Tied Up With Love. Holly Martin

turned round and glared at Ethan in the semi darkness. ‘Why are we in here, while they’re out there doing that?’ she whispered, although she imagined she could shout it – Nick and Kirsty would be too busy to hear.

      ‘We’re not supposed to be here, I promised them the house to themselves. I just didn’t expect them to be finished with the basement so soon.’

      ‘I’m not standing here listening to that.’

      ‘Oh god, Nick, you great big beast.’

      ‘Why, it will give you a good idea of how our operation works.’ She could see Ethan smirking at her. ‘Fortunately I have an escape route.’

      With some difficulty, Ethan turned away from her, brushing his hard back against her face. She heard the sound of wood scraping against wood and a stale breeze washed over her. Ethan suddenly stepped away from her and to her great surprise walked down a short dark corridor at the back of the wardrobe. As the groans and thuds grew louder behind her, she hurried forward after him.

      ‘Are we going to Narnia?’ she whispered.

      ‘Somewhere far duller I’m afraid.’

      Ethan pushed open another wooden panel at the end of the short corridor and stepped out into another closet. He pushed the closet door open and walked into a smaller bedroom with a large white bed, covered in a beautiful patchwork quilt. Izzy stepped out blinking into the bright bedroom and Ethan closed the door on the groans and shouts behind her.

      ‘Secret passageways? Does that sort of thing happen a lot then?’

      ‘My dad built it for us when me and Gizmo were younger, so it connected our rooms. We loved it, we spent hours of fun pretending to be spies or robbers running from the law.’

      Izzy smiled. ‘This was your room?’

      Ethan nodded and looked round the room with sudden affection. Quite why this new information suddenly added to his sex appeal Izzy didn’t know, but it did. She tried to imagine Ethan as a small boy, playing here and what the room would have looked like all those years before.

      She looked around at the beautiful country landscapes and the vases of flowers. Fairy lights twisted round the bed’s headboard. It was cute. ‘I like this room.’

      ‘Thought you might. This is for the romantics, generally the ones that like to be rescued use this room.’

      ‘That’s really not my thing.’

      ‘Being rescued?’

      ‘I can take care of myself.’

      ‘Of that I have no doubt.’

      She wasn’t sure if that was a knock or not. Obviously she wasn’t Ethan’s type. He certainly liked to be the one in charge in a relationship.

      ‘Have you ever brought a woman here, a girlfriend, acted out your fantasies, used the facilities so to speak?’

      ‘No, never. Business and pleasure don’t mix.’

      ‘So, the whole kidnapping thing, that’s not a fantasy of yours?’

      ‘Not really, my fantasies are consensual.’

      Izzy wondered what exactly his fantasies involved.

      ‘The fantasies here are clearly consensual as well. Kirsty obviously wanted Nick as much as he wanted her. As you said, the ‘forced’ sex is only part of the role play.’

      ‘Yes but that really doesn’t do anything for me.’

      ‘How did you get started in this business if you don’t actually like this sort of thing?’

      Ethan sat on the bed. ‘It was a mate of mine, he wanted to do something different to surprise his girlfriend. He asked me if I would help him to kidnap her. I wasn’t keen to do anything that might scare the crap out of her so we made sure she knew that I was going to be involved and when, although we didn’t give her all the details. She loved it. After, he said to me they’d had the best sex they’d ever had. When one of his friends asked me to do the same thing I started to realise that we could offer something here that no one else was really offering. I didn’t expect it to be so popular. It took off really quickly, especially with the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. I thought it would just be the kinky couples that would get involved, but even with the seemingly normal looking couples, they were willing to try it for a bit of fun, something a bit different. I poured everything I had into this, especially refitting the house. Every hour, every day, every penny. And for the first time in my life it felt like I had actually made a success of something.’

      Izzy stared at him as he pulled at a stray thread on a tiny hole in his jeans. She had not expected such raw honesty from him today.

      His head suddenly snapped up, horribly aware he had said too much. He stood up and the frown he wore almost as part of his uniform was already back on his face. ‘Are you ready to go, we haven’t got time to hang around here all day.’

      ‘I… Yes of course, but I haven’t seen the last room yet.’

      ‘That’s nothing, we don’t use it.’

      ‘Is it open to the public?’

      ‘Yes but no one is ever interested in using it. I rarely mention it now.’

      ‘I want to see it, maybe we can change something about it to make it more appealing.’

      ‘Fine.’

      Ethan strode out of the room and she followed him onto a brightly lit hallway, lined with thick red carpet. Some more stunning landscapes graced the walls, these were ocean views and were incredibly detailed. He opened the door opposite and gestured for her to go inside. But she could already see what the room was. An artist’s studio. There was a large, comfy looking sofa up one end and a large easel and no other furniture at all. But the walls were lined with pictures of women in various states of undress, in a variety of different mediums; chalk, oil, charcoal, watercolours. They were stunning and obviously painted by someone with a ton of talent.

      Izzy had never had any kind of artistic talent, there wasn’t one single creative bone in her body but she could still appreciate the talent of others and these pictures and paintings were beautiful.

      ‘You know the scene in Titanic when Jack draws Rose, I was kind of thinking people might want to create their own personal masterpieces. Stupid really,’ Ethan said.

      ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. The artist and his muse, now that’s a sexy role play.’

      His eyes burned into her for a moment before he looked away. ‘No one is interested in it. No one has ever used it.’

      ‘No one?’

      Ethan smirked and lifted one of the used sheets from the back of the easel and pulled it over to the front. She laughed at the pictures of stick men in several sexual positions.

      ‘Oh well, at least they had fun. To be fair these pictures are pretty intimidating.’ She gestured around the room.

      ‘Intimidating. In what way?’ The snap to his voice was back.

      ‘Well they’re incredible. Any would-be artist is going to be completely put off trying to create something when there’s this impossible ideal to live up to.’

      He blinked. ‘Oh I get it, Gizmo told you they were mine did he? Thought you’d wind me up? Very good. Come on, tour’s over.’

      He moved to walk out but she stepped in his path. ‘Wait a minute. These are yours? Seriously? I had no idea. You have a real gift here.’

      ‘We should get back.’ He gestured for her to leave the room and she walked out into the hallway, glancing at the landscapes with more interest.

      ‘Are these yours too?’

      Ethan didn’t answer as he closed the door on his studio and walked down the hall.

      ‘And