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both parties. I don’t play soft, Terry— Is it Teresa?”
    “No one calls me that.”
    “I do. I spent several days thinking Terry Barstow was a
bloke and I want to get the image out of my mind. Teresa. I don’t play soft,
because it’s no fun for me, and I like what I like. I’m not interested in
guiding anyone gently into the wide world of BDSM—Roger will be here in a few
days, and if that’s what you want that’s his gig. Anyway, first time with me,
for someone without a lot of experience, yeah, I want you tied up. You’re less
likely to get hurt if you can’t move at the wrong time. As to using your safe
word—yes, you can. But if you’re going to do it over something I already know
I’m going to do, we might as well skip the process.”
    She stared. What a maddening man. Didn’t he understand
compromise? She’d been dating boys who liked to think they were bad and edgy
for a long time, but they had always been willing to give to get sex. And she’d
always ended up thinking of them as poseurs. Kyle, she suspected, was the real
thing. That scared her, but she was aware that some of the need to squirm
wasn’t out of fright. She was getting very wet, and she shouldn’t be.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “That’s very wise, I think.” He cut another piece of steak
and chewed.
    “You could have made us all food as easily as you made one,”
she said.
    “Yep. And so could you. There are more steaks in the fridge.
Can you cook?”
    “Some.”
    “You,” he pointed out, “got dinner first.”
    She could feel her scowl deepening. “Why are you so—” She
couldn’t decide whether the word she wanted was frustrating or unyielding or
what, exactly.
    “I don’t ever try to be anyone but myself. You should try it
sometime.”
    “You’re trying to scare me off.”
    “Am I? Maybe. I think there’s a ninety-nine out of one
hundred chance that’s the best thing I can do for you, and for me. If it is,
then yeah, I’ll happily scare you off.”
    “One percent, huh?” She had to admit the interview wasn’t
going horribly well, but she would have thought she was doing better than that. Most women would have walked away. Most women have more sense of
self-preservation. She wondered what he meant about how she should try
being herself. She’d always thought of her boyfriends as the ones who were
putting on an act, but maybe he was right. Maybe she was too. Didn’t everyone
in the end? Even Kyle. He couldn’t be that tough, could he?
    Yet he was perfectly calm, eating his steak as if they were
talking about the weather. “Why am I down to one percent?” she asked and wished
she hadn’t. It sounded pathetic, needy. She never wanted to be in that role.
She always hid her needs. It was safer that way.
    He held her gaze while he finished chewing again. “Actually,
one percent is an upgrade. It was definitely not when you got off the boat. It
was one in a thousand when you started flirting with me to get rid of your
friend.”
    Definitely not? She knew she was no movie star beauty.
Actually, some movie star beauties weren’t that good-looking without their
makeup. But she’d been around enough gorgeous people to know she wasn’t one.
Still, she didn’t like to think any man took his first look at her and thought
“definitely not” unless they were married, a priest or gay. Kyle didn’t seem to
be any of those.
    “I do believe I’ve been insulted.” She got up. She needed to
clear her head.
    He shrugged. “We’re all wrong sometimes.”
    Maybe there was another way to take it, but she didn’t know
what it was.
    “The reason I want to tie you up is that I intend to do very
intense things to you. Some pleasurable, some painful. And I don’t want you
thrashing around and hurting yourself, or me, in the process. I don’t want you
to concentrate on where to put your hands or what to do with your feet. I want
all your focus on exactly what I’m doing to you and nowhere else, whether