He nodded in approval, stroked back a strand of her hair. “What do you want? Stay here in the sun and relax while I go get our order.” She offered to do it, but he shook his head, leaned in and spoke against her ear, taking a moist nip there that shivered down her spine. “You will serve me when I demand it, sweet slave, but right now I want the pleasure of caring for the woman who belongs me.”

She managed to stammer out a preference, then met his mouth in another teasing kiss. Pulling away at last, he squeezed her hand before he moved to the door of the coffee house. When he reached it, he held it open for a woman and her daughter. The mother smiled at something he said, blushing a little as any woman would, faced with the full blast of Jon"s charm and handsome face, that mouthwatering body.

“Go, cougar.”

When Jon had pulled out her chair, she"d noted a nearby female foursome sharing their morning latte. Twenty-somethings with perfect bodies and smooth complexions with no lines. The muted comment had come from them, as did the titters that followed.

Of course, she should have expected it. The first thing a group of women did after noting an exceptionally handsome man was to measure his companion with critical eyes, assess her worthiness of such a prize. But why should she care what they thought?

She didn"t. The problem was what she thought gave their mockery power, making her shoulders stiffen, her body hunch defensively. Their reaction only amplified her own insecurities. She wished they"d had breakfast in the apartment. This worked better there, when it was just the two of them.

The girls left as Jon was coming back out. They moved past her, not making much of an attempt to avoid hitting her with their oversized designer handbags and laptop cases. As they offered saccharine apologies, their gazes were straight ahead, on Jon.

They brushed by him, giving him flirtatious feline smirks, though he courteously stepped back, offering them more room to pass than they took. Rachel tried to shrug off the feeling it left her, but of course when he reached her, put their purchases on the table, he reached for her hand. “What is it, Rachel?” She shook her head, folded her hands in her lap instead. “I wish you"d let this just be a fantasy. It"s not going to survive reality.”

“Really? And what"s reality? A group of catty girls who don"t know shit about life yet?”

She flinched. “You don"t even know how old I really am, do you?”

“You"re forty-three,” he said.

“Great. You can tell I"m forty-three.” She gave a miserable half-laugh. “Guess I"m glad I at least look my age, and not older.”

Jon slid his chair closer, his knee flanking hers, and touched her chin, bringing her eyes up to his face. “I know how old you are because Dana told me,” he said, a touch of impatience in his voice. “I don"t know what a forty-three-year-old is supposed to look like, but to me you look like a deeply sexy, sensual, kissable, fuckable forty-three-year-old woman. A woman with a heart so deep and generous it"s an honor to know her. A woman who"s everything I want, the submissive I"ve been waiting a lifetime to meet. I want you, Rachel.”

She wanted the words to penetrate the armor that seemed to be coating her soul.

When a man like Jon said something like that, he meant it. But she couldn"t believe it.

He didn"t know, couldn"t see…no matter his intuition, it just wasn"t possible. When he dropped his hand to her arm, making it clear he was going to follow it down to her forearm and make her take his hand, bring them up to the table together, she went rigid.

“Please don"t.”

“You"re getting into some serious trouble.” His fingers tightened on her upper arm.

“I want the woman who teaches yoga classes to eighty-year-olds as well as eight-year-olds, who helps people struggle through difficult physical therapy regimens. The woman who"s lost a son and tried her best to honor her marriage oath. That woman would tell those girls to go to hell. She knows that love doesn"t apply a measuring tape between ages before it measures between two hearts. You"re better than this.” Capturing her wrist, he won the physical contest between them, bringing her hand back to the table with that distracting sense of restraint. Now his jaw was set, his eyes cool. “This has nothing to do with the difference in our ages, because you know that doesn"t mean a damn. This has to do with your fear of loving and trusting someone.

You think you"re too fragile, and if you get hurt, you won"t survive again.” Of course he understood what the problem was. But right now that intuition she admired merely made her feel resentful and angry, as well as more frightened. She couldn"t handle feeling frightened anymore. She wanted to go home.

“Yes.” She yanked her hand away, hitting the tray with her elbow so the cups vibrated from the impact. The old, festering poison boiled up inside her, scaring her even more. It would shove him away, make him go, and she needed him more than anything. But the poison didn"t care, and she couldn"t let the poison touch him. “I won"t. I can"t deal with it. I can"t love someone with my entire soul again and have them throw it back in my face like it"s worthless garbage. Like I"m worthless garbage…” If someone like Cole, an average guy with a nine-to-five job and a thinning spot on the back of his head, had thought her worthless, what about someone like Jon? It was only a matter of time.

“Excuse me…I have to…I"ll be right back.” She shoved back from the table, the chair scraping, and the bistro tables were so close together it formed a momentary barricade between her and Jon. Fortunately, there was a back way out of the seating area. An open gate took her down a side alley toward the restrooms. As she hurried through that gate and around the corner, she discovered a shade garden there, statuary and a small bench. The sanctity of the women"s room was where she was headed, but she only made it to the bench. Her anxiety and her long night made her knees buckle.

She fell to one hip onto the bench, bracing her hand on the rough wooden edge, trying to breathe, to get hold of herself.

This was the dark underside of last night, the side she kept trying to ignore. Along with feeling more alive than she"d felt in a long time, she was stripped bare, having to stare at parts of herself that had been kept carefully and tightly bandaged for a long time.

When the rustle of paper alerted her to another presence, she saw his hand as he placed the bag in that open spot between her braced arm and body. Then he stepped past her folded legs. Straddling the bench behind her, he slid both arms around her, one across her chest above her breasts, the other at her waist. He didn"t say anything as he eased her back into the shelter of his body, holding her.

She hadn"t expected him to follow her. No man had ever chased after her when she was in pain, when she ran from it. No man had ever sent her the message that Jon was sending now, that he wasn"t going to let her be alone with it.

Her jaw set against the surge of emotions that thought brought. She clutched his forearm as she pressed her forehead to his shoulder. It helped even more when his other hand curved against her temple, holding her there.

Only what mattered should be said. And what she felt now was determined to come out, even in such humiliating and inappropriate circumstances.

“I"ve been alone for a long time, Jon. Even when I was married, I was alone.” Her voice broke, but when he held her closer, she found the ability to continue. “For years and years, it seemed. I deal better with the pain of that, the sheer agony of it, when I can keep people at arms" length. And someone like you…” She gave a near-hysterical snort of laughter. “I cut coupons. I have a budget. I scrub my toilets on weekends. I worry about age lines and middle-age stomach fat. You"re offering me what every girl dreams about. You"re right, it"s not exactly the age difference, but I"m not a girl anymore, no matter what you say. You"re like the prince, coming for Cinderella when she"s already…”

“Too old to dream? To believe in happily-ever-afters?”

“I"m not bitter,” she said. She stroked his arm in nervous movements, wondering at how strong it felt, so capable of bearing anything. “I don"t want you to think that. And I"m not one of those women artificially closed off, still secretly hoping the right man will pry open those doors.”

“I know that. I almost wish you were, because that would make this easier. But you wouldn"t be the woman I want if there was anything artificial about your feelings.” Gently, he pushed her head back so she could look up, meet his gaze. “You"ve walled up so many wonderful things about yourself, things you think no one wants. To me they"re treasure, Rachel. And I plan on opening every one of those things.”

How could she believe that? How could any woman, especially one who"d seen enough of life to know that such things didn"t exist?

“I don"t believe in happily-ever-afters either,” he continued, giving her a mild look of reproof. “That suggests the story has an end. Life is always going to have ups and downs, challenges and bad moments. That"s what life is. What I do believe in is finding the person to share it with. All of it.”

He shifted, bringing her even closer. With his arm wrapped around her waist and her turned into his body like this, one leg now over his thigh, the other foot braced on top of his, she couldn"t imagine anything that would look more intimate to passersby.

“Now,” he said quietly, holding her in his gaze in that way that made it impossible for her to look away. “You"ve as much as said it. The age stuff is bullshit, so we won"t go there again. Instead, you tell me what"s really happening here.” She swallowed. Like last night, when he"d pulled her deepest possible pain from her, Kyle"s loss, she couldn"t not tell him. He was like a priest and lover at once…but only one label truly fit, didn"t it? That one word that said why he could open up so much in her, the word she had so much trouble saying. So she told him this instead.