He's a tough city cop, and she's a brilliant graduate student. They meet under impossible circumstances, and they can't stay away from each other. In 1992, 22-year-old Nell Russow arrives in Calgary from Auckland to begin a Masters degree in Biochemistry. She and her fellow graduate students frequent a bar near to campus where, unbeknown to them, after hours, girls are drugged and raped by a group of regular punters and some of the staff. One night, Nell is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. During the course of a police investigation into the use of date-rape drugs, Nell meets Mark Shore, an undercover investigator, posing as a customer. After the case is successfully prosecuted she encounters Mark again. Unable to deny her attraction to him, Nell finds in Mark both passion and compassion, and an as yet unexplored sexual connection. Reckless, carefree Mark, and calm, rational Nell begin to explore the limits of their sexuality and tolerance, with him leading the way in some of their darker experiments.