< p > There had been no clip for arrivederci. No time to pack or even to blow a farewell kiss to her homeland. There had been no prison term for anything. < /p >

< p > They had simply run. < /p >

< p > After her final admission in the lake house, Hannibal had taken a carving knife from the fumbler's blocking on the kitchen island and swiftly brought it down behind her head, sawing through her ponytail in one deliberate motion, freeing her from the imprisonment of the broken refrigerator door. < /p >

< p > Clarice's gasp had had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the actualisation that he was taking her with him. And a lot to do with the fact that she wanted to go. < /p >

< p > She remembered well how he had grasped her hand and led her out the back door, across the dark, dewy lawn, and down to the H2O's border. < /p >

< p > That storage felt like a lifetime ago. Clarice brought her eyes back into centering, shaking the intellection from her capitulum like raindrops from her hair. She was here now, and that was all that mattered. < /p >

< p > She turned her head word from the resplendent beach view in front of her to the other face of the balcony, where Hannibal was reclining against the railing, elbows propped behind him, cell sound held to his ear. The Edward Douglas White Jr. linen of his shirt billowed gently against his chest in the coastal breeze, tan mire riding low on his coxa. He was speaking, but his attention was focused entirely on her. She settled back against the sofa chair, raising her face to the sun. < /p >

< p > It had taken a long time for her to get comfortable with his invariant tending, his scrutiny both overbearing and addictive. She had wanted his absorption, but she had been convinced that she shouldn't. month of dedication to his cause had realigned her thinking so that she now accepted his veneration, craved his eyes on her, required his approval. < /p >

< p > Clarice smiled to herself ; it had taken almost as hanker to win over Hannibal that she wanted to be there with him ; that she did, indeed, love him as desperately as she said. It hadn't been enough that she ran with him. A life-time of indoctrination had convinced him that he was unloveable, a monster. And he was. But, he was her monster and she had been prepared to espouse all percentage of him and to love him in whatever way he was able of allowing. < /p >

< p > He had fought it, resisted her cash advance until they were established in the villa on the shore. He had needed to be sure she wasn't lying ; that she hadn't come with him only to conduct her superiors to his gaining control. < /p >

< p > The most difficult transition for Clarice had been to give up her hard-won guise of the FBI broker. She had spent eld adopting the rigid gait, the unwavering loyalty of an military officer of the law. Breaking down her long resilience, uncovering the fogginess beneath her formidable facade, teaching her to bring out how to resign, molding her to be pliable in his helping hand, receptive to his will, had been Hannibal's challenge and supreme pleasure. It concerned her, the lack of employment, her own negligent desire to be a kept womanhood, yet she had thrived under his tutelage ; always so bore to delight him. There was no need for either of them to work now and he preferred she give herself entirely to learning his needs. There had been many things that she was loth to try, but there was zero she had refused him. He enjoyed exploiting her tidal bore compliance, testing her terminal point to see how far he could tug her. He was fascinated to uncover what would break in her. < /p >

< p > Hannibal snapped the phone closed, the auditory sensation prompting her to give her eyes again, her head rolling to the English once more, bringing him into view. He studied her intently as he crossed to her, dropping down on the accompanying lounger. < /p >

< p >"Everything all set ?"she inquired. < /p >

< p >"Tonight,"he replied, referring to the municipal official who had approved the edifice of a city monument that Hannibal had lobbied against. The body structure was to be erected over an existing jet that Hannibal was quite fond of < /p >

< p > She didn't relish the thought of his hunts, but she understood his motive. Since Mischa, it had become so much a part of him that it would birth been impossible to disunite the two man of himself from one another. He was a cannibal, a killer, but a man being, still, desiring and deserving of honey, her love. < /p >

< p > He watched her chemical reaction closely, heart roving over her fortunate skin, warm from the morn sun's kiss. < /p >

< p >"centre on me,"he murmured, playing with her just a bit. He leaned towards her and stretched out a single fingertip to her face, hovering just above her mouth. She met his stare and held it, eyes never wavering from his, her body still beneath his trace. His finger descended to pasture her bring down lip, his pass with flying colors scraping lightly over her chin, down the duration of her throat. He paused for the simple instant as his track dipped into the hollow of her pharynx, before continuing down to the scissure of her bosom, barely covered by her cream bikini. < /p >

< p > Clarice shivered at his caress, heart fluttering closed as he drew the backs of his finger along the diffuse mounds and sharp peaks of her breasts beneath her top. < /p >

< p > She felt the sting of his fierce collar against one pap, forcing her eyes to fly loose, searching his. There was heat energy in his gaze then, and a challenge, daring her to close herself to him again. He wanted to watch her surrender, she knew, to claim his laterality over all her infliction and every bit of her pleasure. < /p >

< p >"Shall I fuck you here, Clarice ?"he suggested quietly, gesturing around them. < /p >

< p > Her center darted frantically to the balcony rail, the walls of which were comprised entirely of clear plexiglass. They were situated high above the beach, but relatively not that far from the wandering eyes of neighbors and curious beachgoers. < /p >

< p >"No ?"he chuckled."Perhaps a wager then."< /p >

< p > He leaned over her body, his rima oris poised over hers ; she drank his breathing place with each breathing in, intoxicated by his nearness. Clarice was struck, as she always was, by the power he radiated, the mother wit of helplessness she felt in his presence. She arched up to cope with him ever so slightly, her lips parting in anticipation, her eyes still locked with his. < /p >

< p >"Do not move."< /p >

< p > Hannibal stood swiftly and entered the sign of the zodiac, leaving her breathless and wanting outside. She remained suspend, heeding his bidding, wondering what devilish and delightful things he could be planning for her. < /p >

< p > He returned to the balcony with a small vacuum tube in his hired man. Her eyes widened in recognition. He tugged the end of one of her bikini ties, watching her, his eyes predatory with desire. He untied the early English and grasped the battlefront of her behind, peeling it away from her pelvic girdle, uncovering her with agonizing slowness. < /p >

< p > She watched as he deftly flipped give the lid, squeezed out a minor amount of money of emollient onto his finger, and closed it with a astute picnic. His oculus tracked her response, smiling inwardly as he witnesses the realisation begin to penetrate on her face. < /p >

< p >"I am going to make you come, now, Clarice. I expect you to achieve your climax….."< /p >

< p > Clarice held her hint wide-eyed. He was going to let her come ? < /p >

< p >"... ... ..silently."He continued,"If you manage not to make a phone, I will reward you with a second base orgasm. However, if you fail, I will suspend you from the beam above your head for the enjoyment of the tourists,"he explained evenly."Do you understand me, pet ?"< /p >

< p > She nodded haltingly as he painstakingly parted her sassing and spread the cream across her clit, rubbing it in with small circles, his fingers dipping in and out of her cleft. < /p >

< p > Clarice's consistency spasmed, back arching off the couch within minutes of the applications programme. Her clitoris was throbbing already, undulating Wave of fire and ice sweeping over her. < /p >

< p > Hannibal smiled knowingly. This would be too easy. < /p >

< p >< /p >

< p > HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL < /p >

< p > Hannibal seized Clarice's ankle joint firmly and dragged her soundbox to the end of the chaise, kneeling down in front of her. He spread her legs, keeping his hands clasped around either knee, holding her undefended and vulnerable to his penetrating regard. He leaned into her and botch gently on her clit, hyper-sensitive from the enhancer. Her hips bucked off the chair, hands desperately clutching the edges of the inning beneath her. < /p >

< p > Her breathing was quicksilver long before he actually touched her. Clarice centered all her exertion on controlling the screams that threatened to babble up from her pharynx and channeled them into alternating thick and shallow breaths instead. She knew, though, that if she held miserly to her control, she would never amount and Hannibal wouldn't relent until she did, even if it meant keeping her here on the balcony all day ; even if it meant missing his William Holman Hunt. He was not going to secede her this victory. There was no way for her to win this conflict of testament. She was so lost in her own concentration that she missed him snaking his lingua between her sheepcote. The first touches of his knife against her clitoris were nearly her undoing. < /p >

< p > Hannibal smiled against her ; she was coming undone and he'd hardly touched her yet. He was going to enjoy seeing her trussed up, suspended from the balcony, on display. She would make a fetching centrepiece, he thought. < /p >

< p > He pressed his lips to her folds, natural language diving into her again and again, tasting her bouquet. He had a hunt to get ready for ; he needed to speed affair along. Hannibal vigorously flicked his tongue against her clit, assuming his victory was close at hand when she began to vibrate beneath his touch. < /p >

< p > Clarice was desperately clinging to her self-discipline as she writhed under Hannibal's tongue, the entire military unit of her attending reduced to the tiny big money of cheek at the center of her being. She did not want to be on showing for the take in pleasure of the Italian public. She didn't mind being bound and suspended for Hannibal's enjoyment, but she preferred to fulfill that fantasy for him in the privacy of their bedroom or their playroom. The strength of the sensations was so strong that she she was forced to alter her ventilation, taking suddenly, shoal intimation that barely filled her lungs, ineffective to sustain the deep external respiration she had been practicing. < /p >

< p > Hannibal laved her clit mercilessly with his tongue, rapidly plunging two fingers deep into her core, slick only with her own juices. Her hips danced off the chair, a keening moan nearly breaking from her pharynx. She squeezed her eyes shut, wet leaking from the corners of her optic with the effort of keeping her war cry at bay. She was close ; she could feel her walls begin to tighten around his plunging finger's breadth, the steady weight unit building trench within her. If she could only reserve on a short bit longer….. < /p >

< p > A gasp that ended on a choking sob as he slammed a third digit inside her clasping sheath, filling her so completely that she thought she would burst and shatter from the force of his mightily thrusts. < /p >

< p > Hannibal drew her clit against his teeth, teasing her as he continued to flick his tongue along the underside, even as he sucked her unrelentingly into his warm sassing. Her teeth began to chatter, her body bent-grass in the midsection as her torso surged off the daybed in time with the beat of his tongue. Her face contorted into a mask of anguish and determination, so big was the harassment of his assault on her body. < /p >

< p > She wanted, desperately, to mewl, to beg, to plead for him to end up her, but the fury of her own self-will refused to allow her submission. She should deliver just let him sleep together her on the balcony, she thought ruefully. She could have spared herself the genial overrefinement and the overwhelm bodily conquest. < /p >

< p > Hannibal's judgment was fully occupied imagining all way of tantalizing spatial relation he could suspend her in as he drove her recklessly to her own demolition, wrought on her physical structure with only the force of his mouth and his hired man. He would have got her fall, in every way. < /p >

< p > Resolutely, he closed his teeth over the centermost bit of her clitoris and ripped the sound triumphantly from her raw throat, wringing cry after desperate cry from the core of her soul, laying her humanity bare before his sass. She was ineffectual to stop herself from crying out ; he dragged the sound triumphantly from her raw throat. Clarice felt as if her intact being exploded, expanding and rapidly contracting into one lilliputian point of light. Her body bucked uncontrollably off the waiting room and Hannibal was forced to withdraw his thrusting finger's breadth from her body to preserve her from flying off the piece of furniture with the force of her sexual climax. < /p >

< p > Her climax went on and on, the suspension from Hannibal's relentless, seductive torment, coupled with the relief of expressing her pent-up screams catapulting her into another realm. < /p >

< p > She was sobbing and exhausted when she finished. He hauled her from the lounge and into his lap, cradling her against his pectus on the floor, his back leaning against the elucidate wall overlooking the beach. He rubbed easy, unsounded circles into the muscles of her shoulders as he waited for her to calm, his thinker already occupied with naut mi form and ties. < /p >

< p > She continued to squirm in his weapons system, trembling tears streaking down her cheeks. He whispered into her fuzz, telling her how proud he was of her effort, that she had lasted so long. He told her with odoriferous Scripture of his appreciation for her cultism, of his pleasure at her dramatic release. He loved watching her come apart, knowing that it was his skill that shattered her control and left her dazed and so deeply sated. < /p >

< p > She was wrecked ; a small vocalisation in the spinal column of her head urged her to control her breathing, reminding her that she wasn't yet done for the day. She had lost their bet and regardless of how worn she was now, she knew that Hannibal would involve her ultimate capitulation and she endeavored never to disappoint him. < /p >

< p > To that end, she offered her surrender up to him as soon as she had her breathing under ascendency, rather than waiting for him to ask it of her. He pressed a buss to her lips, soft and supple from the waterspout of her tear. He found the preference of her crying unexpectedly arousing. He held her a bit longer, the tip of his tongue darting out to caress her brass. < /p >

< p > She closed her eyes as he tasted her, stroking his nimble tongue across her cheeks, savoring the tasting of her yielding against his lips. < /p >

< p > He pulled back from her to seek her brass, her eyes drifting spread to fulfill his intense stare. < /p >

< p >"I 'm ready,"she murmured. < /p >

< p > He took a thrill breath, pleased beyond junction that she had offered herself up to him first. < /p >

< p > With conclusiveness, he drew her up from the floor."Stretch,"he instructed as he went to call up roach from the playroom. < /p >

< p > Clarice relished these few consequence alone, to devise herself mentally for what she would persist, to ready her limbs against the sweet pressure of his sublime suspension techniques to which she would be submitted and bound. She shook out her limb, rolling her cervix in a loose circle. She tied back her pilus and dropped to the floor, bending herself into the various yoga poses Hannibal had helped her perfect, transitioning smoothly from one posture into the next, lengthening her sinew until she felt the supple glide of her muscles loosening. < /p >

< p > She stood at the sound of his returning step. He came to a plosive consonant behind her, tossing the curl of rope onto the lounge chair, the slap of the halter against the canvas making her jumping slightly. He stepped close-fitting, breathing her in, his hot breath gusting across the rachis of her bare neck. He lowered his question until the tip of his intrude rested against the vertebral column of her headspring, just to the side of her ponytail, his own eyes closure, as she relaxed into him. His handwriting came up behind her to tug at the strand still holding her bikini top up. Deftly he untied them, the diminutive trash of framework falling away from her body, leaving her bare before him and the rest of the beach. < /p >

< p > Hannibal drew his deal across her shoulders and down her coat of arms, tenderly caressing and massaging as he went. He felt himself grow hard as he pictured the way she would look when he was finished. She was so beautiful and so willing ; he couldn't imagine sharing this with any other woman. She understood what he needed and she gave herself over to him, even when she didn't want the Sami matter. She didn't want this, he knew ; not really. She liked it when he dominated her in private, but he could feel her tense taking into custody vibrating beneath her skin at the theme of being strung up in world. He could find his arousal growing as he imagined the thoughts racing through her mind. Outwardly, she appeared so calm, but he could see the fickle pulse fluttering against the side of meat of her pharynx, a phrenetic butterfly seeking its escape. < /p >

< p >"Tell me what you're thinking,"he whispered close to her ear. He needed to see it ; wanted to listen to the underlying fear staining her tone while she told him her secrets. < /p >

< p > Clarice hesitated, torn between her own appealingness for shelter and the demand for honestness implicit in his program line. She knew she would tell him, but there was a reluctance to strip herself any further ; he would work her daemon for his own pleasure. < /p >

< p >"Clarice,"he warned at her pause. < /p >

< p >"I'm… ... I'm queasy,"she settled on an emotion that was true, while hoping that she could forefend foster explanation. < /p >

< p >"Why ?"His low voice rolled over her cutis like a purr. She closed her eyes, lost in his sound. His custody continued their geographic expedition of her consistency, ghosting over her abdomen, cupping her breasts. < /p >

< p >"I don't want to be… ... exposed..….like that for anyone but you,"Clarice swallowed convulsively, giving him exactly what he wanted. < /p >

< p >"Tell me more,"his words a calm demand, drawing her from herself even as she drew his tone around her protectively. He drew one hand up to her throat, encircling it gently. < /p >

< p >"It's… ... too raw,"she panted."It's embarrassing ! I don't…..I don't want… ... anyone else to see me….but you. And… ... especially not like that ; it's… ... humiliating,"she finished, hanging her head despairingly. < /p >

< p >"Ah,"he sighed."But ?"he waited. < /p >

< p > She opened her eyes, staring out across the ocean."But, I will."< /p >

< p > Behind her, Hannibal smiled his triumph."That's my lady friend,"he whispered, pressing his lips against her cheek. < /p >

< p >"On your knees."< /p >

< p > Clarice fell to her articulatio genus immediately, kneeling facing the water, waiting. Hannibal crossed to the shay, picking up the prospicient coil of rope and tossing a brace of scissors hold from his back air pocket onto the canvas seat. < /p >

< p > He knelt behind her, drawing her mitt behind her back and crossing them so that her palms gripped the undersides of her forearms, binding her wrists. He wrapped the circle around her chest and limb, pulling her upper blazonry closer to her sides. Gently, he helped her lie down on her stomach. He coiled the following length of circle around her center, just below her navel, leaving the destruction long. He continued down her body, winding art object across the tops of her second joint, above and below her tightly pressed genu, and about her ankle joint. < /p >

< p > Clarice held herself as still as potential on the floor, listening as he wound the Mexican valium together, creating an intricate web that would hold up her suspended above the balcony. She flinched each sentence he whipped an end through his work force, the shrewd snap of the coil bringing her back to realism as he worked over her. She tried to slacken as he readied the rope, tossing them over the beam, knots connected and perfect in his hands. < /p >

< p > She felt her organic structure abstract slowly off the story, rising as he pulled the ropes taut. She squeezed her center closed, shutting out the survey of the beach. When he had her at the height he wanted, Hannibal tied off the ends of the rope to one of the iron balustrades flanking the door to the balcony. He circled her pensile configuration, checking the tension on her limbs as he moved around her. He made adjustments and stood back to survey his work. < /p >

< p >"Clarice,"his hush vox called to her. < /p >

< p > She slowly opened her optic, lifting her head to find him. < /p >

< p >"How do you feel ?"he asked. < /p >

< p >"I'm alright,"she answered, her phonation small. < /p >

< p >"I want you to watch them,"he instructed,"I want you to see. No hiding, now."He surveyed her for a moment, considering her locating, and then retrieved another length of rope. He crossed to her, sliding the course of action cannabis through his hands. He stopped directly in front man of her."Open your mouth."< /p >

< p > Hannibal slipped the roofy between her lips, reaching around behind her, drawing her head back, forcing her heart to take in the reaching of sand and water beneath them. He joined the circle ends to the web holding her prisoner, checking that the tension on her neck did not impede her respiration. He returned to look at her adjusted position, drawing a unmarried fingertip along the underside of her mentum pile to her collarbone, entranced by the tight line of her throat. < /p >

< p > He continued around her, running his hands over her uncover flesh, fingers slipping underneath roach to find out for adequate blank. He reached one arm over her back, wiggling two fingers into each of her hands."Squeeze my fingers, Clarice,"he instructed. < /p >

< p > When he was satisfied that his rigging was secure, he stepped back to admire his creation. < /p >

< p >"You know why you are here,"he intoned. < /p >

< p > Unable to answer, Clarice nodded almost imperceptibly. < /p >

< p >"I'm going to go out you now, Clarice, for the enjoyment of our friend below. I will return for you after my hunt."He saw her middle widen with fear at the thought of him leaving her alone, bound and displayed, for hours. < /p >

< p > He walked past her and into the house. < /p >

< p > Clarice made a small speech sound in the back of her pharynx. He was really going to leave her here ! Her breathing quickened, craze bubbling up from her dresser and spilling out of her in frenetic shortness of breath, her barbarian middle darting frantically back and forth across her limited field of vision. She began to panic, struggling against her bounce fruitlessly, whimpering through her gag until she felt the harsh rope bite into her tegument. The searing pain of the rope suntan quickly brought her back to herself and she ceased her bucking, wiggling try. Tears stung the binding of her eye at the realization that he had left her here alone and she would be forced to delay like this for several minute while he was away on his hunt. It would be long after nightfall before he returned and she would be left, alone, in the dark, to wait for him. < /p >

< p > She focused on slowing her breathing, closing her eyes to momentarily occlude out the spate of the the great unwashed below her. She fought to take measured, even breath, choking back the sobs of panic that threatened, hiccuping around her gag. < /p >

< p > Slowly, she began to relax her muscle, allowing the roach to take her weight, consciously unwinding the isthmus of tautness that had collected around her joints as Hannibal had taught her. Her judgement drifted back to their first base experiences with bondage. She heard his representative in her nous, coaching her through each gradation, explaining her character in this encounter, and his. She lost herself in the deep, ripple voice of her computer storage. Let the Mexican valium control you, Clarice. Don't fight it. If you fight it, they will be dogged. The rope responds to your conflict. Give in to it. Let it become part of you, an extension of your anatomy, holding you to the earth, binding you to the air. Relax. You are limber and pliant, beautiful and weightless ; peaceful. She sagged against the binding. < /p >

< p > Slowly, she became aware of the speech sound of the surf in the space, the cacophony of seafowl calling in the air. She focused her attending on the consistent, unbroken sound of the waves crashing on the shoring. She allowed herself to be lulled by the endless rhythm, hypnotized by the persistent, invariable din of the breakers. She was floating, boundless and boneless, in-between. < /p >

< p > Her heart opened to the scene before her, as he expected her to. There were pile of people on the beach, but none of them had noticed her yet. She was embarrassed to think of masses seeing her this way, trussed up and helpless. She found it humiliating. She struggled with the clashing desires to please Hannibal, to give herself over to the sensations she was feeling, to hold close to her own mother wit of self and, with it, the accompanying horse sense of shame. < /p >

< p > Finally, she simply settled for feeling the moment, unable to process any more emotions than the one she was immediately faced with. She breathed in the salty air and steadied her gaze on the incessant, eddying undulation, allowing the sounds to roll her under. < /p >

< p > HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL < /p >

< p > Hannibal watched her from the kitchen, perched on a barstool. He sipped his espresso calmly, scrutinizing her journey of self-discovery, her inner soliloquy revealing itself to him in the cause of her organic structure as clearly as if she had spoken the Son aloud. It thrilled him to frighten her with the prospect of spending time of day alone and exposed. The taste of her fearfulness was so compelling that he was tempted to actually do it. < /p >

< p > As his regard crawled across every in of her smooth skin, he wished he could take the flogger to her. He imagined the plenteous duck soup of the straps against her back, heard her gasp in his spike at the first middleman. He pictured her back arching against the ropes as he flicked the leather G-string over her cunt, dancing over her clit. He sighed ; that would definitely pull in attention. He chuckled mirthlessly to himself ; another sentence. < /p >

< p > He glanced at his watch ; another fifteen bit, he thought, taking a sip of his coffee. < /p >

< p > HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL*HANNIBAL < /p >

< p > Clarice's muscleman had begun to strangle, she had to defend now to maintain the steady breathing she had gradually achieved. The roach that had cradled her an minute before now chaffed against her skin, leaving her raw along the air pressure points. Her position was becoming uncomfortable, the melodic phrase on her neck from the roach bridle causing her to strain repeatedly. She didn't know how she would hold out hours of this torment. < /p >

< p > She focused instead on the look of pridefulness she hoped he would wear when he returned to set her rid, the gleam of expiation in his eyes. She couldn't articulate the profundity of her intuitive feeling for Hannibal ; she wasn't even sure enough she fully understood them herself. She had been drawn to him, magnetized by her desire to understand his mind, enthralled with the power he had to blend his convolute killings seamlessly into the rest of his life, making them just pieces in a much more elaborate word picture of the whole man. Ravaged, principled, refined, exacting and persistent. Did he understand her with the Lapplander penetrating abstrusity that she had managed to unearth in his own human beings ? She wanted to believe he did. < /p >

< p > The sun was making it's indisputable parentage below the upstage credit line of the view. She tracked its path with her center, her skin cooling as the setting sun stole the warmth from her pulp. She shivered at the snap passing over her skin. < /p >

< p > Clarice startled in bemusement when he moved suddenly into her plain of vision. He hadn't left her alone. She sagged with relief against the ropes holding her. < /p >

< p >"You did very well, Clarice,"he crooned appreciatively. < /p >

< p > She smiled weakly around the gag, content that she had proud of him. < /p >

< p > Hannibal unhooked the working closing of his tackle, lowering her gently to the trading floor. When she was fully down, he moved along her soundbox, untying knots to exempt her. He released her from the gag concluding, massaging the slopped muscles of her neck before helping her up to sit in the dress circle of his legs. < /p >

< p > He pulled her back against his chest, rubbing his palms along her skin, coated with a midst arnica cream, massaging feeling back into her tree branch. Clarice winced at the stinging sensation tingling along her boldness as they came back to life. Her tegument was red where the Mexican valium had bound, raw where she had struggled. He smoothed his long hands over her jaw, massaging the tender articulatio at the al-Qaida of her mandible. She relaxed back against his tolerant dresser, the linen of his shirt gentle against her spine. < /p >

< p > She sighed, dropping her fountainhead back onto his shoulder, turning her expression to nest into his neck."I thought you'd left me,"she spoke low, her voice nearly swallowed into his skin. < /p >

< p >"I know,"he replied,"You were meant to."< /p >

< p > He smoothed his men over her naked flesh, both soothing and exciting her with his contact. < /p >

< p >"I would love to get you to the point where I could provide you like that,"he admitted."To go on a Leigh Hunt knowing you were….bound and helpless… ... totally dependant on my return……"he trailed off dreamily, his work force lingering gently over her breasts."It would enhance the pursuit for me immeasurably."< /p >

< p > Clarice shivered in his arms and Hannibal came back to himself. He gathered her in his subdivision and rose from the storey, carrying her through the star sign and up the stair to their bedroom. She expected him to set her on the bed and was surprised when he strode past it, into the skipper bathroom. Her eyes took in the flickering candlelight reflecting off the uninfected white marble. He lowered her tenderly into a rich maelstrom tub, brimming and resplendent with mounds of fragrant, glistening bubbles. He knelt on the roofing tile beside the tub as she reclined into the water, her expression tranquil. < /p >

< p >"I'm going now, love. I shall hark back for dinner in a few hours."< /p >

< p >"Hmmm….."she sighed, her head lolling to one position, cheek resting against the cool bound of the tub. < /p >

< p >"If you're hungry before I arrive, I've left a snack for you on the island. You needn't wait up for me ; I may be rather late."He kissed the side of her head. < /p >

< p >"Hannibal,"she roused herself."Be careful."< /p >

< p >"Always, pet,"he placed his fingers under her Chin, tipping her face up to meet his kiss. < /p >

< p > Leaving her to slack in her bathtub, Hannibal went in search of his prey. < /p >