’t bother mentioning the phone. He had her for gaining access to it. He’d ring them back if there was anything else he needed them to trace.

“We’ll get onto that straight away. Where is she now?”

“Tied to my bed.”

Louis snorted in the background. “Merde, he’s in deep already.”

Tête de nœud.

“Good luck,” said Pierre.

Alain hung up on the twins’ laughter.

He stared down the hall toward his playroom. Oui. Louis was right. He was in deep. If his reaction to Grace, if her crossing his ward without breaking it, if the heat that had speared his body as she passed through it meant what he suspected, he would need all the luck Pierre had wished him. Or soon Maxime wouldn’t be the only connard drinking alone.

Chapter Eight