Graduate student Vivienne Charles is afraid and ashamed of her own fantasies: being taken by force by a man who will claim her completely. When the mysterious Jonah Marks learns her secret, he makes a stunning offer: they will remain near-strangers and meet in secret so that he can fulfil her fantasies. Their arrangement is twisted. The sex is incredible. And soon their emotions are bound together as tightly as the rope around Vivienne's wrists. But the secrets in their pasts threaten to take their arrangement down an even darker path.