The movement as he walked rubbed the seam of his jeans over the piercings along his cock, carefully folded in his jeans with no underwear protecting it. His Mistress wouldn’t want him wearing any underwear.

She would be here. He hoped. He wanted her to be with enough passion that it should be able to conjure her, if that was the way this worked. He hoped his prayers had earned him the chance to prove… Not that he could be worthy. He wasn’t sure that was possible. But perhaps it wasn’t a matter of being worthy. In his mind’s eye he saw the stage again, the horrible moment of her greatest crime. He would love her, help her trust that a man could love her without betrayal. He would value the fragility of her heart far more than his own, because they were one. It was his heart. He wouldn’t destroy their love with his fears. She wouldn’t let him, for one thing. She knew what he was thinking before he thought it. She was the best woman to keep his ass on the right path. He’d make it his life’s work to ensure she never regretted the effort. Or that Lucifer and His wondrous Lady didn’t regret giving him this chance.

If she’d just come for him.

It was and wasn’t a sense of déjà vu to step outside the prison gate, move to the edge of the highway. He had to cut through a parking lot, something that hadn’t been there. There were buildings within view. A gas station about a quarter mile down the road to his right, a cluster of buildings that looked like farming structures to his right.

More things that hadn’t been there when he first met her. Trees, some green fields. As he stood there, squinting in the sun, his stomach hollow with anxiety, something caught his eye. Moving to the opposite side of the road, he bent and closed his hand on the cigarette lighter half covered in sand. A lighter that had been scratched with his initials on a bored night over a year ago.

She wasn’t an illusion. He had faith in it. But finding the lighter helped. His fingers held it as his eyes shut. As the faint hum of an engine caught his ears, he hoped. He hoped.

He had served his time in more ways than one. Now he was free. Only he didn’t want to be a free man. He wanted Dona’s leash upon him, needed it.

Like a scientist, he’d made his mind a microscope, focusing in on the tiniest portions of her. The way she had turned her head. The curve of her lips. The pain lingering in her eyes.

If it’s just the bus and I have to get on it, I will. I’ll keep going as long as I have to, to prove I deserve her. I will deliver every letter alone, face the karma I deserve. Live every life alone if I have to. I just…oh God, I don’t know if I can survive another minute without her…

He lifted his gaze to the horizon.

She was coming. The red Mercedes as he remembered it, her dark hair flying, only something was different this time. When she slowed, stopped alongside him, it was not with the dynamic fanfare, and Dona was wearing a… He blinked. A pale yellow sundress, as fresh and feminine as a lily. Her feet against the pedals were bare, a pair of canvas sneakers pushed just beneath the seat. The Goth makeup was gone. As he reached out, removed her sunglasses with trembling fingers, there were just the dark beautiful eyes seeking his. Real, alive. His Mistress, but a Mistress of Hell no longer.

Mortal, like he was.

She had accepted that she might face pain again, but that it was time for her to rejoin the world. She’d had the faith to risk her heart again, to believe that he would provide the love that would make that risk worth it. He found he couldn’t speak at the enormity of that gift. Behind the anticipation of seeing him, he could see she was as scared as he was.

“So…” Her voice was soft as he cupped her cheek, his thumb tracing her lips. They quivered as she pressed her face against his touch, her gaze never leaving his face.

“You’re sure about this? It’s a hard road, this life. You have a lot of debts to pay.” What he wanted to do was hold her, tell her he wouldn’t let her down. She was tough as nails, but she’d come this way at a cost. It was a miracle.

He’d never thought of himself as deserving a miracle, but maybe that’s why they were called miracles. To give the undeserving a chance to change.

Thank you.

“It’s the reality in which I get you. That’s all that matters to me.” At her expression, he couldn’t wait any longer. He slid his hand to the back of her neck and half lifted her out of the car, his other hand going around her waist to crush her to him as he covered her mouth with his. He drank her in like a man dying of thirst in the desert under the cruel sun. Surrounded by fire, she was his salvation and damnation, and he’d accept both to hold on to her.

When they parted, her eyes were closed. He touched her lips with his thumb again and her mouth curved at last, even as he caught one of her tears on his fingertip. She dropped her head back, pinned him with her gaze.

Though the dress was innocent, that smile was not. “Then get your ass in this car.

Your Mistress has plans for it. I want those jeans open. In case I want to play with the only stick this car has.”

With a rakish grin, he kissed her hand, held on to it as long as he could before he had to release it to circle to the passenger side. When he got to the car door, he backed a step away and vaulted over it. He landed with a bounce in the passenger seat, despite the agonizing twinge to his midsection.

It was only pain. He wasn’t afraid to experience pain to please his Mistress. In fact, he was looking forward to it.

Epilogue

Six months later

“So this was a success?”

Dona applied the ice pack gently to Nathan’s swelling left eye, cupping his chin in her free hand. She couldn’t help a quick stroke of the feathered eyebrow, needing to feel the soft skin that creased at the corner of his unmarked blue eye at her amused question.

“Well, considering she could have just shot me as a trespasser and dragged my body into the house…”

Lifting his hands to her wrists, he curled his fingers around them, not impeding her, just caressing. He did that a lot, touched small portions of her anatomy as if he was savoring, memorizing, always seemingly awed at the gift of being able to touch her.

Even though they’d touched each other so many ways since he’d been released from prison, often with more raw need than reverence. But maybe they were the same thing.

When she bent, pressed her lips against his swollen upper one, she knew no matter how he touched her, her body responded. Whether it was the most casual brush of contact when they walked down the street hand in hand at night, exchanging quips with the street vendors, or far more intimate couplings in their tiny apartment.

“You could have worked up to them,” she murmured against his mouth. “In Violet’s mind, you almost got her husband killed. It might have been best to wait another five years. Maybe until the end of the next decade.” He dipped his head, brushing her cheek with his soft hair as he pressed a kiss into her palm. Glancing at her beneath those long lashes, he worked up her wrist to the pulse point there, his tongue teasing it to a faster cadence.

“Be still,” she reproved. “I’m trying to be a doctor here.” He lingered, tracing a line back down her palm that caused a stir in her lower extremities. The playful desire in his eyes goaded her. When she curled her hand, pricking his face with her nails, he obeyed and released her. Her good slave—but never too good.

“I wanted… I’ve been thinking about them a lot. She wouldn’t let me in the house, said my filth wasn’t going to infect her home. I think they have a kid now. There was this little bike with training wheels by the front door.” He rose, moved into the bathroom and pulled off his shirt, wetting a cloth to run down his arms. Dona made herself stay where she was, watching him remove some of the dirt he’d accumulated from his day’s work.

She quelled the desire to reach out, soothe the pain. His heart had changed, so it was difficult for her to let him do what he needed to do. But he never faltered. Never asked for pity. Only that she be there when he got done doing it.

“It may not have been personal. She may have been referring to how dirty you were from work.”

He met her gaze in the mirror, a rueful smile crossing his firm lips at her attempt to tease, but he lifted his shoulder in an apparent casual shrug as he bent his attention to the cloth, wiped it across his bare chest. She liked him smooth, had him keep himself shaved for her, though she’d had him keep the hair on his head the way it was now, the shoulder length that let her see all the different color variations from the sun.

“They’ve seen me cleaned up. All shellacked. I wanted them to see me. Who I am.

This is who I am.”

All the potentials of strength and intelligence she knew he possessed were emerging. This handsome, magnificent man was slowly becoming as complex and beautiful inside as out. He took her breath away, on many different levels.

Despite herself, she moved to the opening of the small bathroom, reached out and ran her fingers down the center of his back.

“So what happened? Use the other clean cloth for your face. The coolness will feel good.”

He complied, so his next words came out from behind terrycloth. It also served as a blindfold, helping him to get the words out, as she knew it would.

“I told her I would respect her wishes, but I needed to speak to Mac, and to her.

They listened.” There was wonder in his voice. A quiet triumph, laced with contentment and acceptance. “When it was over, she didn’t say anything to me, just walked into the house. But Mac stood there and looked at me awhile, then asked me if I wanted a beer. We sat out on their dock for about a half hour, drinking beer, not saying much. Then he shook my hand, wished me luck. I saw her watching me as I walked back down the street to catch the bus. She didn’t look…she looked like she was thinking, not hating.”

Dona stroked her knuckles down the valley of his spine. She knew what it was to love a man with her whole self. She’d dared to do it twice now, and this second time she knew she’d do anything for him. She couldn’t say she didn’t understand Violet’s anger. The black eye she’d given him the moment he’d stepped onto her property, the follow-up punch to the jaw.

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