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so.”
    â€œBut I cannot do it by staying away from you, as I had intended. The events of this evening make that clear. Now I have no choice but to come back into your life. To be close enough to you always that others will not be able to force themselves into your world, much less harm you. But you must still agree. I cannot care for you properly, I cannot keep you safe, unless you want me there.”
    He took her hand, gently, threading her fingers through his.
    â€œThis is much more serious than the safe word I gave you for use during our time together. This is as important as the blood that runs in your veins, the air that you breathe. If you allow me, we will be bonded. Indelibly. I am not saying that I will force myself on you. You can always cast me out. But we will mark each other in ways that cannot be undone.”
    The things he was saying were beginning to go beyond the limits of Chelsea’s comprehension: she didn’t know if he was proposing protecting her, gangster style, or shadowing her as she went about her life or watching and controlling her every move. But her trust in him—stupidly, perhaps—didn’t waver.
    â€œI need…” She needed something, obviously. She could call the police, she could move away. Or she could put her trust in this near stranger, a man with more secrets than anyone she had ever known. A man who clearly moved in dangerous circles. But, perhaps, the only man who could really know her. “I need your help,” she finally admitted. “I need you.”
    He squeezed her hand more tightly, then pressed it to his mouth, his lips grazing her knuckles. “Then it is decided. You are mine now, Chelsea—mine to protect. I will not take my obligation lightly.”
    Then he pulled her toward him. Chelsea went to her knees on the rug in front of him, her wrists captured in his strong, large hands.
    â€œAnd you are also mine to use.”
    There was the faintest trace of a question in his eyes; he was seeking her acquiescence of a need they both knew to burn within her. She bent her head, closing her eyes, supplicating before him. “Yes, Sir, I am. Yours.”
    â€œAll right, then.” He bent and kissed her forehead, very gently. “Then we will not discuss it any further tonight. Now, please go to the bedroom and get the wooden box that you will find on a shelf in the closet. Bring it to me without opening it.”
    Chelsea felt her heart pound with anticipation, and when she stood, she had to steady herself so that her legs wouldn’t tremble. She walked through the candlelit room, following the light emanating from the end of the hallway. She had spent one previous night in the bedroom at the end of the hall, but she had woken alone, Ricardo having left in the night.
    This time when she walked through the bedroom door, the room was somehow transformed. The linen spread on the bed, the deeply textured sand-colored walls, the handmade Navaho rug on the tiled floor were the same. The bathroom, with its rough-hewn stone and pewter fixtures, was the same as when she’d showered there. But the room seemed heavy with possibility as if it had secrets of its own, secrets that it would impart to her only over time.
    The door to the walk-in closet stood open, lit by discreet recessed fixtures. Several fine cotton shirts and tailored jackets hung from wooden hangers, and a pair of leather shoes waited on a shelf.
    There, in the center of the closet, was the box. A foot and a half square, it was simply constructed of dark wood that shone from polishing, with a brass handle on the lid. It was surprisingly light, and as Chelsea carried it to the living room she wondered what was inside. Perhaps the red silk scarves that Ricardo had used to bind her. Or the fringed suede flogger with which he had teased her pussy…or the specially made candles whose wax he had dripped over her breasts.
    She knelt in front of him, presenting the box.