Lucas asked the question as soon as Ben got in the limo. Matt had already lifted the privacy screen between them and Tobias, their driver.

Ben wished he’d figured out some credible way to meet them there. He needed some space, big time. But his ability to keep every hair in place during a shit storm was one of the reasons Matt paid his exorbitant salary. So he sat square across from the K&A CFO, met his cool stare with one of his own. “You know exactly what that was.”

Marcie might claim not to know what Cass had told Lucas, but Ben knew. Cass wouldn’t keep secrets from her Master, no more than Dana would. Though Lucas had reacted with aggression to what had happened upstairs, surprise at Marcie’s behavior hadn’t been part of it. So he knew Marcie was a submissive. He probably didn’t know whom she’d decided, come hell or high water, her Master was going to be.

Jesus, she was a headstrong brat. He couldn’t believe that middle-finger maneuver—he’d barely been able to strangle back the laugh. But what sobered him, inflamed him, was knowing she was sitting her sore ass on that barbed pillow, obeying his every order. Every order except not to think of him as her Master. It made his gut twist in an unusual way, a way he didn’t like.

“Yeah,” Lucas said, after a considering pause. That was Lucas. Like Jon, always thinking it through before shooting off his mouth, even when his emotions were involved. “But seeing you do it in the office, and with my wife’s little sister? That’s fucked up.”

“How so? She’s pretty much a blood-deep sub. She responds to it, in the office or out. It was instinct.”

“What are you doing, Ben?” Matt was sprawled out in the opposite corner, looking as usual like a very well-dressed hawk, the sharp eyes missing nothing, the lazy power of the body suggesting he could strike for the kill in less than a heartbeat. But that was in business negotiations. This was a look Ben knew. Matt was the only one who could make him squirm, even if Ben would rather key his own car than show it.

His jaw set. “She’s asked me to be her mentor. Show her how it works. She’s ready to find a Dom, enter the scene. She hasn’t really done that yet, right?” He arched a brow toward Lucas, got a reluctant lip curl that admitted it. When it loosened something in his gut, he chose to ignore the inexplicable reaction. “I was one of her first real crushes, so it makes sense she’s hooked on me for that role.”

Okay, that was a misdirect, but he was the one member of the pack most likely to get away with some minor dissembling. He was damn good at concealing his hand when he needed to do so. From Matt’s sharp glance, he could tell he didn’t quite pull it off, but Lucas seemed to be mulling it over.

Her pussy had been soaking wet when he slid that chastity device in place, cinching it up good to keep her from playing with herself. He knew she’d do it up just as tight after any trips to the restroom. She’d follow his direction to the letter, until that pretty ass of hers was a raw mess and she was crying in her chair from the pain, all while hard at work on those files. Which was why he’d left a folded and sealed note with Janet to give to Marcie thirty minutes after their departure. It would tell her to replace the barbed cushion with the bed pillow from his private closet, where he kept linens for all-nighters.

Those happened more often these days, even when he didn’t really have to work late. He’d dick around over this or that email, but then end up sitting on the couch, sipping his whiskey. He’d watch the lights of the New Orleans’ business district slowly wink out until all that were left were the lights of apartment hallways, the dwellings over the businesses. Lights shining on nothing, because people had gone to bed, leaving the small hours of the mornings to people like him.

He turned his mind back to how badly her ass would be hurting from that punishment. He imagined laying her out on his couch tonight, putting cloth strips of cool balm on those luscious cheeks. He’d spread her hair over her bare shoulders, stroke through it, caressing the silken skin beneath while she lay completely still, on his orders. Her hair was lustrous thick and curled some, so it curved over her shoulders and lay just the right way to catch a man’s eye, make him think about the way it would feel on his skin. Particularly when he was moving her on a direct line down his chest and stomach to take care of his cock with her pretty mouth, the wet heat of her eager tongue.

Her aftercare would be as tender as the punishment had been ruthless. It was always a balance, one that broke down a certain type of woman’s shields, cracked open her emotions, kept her spinning and in touch with her raw feelings, no dissembling, nothing but pure, honest reaction.

Lucas shifted, drawing him out of his thoughts and irritating him further. His mind was wandering around like a damn cow grazing in a pasture. Matt cocked a brow in his direction, that gaze still way too sharp, but when he spoke, he wasn’t addressing Ben. “You okay with this, Luc?”

Lucas glanced out the window, a muscle flexing in his jaw. His index finger was tapping a slow, pensive beat on the car door. Not a great sign, but not Def Con 1 either. “We’ve been together a long time, Ben. I know things about you. I know you push hard. Your way of handling a sub…it’s what they want, you prove that over and over, and so there’s no reason I should doubt your judgment, but Marcie…hell.”

Since Ben had stepped into the car, he’d had his shields up, ready to ward off any frontal assault. Just like that, seeing Lucas’ worry, the focus changed. They’d been part of one another’s lives too long. Beyond that, when Lucas had claimed Cass as his own, she and all her siblings had come under their protection and care. He wouldn’t deflect, not when it came to that side of things.

“You feel responsible for her.” Ben inclined his head. “And you’re the best at reading people of all of us. But you’re not objective about this one. I can be, to a certain extent.”

“He shouldn’t be,” Matt said quietly. “Neither should you. We all know how important family is, particularly the ones we create for ourselves.”

Matt had tapped on that door of his psyche on purpose he was sure, a reminder of the darkness behind it. “What I’m saying,” Ben responded evenly, with effort, “is she’s at the beginning of it, but that doesn’t mean the signs aren’t there. She’s a 24/7, Luc. Rachel’s got a gentle form of that, the way she defers to Jon even in front of others, but Marcie craves the hardcore brand of it.”

He knew what that would look like. When she came home from work, she’d follow a Master’s protocol from the time she walked through the door. He’d have the heat programmed to bump up a couple notches a half hour before she arrived home. Once there, she would shed her clothes, all of them, hang them up. She’d slide on a thong fitted with a small clit stimulator. It would be set on a low vibration to keep her distracted as she moved to do the things she was required to do for her Master. Set the table, light the candles. Put out his dinner.

Well, the dinner he’d have her heat up, because he preferred to do the cooking. Marcie appreciated good food, but she could burn break-apart Nestle Tollhouse cookies.

Right before dinner, she’d remove the thong, lie down on the table. At his Garden District townhome, he had a dining room table of glossy cherry wood, with carved legs that looked like a griffin’s feathered and taloned feet, a heavy antique piece that had been created during the Baroque period. She’d brace her feet on the arms of his chair, her spread thighs framing his plate. When he sat down to eat, he’d have the pleasure of seeing that pussy wet and glistening, needy. The candlelight would glint on the clit piercing, and her arousal would give her that sexy little quiver, her nipples high and tight…

He’d place one candle in either hand, making her hold them stretched out to either side of her body as he lit them. He’d get the tallow kind with wax drippings, so she’d feel the tiny burn as each drop hit her wrists, her knuckles. When he finished his dinner, he’d eat her pussy until she came. Then turn her over, give her a good paddling that would have her squealing and begging before he slid into that tight little puckered hole, feeling her submission to him, to anything he wanted to do to her. Utter, total surrender of self, belonging to him forever.

After that, they’d watch TV. She’d curl up next to him naked, tolerate the business reports and his acerbic comments about the idiots in Washington. But then she’d steal the remote and put it on some romantic chick flick she wanted to watch. Maybe she’d be wearing one of his shirts, left open to give her Master access, but allowed because it kept her warm and drowsy. They’d share popcorn and he’d watch her fall asleep against him, her head against his heart. He’d carry her to his bed, and when he was restless in the middle of the night, he’d find her curled around him, arm across his chest, body snugged up so close…

He was the night owl; she was the morning person. So he’d wake to find her perched like an adorable sex kitten near him, holding his coffee out of reach, teasing him with the aroma. He’d wrestle her for it, carefully, so she didn’t get burned, then when he got it away from her, putting it on the side table, he’d snatch her to him by the waist. She’d straddle him, run her fingers through his hair, smiling, then her mouth would soften and he’d turn her beneath him…

Someone to wake up with, someone he wanted to see next to him in the morning.

“Ben?”

He snapped out of it to find Lucas and Matt looking at him like he’d just sprouted a second nose. Thank God he had the briefcase on his lap. As it was, the weight of the damn thing was making his cock hurt like a son of a bitch. He was lucky it wasn’t knocking against it like a door. But that wasn’t what freaking rocked his foundation. He was fantasizing about…nesting with a woman. Holy Christ.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Thinking about the meeting.”

Lucas raised a brow. “Yeah right. Subs don’t usually get under your skin. She messing you up?”