The Bonds of Love — Cecilia Tan

Jiro's lineage once proudly served the nobility as samurai: protectors of royalty with a legacy of sword and rope. But though rich in tradition, in the modern age the family is penniless. And after cataclysmic events, Jiro has lost everything, including everyone he ever cared about and maybe even his mind. He is kept in a hospital amnesia ward, catatonic and unspeaking until a charity visit from the Crown Princess rouses him miraculously.



Ami is the sole heir of the Emperor, fresh out of Harvard and looking to both sow her wild oats and create real change for women in her role as a public figure. But her father and his head of security want her kept safe and sound: caged like a bird for her protection.



Ami will do anything to get out from under their control. Little does she know there are true dangers waiting for their chance to strike, a chance that comes when the princess slips away from her bodyguards and disappears in disguise into the underground world of sex clubs and rope bondage performers. Will the disguise be enough to keep her safe from the assassins on her trail? And what about this mysterious stranger, this Jiro, who seems fated to meet her again? What will she receive when she surrenders herself, bound and helpless, to his rope bondage: unbearable pleasure or ultimate pain?