She couldn’t hold his gaze. After only a few moments she had to back down, had to turn her eyes away. There was too much there; she didn’t know what it was, but it was overwhelming. Instead she fixed her eyes on her hands, clasped in her lap and starting to shake slightly. Fear? Excitement? Anticipation? She didn’t know.
“What is your will?” she said at last.
Satisfied he relaxed imperceptibly. “My will indeed,” he agreed. Her fear was a delicious scent in the air between them. The sound of her heart pounding out a frantic pace sweeter than any music he could compose. “You will tell me why you came here tonight. A virtual stranger heard of my invitation and accepts. I would know why.”
“This is what I need.” She lifts her hand to the collar again, but this time just to run her finger along it, curling her hand around the chain. “To give up control. Not to have to choose, to decide. Not to be in charge. In the hands of someone who knows nothing of me, won’t be gentle or cautious or anything because of knowing about me.”
She drops her hand again, clasping it with the other. “I need to not think. And this is the best way I know.”