But getting into the mind of a full-natured sub meant tapping into more-than-inside-the-club-walls fantasies. So he usually settled for a club-only sub, had a good time fantasizing about the possibility of more, and then went on his way.

Until this moment. For some reason, this slim creature made him think of what really fired his blood—a woman that was all his, for always. A woman whose submissive nature was a match for his Dominant one.

Drawing a steadying breath, he touched her nape, drifted down her spine toward that marking that had called to him, though he noted she had a couple other tattoos as well, shadowed by the sheath. Trembling under his touch, she made a quiet noise. He leaned in, pressing his thigh against her ass, the sensitive crease, the hint of his knee finding treasure between her parted thighs. Her breath caught.

With that closely shorn hair, he could see the shape of her ears. Delicate and perfect, like the rest of her. “So what’s your rank, sweetheart?”

“Sergeant.”

He’d meant it as a jest, assuming the tattoo to be a leftover from an ex-boyfriend. At least he hoped so, because he didn’t mess with a woman who was still attached. But as he glanced over her again, he registered that the body he was looking at wasn’t aerobically fit. It was combat fit. “Well, seeing as I’m a captain, I outrank you.” A smile teased her soft, full mouth, so moist from a burgundy lip gloss it made him think of an entirely different set of lips. “Yes, sir,” she murmured.

Unable to resist and wanting to test, he didn’t ask. He slid a hand between her spread legs. Soaking wet against the panel of those nearly nonexistent thong panties. She let out a harsh gasp, and his eyes sharpened. “Not used to a man just taking you over, are you, sweetheart? But that’s what you crave.”

She closed her eyes, biting her lip. Nodded, and his blood went to full boil.

“I want you tonight.” He usually had more finesse, but he made it a rough demand, no question, request or games. The urgency that gripped him now had nothing to do with the limits of time. “I want the collar and jewels off. They’re not mine.” When she removed them, taking in a breath at the tug to the nipple clamps, she laid them on the bar for an efficient Maria to tag and place beneath it. Then she lifted her chin.

Peter slid his fingers over the fragile network of arteries pumping at an accelerated rate and tightened slightly, creating a collar of flesh and bone. Her pulse elevated. “Good.

Look at me.”

She did, and he was caught by that gaze, a pale green like summer grass, quiet lagoons and women’s springtime lawn dresses. Overwhelmed by dark, hungry pupils.

“Give me your hands.” He took out the short tether he’d been given as a guest Dom at the club and unwound it.

She held them out, but as he looped the tether around her wrists, the slim fingers found him under his untucked shirt, hooked in the waistband of his jeans, knuckles brushing his abdomen intimately. His lips twisted. “Interpreted that order in your own way, didn’t you? That’ll earn you some disciplinary action.”

When her eyes sparked, he knotted the tether to bind her to him. She kept her fingers where they were, and his aching cock was already chafing, straining toward that touch.

Maybe she felt his heat, but her rising desire was as palpable as his own. He wasn’t going to take her back by his table, but straight to a room where he could see how much of a fight she liked. If her need to make a man work to be her Master matched his desire to prove he could acquire that target, it was going to be a hell of an experience.

“Is this a first time for you, sweetheart?”

Her voice was throaty, velvet sin. “I sure hope so.”

Two

The advantage to two strangers hooking up in a BDSM club, versus in a bar, was there wasn’t a lot of awkward small talk, the need to get to know each other. One led, one followed, the basic rules established, and the game began. Dana preferred that, though it was yet another ludicrous paradox about what she wanted. It was impossible to achieve the emotional rapport she wanted with a Master that way.

So she’d thought.

This one was keeping her off balance. He’d brought her to a private playroom, but not a dungeon, a Victorian drawing room or a stable, some of the more hard-core settings. It was an honest-to-God garden, with plants and sod, and lights that could be darkened to show a holographic heavy moon and glittering stars above.

If she didn’t know for sure they were still within The Zone, she would have thought he’d taken her outside. The silver light reflected on her skin like moonlight in truth. Gleaming in that same light was a statue of Aphrodite, and a fountain with prancing unicorn sculptures around it. No whips, chains or restraints that she could see. While she was impressed with the production, the exorbitant temporary membership fee worth every dime for props alone, it seemed like a soft setting. She liked it hard. Had she chosen wrong? Of course, it wasn’t the first time she’d had to steer a new Master in the right direction.

She lowered her voice to a practiced persuasive purr. “Perhaps my Master thinks his new slave can’t handle it rough and dark. Perhaps he’d like to ask her the types of things she’s willing to do for him.”

Her Master-for-the-night turned. The storm-cloud eyes were dark in the dim light, but the moonlight sculpted the planes of his face, giving him an implacable look of irresistibly cruel sensuality, vibrating life and power.

“Take off your shoes.”

Most Masters wanted the stilettos to remain on, and she liked it that way, too. When you were five foot nothing, the shoes gave that sense of stature, the fuck-me sway of the hips and elongated calves that drew a man’s gaze. Without them, she felt a little too close to the “short scrapper” she’d been dubbed as a kid, because of the day she’d beaten up two boys on the corner who’d tried to take Robbie’s lunch money. It had taken Robbie a couple years to forgive her for that. But of course now he was dead, and forgiveness was out of her hands.

Damn, two seconds with the guy and she was already tapping family shit? She needed to take control of this, get out of this environment and into one where she was more comfortable.

She’d kicked off the shoes, but before she could draw a breath, he’d stepped forward and scooped her up with graceful, easy power. His hands were big and warm on her thighs and back. His hard abdomen muscles flexed as he walked, body shifting under the point of her hip. Taking her to the fountain, he studied it and then sat her down on the edge, letting her feet curl into the thick grass. The fountain wall was embedded with smooth stones like goose eggs, pressing intimately into the valley between her thighs, the seam of her buttocks. A fragrance in the water’s mist teased her nose. Behind the rush of the water, she could hear crickets and frogs.

“You’ll speak only when spoken to,” he said with deceptive mildness. “And your safe word is ‘freedom.’ Don’t move from where I’ve placed you.” As he released her, he passed his fingers along the eagle tattoo, grazing the dress’s low back, making her shiver.

Despite her doubts, she thought “freedom” might be the last word she said to him.

Straightening, he propped a foot on the wall. His leg flanked her, his body dwarfing her with his sheer size. As he undid the cuffs of his shirt, he examined her, slow and easy.

When he began to unbutton it down the front, her mouth went dry, but she didn’t get the feeling he was performing for her. Everything about his body language said she was the center-stage show, there to serve as his entertainment. As he took his time, her lower belly was drawing tighter, an odd quake in her thighs because she didn’t know what he planned. Even if she was the woman regularly in his bed, she thought she still wouldn’t know with a man like this. He’d keep the control, and he’d keep her guessing.

The moonlight caught the silver of his dog tags, as well as a St. Christopher’s medallion that fell above them. It captivated her, seeing her Master’s personal things. Winston, Peter R. That was his name.

Wanting to break the strange feeling knowing his name evoked, as well as the sense of helplessness he’d imposed on her, she reached out to help him unbutton the last two buttons of his shirt. As her fingertips grazed the cotton, her lips parted, tongue touching them in anticipation.

In one swift movement, he captured her hands in one of his, pushed them down so they were cupped between her legs. The contact, her own hands against her pussy, the pressure of his hand against them, arched her up. Her head fell naturally into the cup of his other palm as he brought his mouth onto hers.

Men kissed all different ways, and she’d sampled quite a few of them. Despite that, she had no way of classifying this one. It was a command in a kiss. He didn’t ask to take over; he just did, as if he knew he could take anything he wanted from her. Whether she said yes or no was irrelevant to him. He’d brought her into this kind of setting for a reason. He was the hard-core trappings, the dungeon, the spanking bench and whips. If he’d taken her into a dungeon, she might have been terrified down to her toes. She probably still was, but the setting helped balance what he was putting her through now, kept the danger to a thrilling edge, on the near side of the teetering plunge where she’d lose her mind.

His tongue went deep, exploring teeth and moist flesh, the roof of her mouth and all the hot crevices in a flexible, stroking way that said he was quite aware of which part of a woman’s body was most closely related to her mouth. As he rocked her backward, he released his hold on her hands. She would have grabbed on to his biceps for support, but something told her to keep her hands where they were, and she was smart enough not to move them against herself without his permission. But it was difficult.

When gravity took her down farther, he moved right with her, his arm locked securely on her lower back, fingers spread to hold her buttock tight. As he held her over the fountain’s gurgling waters, the aromatic mist touched her skin. She wanted to touch his corded throat and short hair. While the shirt wasn’t open all the way, the muscled and broad expanse she’d glimpsed had a scattering of fine gold hair dusted across it.