Marcie nodded. “Much as I hate to admit it, I probably needed that. I’m not sure if…right after, I would have been ready. There needed to be some time for the air to clear. But honest to God, if he gives me another one of those neck kisses in front of you guys again I’m not going to be responsible for raping him on the kitchen island.”

Cass put an arm around her, smiling, but then they contemplated the water together. “You had to grow up so fast,” her sister said at last. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“Ben asked me the same thing. He called at lunch, and he was so gentle. Told me it wouldn’t change anything for him. Said I could have more time if I needed it. But I don’t need more time. I’ve wanted this for so long. I feel like a carnival’s been set up within a stone’s throw of my bedroom window for seven years, but I haven’t been allowed on any of the rides.”

At Cass’ raised brow, Marcie chuckled. “Okay, maybe that didn’t come out quite right.”

“Probably came out pretty close.” Cass gave her a teasing pinch. “Just have a care with some of those rides. There are some proprietary clauses involved.”

Now it was Marcie’s time to get serious. “Cass, we haven’t really talked about it much… It’s more than a little awkward. Lucas—”

“Don’t.” Cass put her hands on Marcie’s shoulders, gave her a straightforward look. “There’s no shame in it, love. You’ll always be my little sister, which means I’ll always see the child in you, but I also see the woman. This is who and what they are. Lucas and I have talked about it. I’m not confused about what will happen tonight, and his part in it. Of course, I’ve told him any fantasies he might have about some sister-sister action is confined to his late-night cable subscription,” she paused as Marcie choked on a laugh, “but this…this is what we are. I’m mainly worried about you. Are you nervous?”

“More than I thought possible,” Marcie said wryly. “But I’m really excited too.”

“All right then. The limo arrived a few minutes ago. That’s why I came out. It’s time to go.”

Marcie glanced toward the house, felt that trembling in her lower belly. “I don’t know what to expect at all.”

“You can expect everything, and things you never imagined. That’s the way they work.”

* * * * *

Max was her driver tonight, and she gave him a warm smile, remembering his kindness the night at the club. There was no awkwardness about that now. It was past, and she saw he was okay with things as well, no concern in his gaze tonight. He kept his attention courteously on her face as he held the door open for her, though she noted he sneaked a quick, sweeping glance over her nearly bare legs when she took her seat in the limo. It made her feel good. He was a guy, after all, and the robe was designed to highlight her full potential.

He didn’t hand her into the vehicle as he normally would. That, and the fact they only exchanged nods, told her he had the no-talking and no-touching part of the instructions. She settled into the plush backseat, drawing deep breaths. There was a tray set up with a bowl of strawberries that had been dipped in chocolates of varying shades. Next to them was a thin black eye mask with lacings to hold it snug on the bridge of her nose and against the eyes. She read the notecard next to it.

Put on the mask, lace it tight, so you can see nothing. You may touch and smell the strawberries, but do not taste.

Picking up the mask in fingers that trembled, she followed the direction. The smell of the strawberries was too good to resist, so she lifted one, inhaled deeply. Oh wow. Ben had done these himself. She knew it, because Dana had talked about the night she was first shared with all of them. How they’d brought the juiciest, largest strawberries she’d ever tasted, coated in a chocolate that was as much an orgasm for the nose as the tongue. Peter’s wife had learned later Ben had hand-dipped them himself in a special mixture of dark chocolates, vanilla and spices.

The richness of it brought saliva to Marcie’s tongue. There was white chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch…praline coating. The evil man knew she lived for dessert. Her tongue longed to taste, her stomach rumbling, but she didn’t.

His directions, so simple and straightforward, had nevertheless kept her in a state of wet longing through most of the day. With every hour that passed, she was more aware of her body. She wished he’d let her shower. She wasn’t grungy, but it felt odd to come to him with hair that had been combed but not styled. She would have touched up her nails, done her makeup. Just as he’d anticipated, her arousal had formed damp tracks on her thighs more than once today, drying there. To heightened male senses, she would smell like what she was. A female in raging heat.

She kept picking up the different strawberries, smelling each. The flavors seemed designed to stir her arousal further. She tried hard to hold them by the greenery at top, but she managed to get some of the melting chocolate on her fingertips. She couldn’t find a towel or wipe, which left only the robe or the seat. Realizing it would qualify as tasting, she stopped with her hand halfway to her lips. Instead, she left her hands in a half curl on her parted thighs.

She couldn’t ask Max where she might find a napkin, of course. For a devilish moment, she imagined extending her fingers over the seat back, a mute request that he oblige her with his mouth. She was sure that would break Ben’s rules on several different levels, particularly the no-male-touching rule.

Another time, she might do it, because she had a sense of what kind of infractions Ben would enjoy punishing her for, but this was not that day. Playtime and challenges weren’t part of this. All balls were now in Ben’s court. In truth, she was more anxious than she’d let on to Cass. Because she’d had to fight so hard for her objective, she’d never completely surrendered herself the way she knew would happen tonight, the way a submissive was supposed to do. She hungered hard for it to come from Ben, but the reality was pretty unnerving.

She wanted to please him. Wanted to feel that sense of completion, of total belonging. She was as nervous about this night as a virgin on her wedding night. To her, it was the same, the level of commitment, the sense of no turning back.

While the physical was a big part of tonight, in the past three weeks, he hadn’t neglected the emotional framework that would propel the physical to go to a far more intense level than she’d yet experienced, God help her. She remembered what Rachel and Dana had said about Ben taking a woman’s soul, never her heart, because that meant he had to give her his.

If she read all the signals right, it would be a mutual exchange tonight. Ever since the day on the dock, he’d been cautiously handing her pieces of his heart, of who he was, and she cherished all of it. Holding the white-chocolate strawberry now, she remembered helping him prepare for that dinner with the others. As always, he’d gone through her grocery selections with meticulous care, but he’d taught her well. Everything was fresh. While he cut a cucumber, she’d asked him, “What made you want to learn to cook like this?”

Instead of a casual answer, like “I like food”, he’d paused, knife in one hand, eyes on the vegetable he was slicing. “I know what it’s like to be so hungry you’ll eat garbage, Marcie. I know why Scarlett O’Hara felt the way she did.”

Quiet, matter-of-fact. Honest. It was all he’d said, but she was fine with that. She didn’t mind learning about his life in small pieces, if that was easier for him, and it gave her something new to discover every day. She’d slipped her arms around him, put her cheek to his back, just like she’d done on the balcony that night. Putting his hand over hers, he clasped them against his sternum, then he’d turned and fed her the cucumber piece, pleased when she said she liked the marinade he’d brushed over it.

The car stopped, bringing her back to the present. When the door opened, she sensed she was being studied. She lifted her chin, straightened her back.

“Take off the robe. Leave the slippers on for now. Come to me.”

Ben’s voice. It was like feeling rain on her face after the heat of a drought. She smiled at him, she couldn’t help it. Slipping the tie carefully, so she didn’t transfer the stickiness of her fingers to it, she shrugged the silk off her shoulders, let it pool on her hips. As she moved across the seat toward his voice, he touched her arm. Since she wasn’t allowed to speak, she couldn’t warn him about the chocolate. But he’d already seen it. He took her wrist, not her hand, and when he helped her out of the vehicle, he brought her fingers to his mouth.

It was incredibly intense, feeling that stimulation after a full day of waiting, imagining. The sight deprivation made it even more excruciating. She made a yearning noise as the wet heat of his mouth closed over each of the affected digits, his tongue swirling her clean.

“Did you taste any?”

“No, Master.” She was standing naked before him, with no idea where she was, except she was outside, not in a parking deck. In the distance, she could hear cars, so they weren’t in a secluded environment. The echo suggested they were surrounded by buildings…perhaps a side street. But it didn’t matter. With the blindfold on, she was entirely at his mercy, and her mind settled into that mode, completely his. His.

“Lift your chin. This is temporary.”

He buckled the slim collar on her, and she felt the tug of a tether snapped to it. “Follow my lead.”

“Always, Master.”

There was a pause at that, then the pressure increased. She stepped forward. It wasn’t easy to walk normally when she couldn’t see him, but she did her best, felt his hand brush her hip, guide and steady her to walk up two flights of steps. Then they were inside. The echo of the door closing suggested a large, open room. Maybe a loft? It had that old brick smell. Probably his place in the Warehouse District. She’d never been to that one.

“Take off the slippers. Kneel, submissive posture.”

Folding her legs beneath her, she put her hands behind her back, kept her spine straight. Opened her knees. He let the leash drop so it dangled loosely between her breasts, down into that spread area.