“No, you sit.” Rachel gestured to the stool next to the one Jon was using as a prop for his foot. “Relax a little bit, since you have the day off.”

“I guess so.” Marcie pressed her lips together, glanced at Jon. “I’m sure Ben will go to the office first before he comes here. It’s silly for you to be late. Just take me to the office. I can meet him there, and if he’s not quite ready to leave, I can finish up a few details I left yesterday.”

It wasn’t like she was disobeying him. She was just making it easier for him to find her. Or less easy to change his mind about coming for her personally.

Jon gave her a level glance. “You sure you want to do that, Marcie?”

Busted. She didn’t flinch though. “I won’t let him avoid me, Jon. Last night, he told you he’d pick me up today. But he’s going to just send a car, and the driver of that car will be instructed to drop me at Cass’. Then I’ll go back into work tomorrow, and he’ll be on a flight halfway across the world, dealing with some unexpected legal problem. By the time he returns, my two-week internship will be over.”

Rachel made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a dry chuckle, an I-told-you-so. Jon gave her a fond and amused glance, but when he looked back at Marcie, he’d sobered.

“It’s his decision. You need to accept that.”

“It’s his decision if he’s making it for the right reasons,” she said. “Not because he thinks I can’t handle what he wants.”

“Can you handle what he wants? Stop.” Jon’s tone sharpened enough to startle her, make her hold her tongue. “Don’t simply react. Think it through.”

Marcie glanced at Rachel. She was standing at the sink, watching the two of them, but her calm look bolstered Marcie.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “Each of you found the one woman who was…everything for you. You knew it pretty much from the first moment. You and Rachel, Peter and Dana, Lucas and Cass, Matt and Savannah. That’s the way you guys work. Ben might think he’s different, but in my heart, I know he isn’t.”

Jon considered her. “You believe you’re that one for Ben?”

“Yes. I feel it.” She braced herself for that look people adopted when a younger person said something incredibly naïve. But Jon merely looked toward Rachel.

“Head on to your appointment. I’ll decide what to do after I talk to Marcie awhile.”

Rachel nodded. When she came around the counter, she put her arms around Marcie and hugged her. “We’ll talk later,” she murmured.

In high school, Marcie had called Rachel’s embraces “Earth Mother hugs” because they brought comfort and warmth, this amazing desire to stay inside of her armspan forever. It was amusingly similar to the tranquility that Jon emanated the moment he stepped into a room.

However, Rachel’s lips touching her temple was a different kind of caress. Marcie was still worked up enough from last night to respond to it. When the woman turned her head, Marcie couldn’t resist brushing her lips across hers, stroking her fingertips over the strands of Rachel’s beautiful blonde hair. She was careful not to muss it, but she wanted to dig her fingers deep into that luxurious softness.

She imagined the two of them intertwined and naked, engaged in a full girl-on-girl kiss, driving Ben and Jon crazy hot. She knew Rachel was sometimes self-conscious about her age, almost fifty, but all she saw when she looked at the woman was a loving female submissive with a smoking body and a warmth anyone would crave to share.

“That would be great,” she said, meeting Rachel’s amused eyes.

Jon raised a brow, but stood when Rachel came to him. Apparently, he could pick a woman’s thoughts right out of her brain just like Ben, because everything Marcie had stolen in her fantasy, he now took as his undeniable right. He kissed his wife deep, strong, tangling his fingers into her hair. He didn’t care that he mussed it. In fact, he unclipped the barrette, pocketed it, and then let that hand wander around her hip to rest on her buttock. Her kiss was no brush of lips either. When he lifted his head, his blue eyes full of his wife, Rachel was clinging to his forearms for support. Marcie didn’t blame her. She was sitting, but her knees were just as weak. “Be careful,” he said. “I’ll talk to you at lunch. I love you.”

Rachel nodded, left them with another smile at Marcie, her lips moist and somewhat swollen from the demand of that kiss. While it had aroused her, Marcie found it had done something less pleasant to her emotionally. The desire for physical demand and intimacy together was overwhelming, and came with a quiet sense of despair. She’d started the ball rolling, and though she had no idea if it would get to its destination, if it did, that would bring a whole set of problems, problems that might prevent her from ever being on Jon and Rachel’s kind of stage.

Jon sat back down, pushed her plate closer to her. “Eat and keep talking,” he said. “Tell me what’s bugging you.”

There was a different tone to his voice now, reminding her Jon was a good listener. It probably seemed odd that she’d gravitated toward Ben as her confidante as a teen, but once she’d understood why, it hadn’t been much of a surprise to her. Still, Jon provided perspective, a calm she needed desperately right now. She was going on gut feeling, recklessly daring the fates to strike her down, and Jon had prompted her to rein it back a notch, think about it. Which was exactly why she preferred the steamroller approach. She had to have superhero confidence to do this. Pausing for reflection invited doubts, and a whole wealth of them crowded forward into this moment.

“I went to watch him…at Surreal. He didn’t know I was there, watching.”

“Does he know now?”

“Probably.” She remembered how he’d kept looking toward her that night, noting the mask she’d later used on his car.

“I expect he wasn’t entirely pleased to know he was being stalked.”

“It wasn’t stalking.” She wrinkled her nose at him, reassured when he gave her a smile. “He was with three women, Jon. I don’t like seeing him with others, but in some weird way, I guess that made me feel better about it, because it’s so…impersonal. I don’t know if I can keep up with him though. The stamina he showed, how much each of them took…” Last night, when he pulled out of her, he was still hard. She’d seen it when he’d adjusted his clothing. “If I can’t be all he needs in that department, no matter how much I want him, I don’t know how I’ll feel if he wants me to be one of many, versus just…the one.”

She was smart enough to know last night was his relatively gentle side, yet it had pushed her to her limits, physically and emotionally. Of course, it was the first time she’d actually experienced something like that. She could learn, get better, get stronger. “Is that what he wants, Jon?”

“Hmm.” Jon slathered more jelly on another piece of toast, handed it to her. “The word want is a tricky thing. It’s far more subjective and unstable than need. Nature aligns us, Marcie. We may differ in our physical capabilities, but nothing overrides what our hearts really desire. Think about extreme adrenaline junkies, the things they do that can get them killed. What are your thoughts about that?”

“They’re running. Trying to outrun death or fear, or something else. They push their limits so they don’t have to stop, be still and face that.”

“Exactly.” He chewed on his own toast, studied her.

“Okay, you’re going all Yoda on me. Giving me the ‘Luke, you dumbass—figure it out’ look.”

He grinned, appreciating her, but then he sobered. “Ben is a very demanding Master. However, if you’re right, if you are what his heart truly desires, you won’t have to worry about keeping up with him, or being one of many women. When each of us found the woman we knew was the one for us forever, that was it. She could have been an invalid, and she’d have been plenty for us physically. You’ve said you believe Ben is no different from the rest of us in that regard, so that’s your answer.”

She frowned, looking down at her plate. “Finding that one person,” he added, touching her hand to bring her gaze back to him, “it’s a shift of paradigm that changes everything. What we always thought we wanted, what we know, what we don’t. But when it clicks into place, that’s also when everything makes sense, often for the very first time in our lives.”

“You’re scary,” she decided. Picking up the toast, she took a bite. “This is fabulous.”

“Just think how it will taste on Rachel’s skin.” Those blue eyes gave a wicked flash that made her toes curl.

“Another important point.” He pointed at her with his piece of bread. “You have to be who you are, Marcie. If you believe deeply you belong together, then you must do it on your own terms, as who you are, because you can’t pretend to be someone else. Not for a lifetime. Don’t sell yourself short. He’d know anyway. There’s a reason he’s a very good lawyer. He can scent a lie like a bloodhound.”

He rose. “I’m going to finish getting dressed. You can stay here or I can take you into the office. The choice is yours. But remember this. You’re pushing a Master pretty hard. For everything he’s done so far, I can tell you that Ben has showed a great deal of restraint, given what he’s capable of doing.”

There went that shiver again, part fear, part…longing. She wasn’t brave enough to share with Jon some of the things she’d imagined Ben doing to her. She would stand in a stock like those women, her neck and wrists bound, body bent over in servitude. Ben could put her on display in the center of his living room and she’d stay that way all day while he went about his routine, enjoying his Sunday coffee, reading his paper, working out, whatever.

He’d gag her of course, so she’d be unable to do anything but await his pleasure. Whether it was fucking her in that helpless position, smacking her ass, clamping and weighting her nipples, whatever. He could punish her endlessly for her defiance, because she knew he wanted to be pushed. He wanted someone who wasn’t afraid of his form of Mastery. At least not in the wrong kind of way.