Bound to Be a Bride by Megan Mulry Read Free Book Online Page A

bare skin above her ankle boot, then quickly closed her mouth and eyes, hoping that her sinful pleasure at his touch might not be so obvious.
    Javier tied her ankles with the same attentive precision he had used at her wrists. He tried to convince himself that he was not employing his usual speed and skill because he was trying to be mindful of her safety, but the truth was that he wanted his fingers on her supple skin for as many long seconds as he could steal. He had figured the girl would try to defy him when he suggested he was going to have to bind her each night on their way to Aveiro. She had proved quite amenable, showing admirable equestrian and culinary skills and generally not making a nuisance of herself. Perhaps he had hoped to infuriate her so he would have an excuse to deposit her at the next village and never think about her again. Perhaps, he’d thought, it was a good plan to provoke her to petulance or disobedience so he would no longer… think about her in that way.
    To say that plan had gone awry would be putting it mildly.
    When she raised her joined wrists to him, gave them to him, he nearly took a step away from her, from the flood of desire that coursed through him. He felt the shock of it when his fingers touched the skin of her wrist, and he saw the softening gleam in her eyes as she allowed him to take her. God, if he could feel this way merely tying her up, he could only begin to fathom what he could feel if he really took her this way. Pliant. Wanting. Staring at him in that eager way.
    He shook his head, realizing he was done with her ankles. He patted the ropes and then traced his index finger at the top where it touched her bare skin to make sure it was not too tight. His instructor had taught him with particular care, paying special attention to the precise location of the rope, how it affected bone and muscle, veins and tendons. How to speed up or slow down circulation. Of course he knew it was not too tight. He had learned everything there was to know about different ropes and their applications, an art form that had been passed down for generations.
    Nearly two hundred years prior, six Japanese men had remained in Spain after joining the renowned Japanese emissary Faxecura Rocuyemon on his tour of Europe and the Americas. Those six men, who had converted to Catholicism and learned Spanish from missionaries while they still lived in Japan, subsequently married Spanish women and thrived in the town of Coria del Río, near Sevilla. Their Japanese Samurai arts had been passed down in the greatest secrecy from generation to generation, with the eldest son of each family carrying both the private cultural history and the public surname Japón.
    One of Javier’s closest friends at the seminary in Pamplona had been Tomás Japón. As they had gotten to know and trust each other, Tomás had finally confided what he considered to be his terrible secret. His ancestors had made every attempt to publicly dismiss their Japanese heritage, lest they fall victim to the xenophobia that had defined Spain in the seventeenth century. In private, however, they had passed on the traditional arts of the samurai, including Hojojutsu , the formal art of binding and wrapping.
    Javier had found his calling. Tomás had laughed at his friend’s enthusiasm, especially when he realized Javier had little or no use for the martial art as it related to the traditional taking of prisoners and parading them shamefully through the streets before beheading them. Javier had almost immediately seen the erotic possibilities. Initially, he practiced on a few lusty and cheerful wenches in Pamplona, then he perfected his technique with a “widow” of a certain age in Olite. He suspected she had never been married, but she was particularly limber and game and it was of little consequence to Javier what she called herself. For nearly two years, he had visited her on a weekly basis, creating more and more complicated variations on