her as he answered the rope artist. “Yeah, but I’m not sure I’m up for doing the whole elaborate suspension thing.”
“I had something easy in mind. Ropework 101, an introduction to the possibilities. That stretch of grass on the west side of the house is a nice spot, with a breeze off the water.”
Daralyn had pressed her lips together at the more specific suggestion, and her fingers curled against her thighs. It gave him all the go-ahead he needed.
“Sounds good,” Rory said. “Long as you’re not going to need me to do a lot of maneuvering on the grass.” The lawn was trimmed short enough to push across without having to lift his casters, but it wasn’t ideal ground for smooth pivots and swift turns.
“Nope. You’ll be pretty stationary.”
“Lead the way, then.”
On the way, they stopped at the dais where Julie and Des had done their demo, and Des came out from behind the curtain with a coil of blue rope. Then they headed toward the place he’d indicated.
A stone bench, angled to view both the garden area and the water, was available near the spot. Des pressed Julie down on it. As he did, he brushed a knuckle along her cheek and murmured something. She gazed up at him, a slight smile on her face, and a lot of feeling in her eyes.
When Des came toward them, Julie shifted her attention toward Rory and Daralyn, and her lively eyes narrowed. “What?”
Rory affected her mannerisms, throwing up his hands. “You two just make me feel so gooey.”
“Shut up.”
Daralyn chuckled as Rory grinned. Des gave them an indulgent, patient look that Rory thought would work well on squabbling offspring, when and if he and Julie took that step. Then he squared off with Rory and Daralyn, and his manner shifted to a more serious mien. For Julie, too. Despite her usual effusiveness, she subsided into a quiet, unobtrusive observer, much as Rory suspected she did when watching theater rehearsals.
As Rory locked the brakes on his chair, Daralyn shifted closer to his side. “Have her face you,” Des said.
Daralyn obediently did so while Rory took her hands. “Breathe,” he told her, with a smile. A reminder it was all okay. Her color was high and eyes a little bright. Nervous but excited too, so that was all good.
“State of mind is important,” Des said, moving around them. “Both of you take a breath. Focus on one another.” He stopped behind Daralyn, a couple feet back and to the side, so she couldn’t see him, but Rory had a direct view.
“Daralyn,” Des continued, his even timbre suggesting, reassuringly, that he knew everything about what he was talking about, “there’s nothing more important than your Master’s direction, his will. And nothing is more important to him than your protection and well-being.”
“Absolutely,” Rory said, meeting her eyes. The torch light turned them a fascinating mixture of pewter and green, with glints of gold.
So now he took a breath, and Daralyn copied the gesture, showing she was following Des’s direction and focusing on Rory’s lead. It changed the atmosphere further. Their circle of the world evolved into something separate from everything outside of it.
Des made a gesture toward Rory’s feet, nodded to Daralyn and pantomimed a lifting of his hands. Rory got it. “Kneel at my feet, Daralyn,” he said. “Still facing me.”
When she did, his heart tilted in the usual way when she assumed that position. “Lift your hands up to me,” he said. “Palms down.”
She did it almost exactly as Des had demonstrated, her wrists side by side, the fingers open like a bird’s wings. She kept her eyes lowered, her lips parted. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the wine-colored fabric of her dress. The skirt had floated down around her so she looked like a wild primrose.
Des brought the blue rope to Rory. “Wrap it twice around her wrists and then one wrap in the middle, between her wrists. Do it slow, and tighten it. Watch her.”
Curious at his emphasis on the last, Rory complied, looping the rope around her slim wrists, held up for him. He didn’t have to watch too closely; the reaction was noticeable the second he made the wrap. Her breath shortened, and her body stilled. When he did the wrap in the middle, tightening the hold of the ropes on either wrist, she swayed toward him.
He glanced at Des, and the spark in the man’s gaze needed no words, since the feeling echoed