Bind Me
2016 Heat 5/5
Bind Me by Anna Zaires is a 2016 romance. Tropes: Captivity, cat-and-mouse-pursuit, criminal-underworld, Dark Romance, dark-captor-captive-romance, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, obsessive-jealousy, only-one-bed, possessive-morally-gray-hero, prison-break-and-escape, protective-brother, Spies, spy-thriller-romance, trauma-and-hurt-comfort. Heat 5/5. Book 2 of Capture Me.
What happened in Bind Me?
He’s determined to break her. For Lucas Kent, his new prisoner is a maddening contradiction: compliant yet defiant, fragile yet strong. He needs to uncover her secrets, but doing so may ruin everything. His obsession could destroy her. She’s determined to escape. For Yulia Tzakova, her captor is the man of both her dreams and her nightmares: tender one moment, cruel the next. She can’t let him crack her, but resisting him may leave her broken. A moment of weakness could cost her everything.
What tropes are in Bind Me?
Where does Bind Me fall in Capture Me?
Book 2 of Capture Me. Reading order
What should I read next?
Claim Me by Anna Zaires.
Chapters
Chapter 2
Yulia awakens in captivity after being delivered to Lucas, the man she believed she had killed. Instead of execution, he claims her sexually with brutal intensity, their encounter leaving her emotionally shattered yet strangely drawn to her captor. Haunted by memories of her trainer Kirill and the trauma of her two months in a Moscow prison, Yulia struggles with conflicting desires for safety and revenge. Lucas alternates between cruelty and unexpected tenderness, forcing her to shower with him and culminating in a possessive gesture—handcuffing their wrists together for sleep. As jealousy over his dark-haired girlfriend stings, Yulia confronts her powerlessness, realizing that submission might be her only defense against the man who has marked her as his own.
Chapter 3
Lucas wakes beside Yulia, his captive, still handcuffed to him, and is tormented by the fact that their violent encounter felt like coming home rather than revenge. Despite his plan to punish the woman who killed his colleagues and nearly killed him, he finds himself unable to truly hurt her, washing her gently instead of forcing her to sleep on the floor. When a nightmare triggers a panicked struggle, he pins her with his weight and whispers reassurance, realizing his hatred is cooling into something more dangerous: a protective urge he cannot control. As dawn approaches, Lucas admits to himself that extracting information or getting her out of his system will not be simple, leaving the chapter suspended between lust, fury, and an unexpected tenderness neither of them can name.
Chapter 4
Yulia wakes from a brutal nightmare reliving her assault by Kirill seven years ago in Kiev, her body still fighting the phantom attacker as she thrashes against her current captor, Lucas, in Colombia. When reality snaps back, she finds they are still bound together by handcuffs, her wrist raw from struggling. Lucas releases her with a key, and in the quiet aftermath of her terror, he cradles her like a child, his earlier violence giving way to an unexpected gentleness. Pressed to confess what the dream revealed, Yulia feels an overwhelming urge to trust him—to finally share the trauma she's only ever told her agency therapist. As Lucas asks rather than demands, she recognizes a shift in their dynamic: a fragile connection forming in the space between captor and captive, leaving her desperate for the intimacy she's been dreaming of, even as the unanswered questions about her past and present hang in the air.
Chapter 5
Lucas cradles Yulia after her nightmare, learning the full horror of her past: her trainer Kirill assaulted her at fifteen when she was vulnerable, and though she reported him, the program merely sent an assassin to silence him six years ago. The revelation triggers a painful reckoning for Lucas, who recognizes his own earlier cruelty toward her and realizes he can no longer torture his captive. As rage gives way to reluctant tenderness, he attempts to extract intel about the clandestine program that recruited her, but Yulia walls off completely, fleeing the room and leaving Lucas desperate to protect her while denying himself the violence he once wielded.
Chapter 6
Yulia flees down the hallway after realizing she has been emotionally manipulated by Lucas Kent, the enemy who extracted her deepest secret—the truth about Kirill—through feigned sympathy and intimacy. Trapped in a bathroom, she berates herself for her vulnerability, recalling her therapist's warning that her childhood trauma made her susceptible to exactly this kind of psychological warfare. When Lucas bangs on the door and coaxes her out with false promises, a spark of anger replaces her despair. Rather than surrender to his trap, she resolves to turn the tables, unlocking the door with tears stinging her eyes—a calculated display of weakness designed to deceive him in return.
Chapter 7
Lucas finds Yulia naked and trembling in his doorway, her tears and vulnerability disarming his desire for vengeance despite her having killed dozens of his men. As they share a breakfast of lamb and mushroom soup—courtesy of Esguerra's housekeeper Rosa—their tense banter slowly softens into something more intimate, though Lucas remains wary of her as a trained agent. He confesses that he plans to redirect his fury toward the agency that assigned her rather than punishing her directly, and reveals that he has been with no one but her since Moscow. Yulia probes him about his loyalty to the ruthless Esguerra, who survived an Al-Quadar attack in Tashkent but lost an eye, and learns that Lucas's organization has wiped out the terrorist group entirely. The chapter ends with unresolved tension: Lucas wonders what to do with his captive, while Yulia remains guarded, neither fully trusting the other as dawn breaks over their fragile truce.
Chapter 8
Yulia, held captive by Lucas, recognizes that his choice to manipulate her emotionally rather than torture her physically signals a possible crack in his cruelty. She tests this by appealing to his sympathy, successfully convincing him to let her wear his T-shirt—a small victory that suggests her strategy of cultivating Lima Syndrome might work. Left alone, she dreams of jungle freedom and resolves to play the compliant prisoner while plotting her escape. Her fragile hope is tested when Lucas returns with Dr. Goldberg for a medical examination, untying her only to drag her to the bathroom under a strict one-minute deadline, his earlier tenderness replaced by sudden harshness.
Chapter 9
Lucas brings his captive Yulia in for a medical evaluation after their violent encounter, determined to maintain the facade of a ruthless captor even as his protective instincts flare. When Dr. Goldberg performs an intimate examination to ensure she wasn't injured, Lucas struggles to suppress his savage possessiveness. Once the doctor confirms Yulia is healthy and fitted with contraception, the tension between them erupts into a raw, unprotected encounter on the couch. Lucas claims her with primal intensity, his need to bind her to him overriding his lingering guilt. The chapter closes with the aftermath of their consummation, leaving unresolved the dangerous dynamic of ownership and desire that now chains them together.
Chapter 10
Yulia lies in the aftermath of a volatile intimate encounter with her captor, Lucas Kent, grappling with the unexpected tenderness that followed his initial aggression. When she discovers he disregarded her safety concerns by forgoing protection, her anger surfaces in a cruel attempt to frighten him with false claims of disease, but Lucas remains disarmingly calm, offering her a towel and breakfast instead of the confrontation she craves. Just as the tension between them seems to soften, an urgent call from Esguerra forces Lucas to abandon the moment, abruptly reverting to his role as her jailer and announcing he will restrain her again until he returns. The chapter closes on the unresolved friction between Yulia's growing emotional confusion and the harsh reality of her captivity, leaving the power dynamic sharply in flux.
Chapter 11
Lucas, head of security for crime boss Julian Esguerra, meets in Esguerra's office to plan protection for an upcoming two-week trip to Oak Lawn, Illinois, where Esguerra—a fugitive wanted by the FBI—will visit his kidnapped wife Nora's parents. They agree on two dozen guards and armored vehicles, though Lucas privately fears being separated from his own captive, Yulia Tzakova, during the absence. The meeting takes a tense turn when Esguerra reveals that Nora and the maid Rosa spotted Yulia at Lucas's house, threatening to expose her to the pregnant Nora; Lucas promises to secure the premises and confront Rosa, closing the chapter on the unresolved danger of his secret being uncovered.
Chapter 12
Yulia awakens to find Rosa, a dark-haired housemaid infatuated with her captor Lucas, peering through the window to accuse her of murder. When Lucas returns, he unties her and shares a meal, probing her traumatic past—dead parents, orphanage recruitment—while she feigns vulnerability to manipulate him. The interrogation shifts when Lucas confesses he abducted her from prison not for revenge but obsession, offering protection from his lethal boss Esguerra in exchange for her body and secrets. As his hands roam and arousal builds against the kitchen wall, Yulia struggles to maintain her spy facade, her body betraying her despite her mission. The tension shatters when Rosa is spotted again outside, leaving Yulia trapped between Lucas’s possessive hunger and her own need to survive.
Chapter 13
Lucas finishes a tense dinner with his captive Yulia and resolves to keep her permanently rather than execute the fate he originally planned. Though he acknowledges the moral horror of coercing a prisoner into intimacy, he yields to his obsessive desire, leading her to the bedroom for a passionate, raw encounter that leaves them both breathless. In the aftermath, Lucas is consumed by a fierce possessive instinct, vowing internally that he will never let her go. He formulates a chilling plan to destroy her agency and implant tracking devices deep within her body, ensuring she remains his forever while the threat of outside rescue looms.
Chapter 14
Yulia wakes beside her captor, Lucas, and immediately confronts him about their unprotected intimacy, sparking a fierce, playful battle of wills that ends with them reconciling physically. When she retreats to the bathroom, Lucas follows her into the shower, washing her with surprising tenderness despite the charged atmosphere. Alone at last, Yulia grapples with a dangerous new possibility: Lucas may be offering genuine protection in exchange for her cooperation, buying her time from his ruthless boss, Esguerra, who demands her life. Though she recognizes the arrangement as temporary and precarious, she resolves to exploit the delay, using this fragile captivity to plot her escape before Lucas's loyalties force him to betray her.
Chapter 15
Lucas revels in the aftermath of intimacy with his captive Yulia, whom he has secured in his living room with a television for entertainment while he attends to business. The chapter follows his calculated movements through his criminal empire: coordinating security for an upcoming Chicago trip with his boss Esguerra, attempting to expedite tracker implants for Yulia's surveillance, and coldly rejecting the affections of his young maid Rosa to protect her from the danger Yulia represents. As Lucas navigates these logistics, his possessive fixation on Yulia remains palpable beneath the surface of domestic routine. The chapter closes on the tension between his desire for control and the practical limitations of his timeline, leaving Yulia bound and the threat of her escape—or discovery—hanging over his plans.
Chapter 16
Yulia settles into an uneasy domestic routine with her captor Lucas, trading hours of televised boredom for access to his private library—a revelation that complicates her image of him as a hardened mercenary. Their days blur into shared meals, reading sessions by the bay window, and frequent intimate encounters that leave her questioning the line between possession and desire. When Lucas grants her a pager to summon help and loosens her restraints, Yulia dares to hope for freedom, even as she remains silent during his increasingly frustrated interrogations about the agency that took her. Her loyalty belongs not to her captors' enemies but to her brother Misha, and she grows determined to escape before Lucas's patience runs out.
Chapter 17
Yulia plots her escape from Lucas's high-security compound but faces three barriers: her restraints when he's absent, the military-grade defenses of guard towers and patrolling drones, and Lucas himself. During an intimate moment, she probes him about a bruise on his ribcage and his enemies, but he deflects with flirtation, leaving her without the patrol schedules she needs. As she recovers from her ordeal in a Russian prison and regains her strength, she negotiates a small victory: permission to cook, though she must direct Lucas from the table while he handles all knives. He returns with a bounty of groceries from Esguerra's weekly deliveries, and they plan to prepare lamb chops together, yet Yulia remains trapped by her captor's vigilance and her own lack of a viable exit strategy.
Chapter 18
Lucas, an ex-Navy operative, shares a domestic evening with Yulia, the spy he's holding captive, as she cooks him a lavish meal that stirs unexpected contentment. Their easy banter—flirtatious but tense—shatters when he presses her for information about the agency that recruited her from an orphanage as a child. Her tears and evasions reveal she's protecting a secret lover within that organization, sending Lucas into a jealous rage at the thought of another man. With their volatile chemistry running high and Chicago only five days away, he abandons patience for coercion. Cutting her restraints, he declares that "the gloves are coming off," resolving to force answers from her tonight regardless of the cost to her trust.
Chapter 19
Yulia retreats to the bathroom after sensing Lucas's cold fury, realizing he has broken his promise to protect her. Desperate, she arms herself with a hidden fork to defend herself and her brother, whose life hangs in the balance. When Lucas commands her to strip in the bedroom, she attempts to strike him, but he overpowers her with brutal speed. Pinned and terrified, she experiences a devastating psychological break as Lucas assaults her while demanding she confess details of her traumatic past with her trainer at UUR. The assault triggers a fractured flashback to her captivity under Kirill Ivanovich Luchenko, and in her panic, Yulia reveals everything—her training, her secrets, her breaking point. The chapter ends with her shattered, having betrayed her own safety to survive the night.
Chapter 20
Lucas has broken through Yulia's defenses and extracted the name of her former torturer along with the agency initials that will lead his hackers to her bosses—but the victory tastes like ash. Cradling the trembling woman he manipulated by recreating her worst nightmares, he confronts the hollow emptiness where his rage used to burn. Handcuffed together at the wrist as they sleep, he vows to comfort her even as his possessive obsession hardens: once her current lover is dead, she will be his alone. As sleep claims him, Lucas drifts toward dreams of Yulia's genuine smile, the only warmth in a chapter defined by guilt and dark intent.
Chapter 21
Yulia wakes from a violent nightmare only to find comfort in the arms of her captor, Lucas, who releases her handcuffs and initiates an intense intimate encounter that she uses to soothe her trauma—until morning reveals the harsh reality of her situation. As she processes that Lucas has extracted the intel he needed to destroy UUR, the agency where her brother works, her despair shifts to cold fury when he announces plans to implant tracking devices in her and leave her restrained under guard during a two-week trip to Chicago. The chapter closes on the crushing weight of her powerlessness: she has inadvertently doomed her brother’s family while developing dangerous feelings for the man orchestrating their destruction.
Chapter 22
Lucas holds Yulia captive at Esguerra's rainforest estate while plotting to kill her former lover, the agent who abandoned her. Tension simmers during a morning walk through the compound, where Lucas's possessive desire clashes with Yulia's grief and trauma. Despite her tears and devastation over her missing partner, physical attraction ignites between them in a secluded clearing, escalating to a passionate encounter that blurs the line between captor and captive. Lucas claims her in the grass, determined to erase her past and make her his own, while Yulia's emotional devastation underscores the dark stakes of their dangerous liaison. The chapter ends on a note of primal possession, leaving unresolved whether Yulia can ever truly belong to him while mourning another man.
Chapter 23
Over four days of captivity, Yulia and her captor Lucas settle into a volatile routine of meals, forest walks, and intense intimacy that blurs the line between enemy and lover. Though she resents being tied up, she cannot deny the forceful chemistry between them—yet she knows Lucas plans to destroy her intelligence agency, UUR, and kill her brother Misha. Desperate, she attempts to manipulate him by cooking his favorite meal and performing affection, hoping to leverage his influence with the ruthless Esguerra organization to spare Misha's life. Lucas sees through her act immediately, brutally rejecting her plea and revealing that only she will be spared from UUR's destruction. When he dismisses her as merely a sexual distraction, Yulia's fragile hope that he might care for her shatters completely, leaving her facing the imminent doom of everyone she loves.
Chapter 24
Lucas confronts his captive Yulia in a tense standoff where her lover Misha’s life hangs in the balance. When Yulia offers to sacrifice herself to save Misha, Lucas’s jealous fury flares, yet he cannot bring himself to harm her despite her provocations. Their charged exchange reveals the brutal terms of his mission: only one person can be spared, and Lucas insists the choice is his alone, not hers. Though he physically restrains her in the library and masks his concern with cold anger, his protective instincts surface in small, conflicted gestures. The chapter closes on suffocating silence, a thriller abandoned on her lap, and Lucas storming out with Esguerra’s lethal orders still unresolved.
Chapter 25
Yulia is shattered by Lucas Kent's cruel refusal to spare her brother Misha, a betrayal that weaponizes the very attachment she was trained to suppress. As she spirals into grief, she confronts the devastating truth that her two-week mission to seduce her captor ended not in triumph but in psychological warfare, with Lucas exploiting her love for Misha to deliver maximum pain. Haunted by her handler Obenko's warnings about emotional detachment and memories of her Moscow assignment, Yulia realizes she failed to maintain the cold control required of her, allowing a ruthless man to destroy her. The chapter closes on her raw admission that she is not cut out for this life, leaving Misha's fate uncertain and her own resolve fractured.
Chapter 26
Lucas channels his rage and betrayal into a brutal gym workout, fuming over Yulia's wounded gaze and her insistence on sparing Misha—the man who violated her and belongs to the enemy agency UUR. After a tense call with Mossad and finalizing plans for tomorrow's trip to Chicago, he appoints loyal guards Diego and Eduardo to watch over Yulia while he's away, giving them strict protocols to keep her safe, fed, and confined without harm. The chapter closes with Lucas heading to the training field, still seething with possessive fury and the weight of keeping Yulia's captivity secret as he prepares to leave her in trusted hands.
Chapter 27
Yulia sits bound in Lucas’s library, drowning in guilt after failing to protect her brother from a lethal threat. A memory surfaces of her parents’ death and her desperate promise to an agency to secure Misha’s safety, a vow that led her to this cell. When Rosa appears with a spare key, the conversation shifts from pleasantries to conspiracy: Rosa exposes the compound’s blind spot—a northern supply route via Miraflores with a delivery due Thursday at three. Before Lucas returns, she leaves Yulia a razor blade and a hairpin, turning captivity into a countdown. The chapter closes with the tools of escape in Yulia’s hands and the clock ticking toward Thursday.
Chapter 28
Lucas returns home to find Yulia detained and visibly shaken, their relationship fractured by unspoken accusations. Over a strained dinner of reheated leftovers and bitter tea, he announces his two-week departure and installs guards Diego and Eduardo to watch her, a gesture she reads as imprisonment. When he attempts to bridge the emotional distance with intimacy, Yulia recoils, referencing an unnamed trauma involving her lover. Lucas's jealousy flares into rage as he pins her against the dresser, declaring his possessive claim just as passion and resentment collide. The chapter ends with Yulia trapped and defiant, Lucas's ultimatum hanging in the air, and the threat of violence simmering beneath the sheets.
Chapter 29
Yulia is held captive by Lucas, the man planning to kill her brother. Despite her revulsion at his cruelty, her body responds involuntarily to his touch during a tense confrontation in the bedroom, creating a painful conflict between physical desire and loyalty. When she begs him to stop to protect her brother, he ignores her and erupts in possessive fury, pinning her down and declaring she belongs to him alone. He retrieves rope from the nightstand and restrains her wrists and ankles, lashing her to a metal pole beside the bed to assert total dominance. The chapter closes with him resuming his assault while vowing to make her forget her brother, leaving Yulia trapped in terror and betrayal.
Chapter 30
Lucas holds Yulia restrained and drives her through multiple climaxes despite her pleas, determined to erase the presence of her current lover from her mind. When he presses toward territory that visibly terrifies her, he freezes, reading the trauma in her eyes—she was hurt before by a man called her trainer. Confronted with the memory of her abuse, Lucas's possessive hunger clashes with a sudden, painful desire for her trust. He withdraws, promising softly that he will not hurt her, and soothes her with gentle, undemanding touch until her panic fades. Rebuilding her arousal carefully, he enters her slowly while still bound, savoring her response. The chapter peaks as they come together, yet the emotional aftershock lingers: Lucas has claimed her body, but her fear—and the mystery of her trainer—remain unresolved.
Chapter 31
Yulia wakes disoriented after a traumatic encounter with her captor Lucas, who claims he kept his promise not to seriously harm her. He carries her to a shower where he washes her gently, and though she resists internally, she craves his tenderness. He handcuffs them together before sleep, and in the dark hours he wakes her with a possessive, claiming act. Despite their enmity, she finds herself responding to him physically and emotionally, whispering that she is his. As sleep takes her, Lucas apologizes softly, and Yulia drifts off believing she loves him, the boundary between captor and lover blurring in the darkness.
Chapter 32
Lucas lies awake beside his captive Yulia after hearing her murmur words of love in her sleep, tormented by the possibility that she meant them for him rather than another man named Misha. Haunted by his parents' hollow use of affection, he battles his own illogical longing for her feelings while maintaining his cold captor facade. In the morning, he unlocks her restraints and holds her close, fighting the urge to demand intimacy before leaving for a two-week trip to Chicago, entrusting her care to Diego and Eduardo. The chapter closes on his unresolved need to know if her sleeping confession was genuine, leaving him with a splinter of hope and obsession as he departs.
Chapter 33
Yulia finds herself alone with two of Lucas's guards, Diego and Eduardo, while her captor is away for two weeks. Over a tense breakfast of omelets and banter, the men reveal personal details—including Eduardo's recent breakup with Rosa, the household maid—while Yulia carefully hides her knowledge of the plane crash that killed their colleagues. Lucas's jealous glare at his own chosen guards hints at deeper feelings before he departs, leaving Yulia to navigate the dangerous assumption that she is his girlfriend. When the men lead her on a walk through the forest and back to the library where she is usually restrained, Yulia must decide whether to play along with the "girlfriend" role to survive the fortnight ahead, all while wondering if the dream she had last night was truly just a dream.
Chapter 34
Lucas pilots a security detail to Chicago with his boss Esguerra, Esguerra’s pregnant wife Nora, and staff member Rosa, landing at a private airport and proceeding to a fortified Palos Park mansion. During the drive, Lucas checks in with guards Diego and Eduardo, who are monitoring his captive Yulia; his possessive jealousy flares as he warns them against inappropriate contact while handcuffing her at night. At a family dinner, Esguerra defuses tension with CIA contact Frank, who demands they leave the country. Later, Lucas shares a tense kitchen moment with Rosa before retreating to an empty bed, acutely aware that two weeks separate him from Yulia. The chapter balances high-stakes protection protocols with Lucas’s private ache of separation, closing on his resolve to endure the wait.
Chapter 35
Yulia, imprisoned in Lucas Kent's remote jungle compound, executes a desperate escape plan using tools smuggled by an ally named Rosa. After picking her locks and cutting her bonds, she ventures into the Amazon rainforest, where she ambushes and incapacitates a patrolling guard with brutal efficiency. Navigating past the poker-playing guards at North Tower Two, she reaches a dirt road and hitches a ride on a departing delivery van. Though physically free, her heart remains conflicted—torn between relief at escaping and lingering feelings for Lucas, who has vowed to hunt her down. The chapter ends with Yulia racing toward the freedom needed to warn her brother Obenko, while her captor promises she will never escape again.
Editions
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Bind Me by Anna Zaires. https://books.mozaikallc.com/en/works/anna-zaires/bind-me Plot summaries, not full text.