Rachel tested the temperature of the water with one extended hand, feeling the flutter of air off the flow. It also gave her the chance to turn her fingertips this way and that, to admire the manicure she’d obtained with Cass and Savannah earlier in the week. The pearlescent gloss had a simple white feather stroke on each nail. Very minimalist and yet organic, the kind of thing that she liked and was reflected in the mostly Japanese style décor of their home.

Jon had liked the manicure, too. Last night, he’d tied her wrists to the armrests of a wooden kitchen chair so he could study her nails as he knelt between her spread legs. He’d kissed each finger, both wrists. Worked his way down her arms, along the outer curves of her breasts. Pressed his mouth to her navel, then traveled down to her clit so he could lazily draw circles on it with his tongue. After he did that long enough that her hips were jerking up from the seat, he’d decided to run soft ropes over her upper thighs to hamper such movements.

He went back to teasing her clit, only this time he used a feather, and some kind of oil that made her shudder to remember it even now. He’d barely brushed it on before she was climaxing, straining so hard against her bonds he’d spent a lot of blissful aftercare time, massaging and soothing those abrasions.

Coming back to the present was a slow, dreamy glide. What was around her only added to the sensory pleasure of the memory. She loved the grotto Jon had built, turning the screened back patio under their deck into a water feature, such that she felt like she was stepping out of the house and into a secluded lagoon.

They’d visited an island retreat last year. The open-aired cottage had a private stretch of beach for a front view, and a grotto for a bathing area in back. The stone alcove provided subtle crevices for soap and shampoo. Multiple jets and falling water mixed together to create the best of both natural waterfall and modern-day shower. The liquid fell into the deep pool beneath the grotto’s shelter.

Upon their return, Jon had designed her one that naturally included a few tailor-made improvements. Such as embedded eye-bolts for restraints, and those multiple jets could be angled in some interesting directions. He’d also moved one of their large Japanese maples to form a canopy that started beneath the arch of the grotto and extended outward to drape over the pool. He’d attached drip lines to it so that when she wasn’t using the grotto for bathing, it could be a different kind of water feature.

When the drip lines were turned on, it created a gentle rainfall into the pool. She could curl up in one of the nearby lounge chairs and enjoy it while reading or catching up on her work stuff from either her yoga studio or physical therapy job. Periodically, she would look up from that to check on the daily busy antics of birds, squirrels, or an occasional deer or two in the backyard. Their mix of natural landscaping and Rachel’s garden was an inviting transition to the several acres of woods that surrounded the house.

This was her life today. Thinking of what it was now, versus what it had been, for so many years, she closed her eyes and leaned against the smooth bank of rocks. Jon had ensured they had no sharp edges. It was part of his wizardry, but not the most important part of it to her.

Proving what was, she felt his arms slide around her and melted back into his arms. His mouth found her throat above the banded silver wire collar she wore, evidence of her Master’s ownership. She always wore it at home.

“Aren’t you supposed to be kneeling?” he asked.

“You arrived early.” She smiled as he dropped a hand and gave her bare ass a pinch, then she bit her lip as his clever fingers slid forward over her smooth cunt and stroked. Petted her for the simple pleasure of touch, rather than a probing demand for sexual response, though it accomplished both ends.

“Mouthy sub. I decided I’d much rather take a shower with you sooner than later. The alternative is fighting with that engineering disaster Peter dropped on my desk Friday. Save me from college-trained engineers who don’t have enough mechanical experience to change a tire. I can get ten times better drafting work out of the plant foremen who actually know how something is machined.”

He cupped her breasts. “Good thing I have an obedient sub to distract me from my frustrations.”

She dropped her head back, pressing her ass against the front of his jeans. Since it was the weekend, he wore them and a worn, button-down shirt he’d never buttoned, because he’d gotten distracted earlier in the day. At breakfast he’d come up with some idea and disappeared into his workshop muttering to himself, making her smile into her tea.

She could go see him at any time, and he’d welcome her company, but she liked giving him his space and time to pursue his projects. She worked in the garden, or on her painting, since she was taking a watercolors class. Sometimes she meditated, watched a favorite TV program, called and chatted with Dana… No matter what she was doing, and he was doing, she felt connected to him.

The comfortable domesticity was balanced with the pleasure of being his submissive. He exercised his Dominance over her in myriad ways, both expected and spontaneous. However, every Friday, which was her half-day of work, they shared a pure service ritual that she anticipated, a way of grounding and reminding her of her core self.

He’d leave her instructions to prepare him dinner, with precise directions on what she should wear, and how he wanted everything laid out, even down to the polish on the silver and the fold of the napkin. Often, she became so absorbed in the process, it was a form of subspace.

When he came home from work, she’d be waiting by his chair at the table, ass on her heels, hands clasped at her back, head down, wearing nothing but a pair of heels and his collar. Every time, she held her breath as he sat down at the meal and surveyed everything with careful attention. When he’d touch her cheek, stroke, it was a sign of his approval. That subspace feeling would return, a euphoric cloud on which she floated as she served his meal.

It didn’t stop with dinner. He took care to lay out every detail, including how to clean and put away the dishes after she cooked, how he wanted the bed prepared for when he would take his sub to it and she’d serve his pleasure there. Sometimes it was merely fresh linens. One time, during the gardenia blooming season, he had her cut a few blooms from the bushes around the outside of the house and scatter the petals over the sheets. The strong fragrance had wound around them as they moved together on the bed.

Whatever variances occurred with the bed preparation, what happened in it always involved pulling four earth-shattering climaxes from her.

One by suckling her nipples, his body laying upon her, her hips rising to rub her core against his ridged abdomen, if he allowed that. One with him in her mouth, while a vibrator hummed between her legs until she was moaning against his cock. Then, leaving the vibrator on, he’d push his well lubricated member into her rectum, taking her deep there.

After that, he’d tie her to the bed, spread out. The vibrator was removed and replaced with one of his diabolical little inventions. The latest one had been inspired by a toy belonging to Cass and Lucas’s cats. A little soft ball with metallic slender threads, creating a spiky surface.

He’d balanced his version of it on her clit, and told her she couldn’t move, couldn’t let it fall, when he went into the bathroom to clean himself. As her body heat was conveyed to the device, the threads had started to move, delivering tingling little shocks to that sensitive bundle of nerve endings. Finally, when she thought she’d lose her mind, Jon had returned. Setting the toy aside, Jon had lain down upon her fully, and slid himself into her once more slippery pussy. He’d stayed that way a long moment, elbows braced on either side of her head, their eyes close and full of one another.

Then he started to move, and before long the fourth orgasm gripped her, the most powerful one of all. It was the one driven as much by the heart and soul as the body.

Afterward, he untied her and they went to sleep, him curled protectively around her, breath upon her neck.

The message of their Friday ritual was as arousing as the act. She belonged to him, and he’d claim every orifice, every part of her, every week, to reinforce the message.

“Did you like that, last night? With the feather.” He brought her back to the present, his voice a melodious rumble against her ear. The deep timbre always reminded her of a midnight DJ, speaking to his listeners in the loneliest part of the night, reassuring them he was there with them. Sometimes his voice alone could make her wet, tremble, need.

“Yes.” Goddess, she had. But…

“But you liked it even better when it was just my mouth.”

She put her hands over his, still curved over her breasts. He was kneading again, lightly plucking her nipples, which tagged her words with breathy little notes. “I love the things you can create,” she managed. “I love you using me to test them. But the in-between times, when you use only your hand, your mouth…your body…it’s like you step inside of me so deeply.”

She thought of the dinner ritual, the last time he took her body, when they were pressed skin to skin, the weight of their love held between their gazes. She closed her eyes again as his hands slid to her upper abdomen, his arms crossing over her to hold. It only reinforced her next words. “I feel so safe and loved.”

He turned her toward him. As she gazed up into his dark blue eyes she thought how they, too, were sometimes like the darkest part of night, only over a sea, where even the night picked up the blue and held it. When she slid her hands up toward his shoulders, he gripped one wrist and dipped his head to drop a kiss on her knuckles. “Such pretty nails,” he observed. “But I’m going to risk them. I want to have you in the grotto, and see if I can make you lose your mind enough you’ll rake those pretty nails up my back.”

She smiled, even as she trembled. Sometimes it scared her, how much she loved their life together. She’d never had what she had with Jon. But she knew how quickly time passed, and what it could take away from a person. Every moment needed to be valued, instead of its loss feared. He’d helped her with that, because sometimes the fear came back. Like now.

If she could change anything about their first several years together, it would be that. As much as she loved Jon, and wanted to be his wife and submissive more than anything, the emotional fallout of two decades of psychological abuse and the attendant destruction of her confidence and self-esteem, couldn’t be eradicated overnight or merely by wishing.

She had healed, grown stronger, but it hadn’t been a short road. She needed to touch his mouth. Her fingers flexed in his hold and his eyes darkened. “What is it, Rachel?”

“Just…ghosts walking over my grave.”

He knew it frustrated her, how those specters of the past could still ambush her, though admittedly far less than before. She hoped. That distracting mouth firmed, and he cradled her face, a thumb stroking along her lips. “I’ll have to talk to them about doing that. Into the pool.”

She stepped in obediently, taking his hand to steady her as she went up the steps on one side and down the opposite, into the pool. The water was blissfully warm. When he was with her here, there was another ritual they observed, one that went all the way back to the first time he’d made his feelings for her known.

There was a raised platform on the pool floor that looked like rock, blending in with the rest, but the rock was a sturdy foam that cushioned the knees. She sank down on it, and clasped her hands behind her back, straightening her back and raising her chin. The posture lifted her breasts, the shoulder-width kneeling position opening herself to him however he desired to touch her.

She remembered his words then as if he’d just said them.

“You’d stay in that position, knowing nothing was required but to sit like that while I took my fill of viewing what was mine. And it would drive you as crazy as it would drive me, until I’d be so hard I’d have to fuck you against the wall.”

Jon stripped off his clothes. Though her lashes were lowered as was appropriate, she could feel his gaze upon her. Fortunately, she could see his naked torso from feet to waist. The light coating of dark hair on calves and thighs, around his sex. He was already partially erect and growing harder, thicker.

He stepped into the water. For the next few moments, he tended to himself, using the soap and shampoo from those convenient niches to clean his skin, wash his hair. When he ducked beneath the water and came up, she dared a short peek to see him slick his dark hair back against his skull. When it was wet, it came past his shoulders. He was not as broad or muscular as the others of the K&A team, but every inch of his lean body was taut, and she knew firsthand the strength in it. He could hold yoga positions almost as long as the masters under whom she’d trained.

He had pale skin, smooth like marble. Though he worked out regularly, running the paths around and near their property daily, he was a nighttime exerciser, and his work and hobbies all centered around the extensive shop where he invented things not only for work, but for pleasure. Like that incredible oil.

“What are you thinking about, sweet girl?” He had drawn closer to her, his hand settling on one of her knees. He feathered his touch over her skin under the water. When he found her cunt, she caught a moan in her throat as two lubricated fingers slid in. He also kept a water-resistant oil in one of those crevices, and had apparently utilized it to counter the water’s non-lubricating effect.

How can I please you? It was the first thought she had when he touched her, driving everything else away, but since she knew he was wanting what she’d been thinking about a moment ago, she pulled those thoughts back to the forefront, with effort. He didn’t like to repeat himself, and though the consequences of him having to do so could be quite memorable in the right ways, she didn’t brat on purpose.

“Your skin. How pale it is, but how smooth, like a marble statue.”

“Lucas says he always expects me to burst into flame at the touch of the sun.”

She smiled, but a whimper escaped her as he rubbed her inside with those partially curled fingers. Sensation unfolded in her, making her hands tighten in their clasp on one another on her lower back. “Master,” she breathed.

“I can make you come the first time just like this. It would build slow, and you’d be making those little pleading noises in your throat I like so damn much.”

His voice got even deeper, rougher, when he took control of her, and she could get lost in it.

He slid his fingers from her and took her elbow, bringing her off the dais. He moved her to the pool wall and put a palm on her back, exerting pressure to bend her forward.

“Hands where you know I want them.”

There were two stones at shoulder width, the perfect size to mold her palm over each one. No restraint this time. He would require her to restrain herself, which was far harder.

He slid his palms down her arms to her wrists and gripped them, a brief reinforcement, before he continued down her sides to her waist, her hips. “Gods, I love touching you.”

His cock nudged her backside. “Close your legs. Bring your feet side by side.”

When she did, he slid his cock in the small triangle of space the stance caused. The ridge of his head rubbed against her labia. When she shuddered, he snaked an arm around her waist and held her firmly against him, pelvis pressing against her backside.

“You’ve had girl-girl fantasies, haven’t you?”

The subject change took her off balance, but her Master had asked her a question. He also had a low tolerance for hesitation when he was in certain moods. Moods that usually happened when she needed him to be tougher with her, to knock her out of the wrong headspace, and he’d already noted the mood shift she’d tried to pass off as ghosts.

She knew her stories of that side of him surprised the other K&A women. They most often saw the gentle, patient type of Dom that Jon could be, the Master who had a gift for creating lovely toys. It wasn’t incorrect. But Jon could also be ruthless and a disciplinarian, and those sides opened a lot of crazy things in her. Things he helped to heal, no matter how often the wounds might break open.

“Rachel,” he said, a quiet warning, and she realized she hadn’t yet answered his surprising question about girl-girl fantasies.

“Some.” Far more since she’d been part of the K&A inner circle, where so many temptations and ideas in that vein presented themselves on a regular basis. Particularly Dana. Dana was her closest friend among the K&A women, and she enjoyed women, though those desires were subordinate and intertwined with her love for Peter, her husband and Master.

“Hmm.” Jon slid his cock slowly into that triangle of space again, arm tightening around her waist, his body pressed flush against the back of hers. “You know, you might be surprised to know we have girl-girl fantasies.”

By we, she knew he meant the K&A men. Matt, Peter, Lucas, Ben. Himself. “Really?” She bit her lip as another spasm of sensation rocketed from between her legs through her upper body. “Five straight males with girl-girl fantasies? I’m shocked.”

He molded his hand around her breast and captured the nipple between thumb and forefinger, increasing the pressure so she sucked in a breath and fought to keep from jerking back in reaction. The pain had another component to it, one that had her lifting her hips to take his slide into that narrow space between her thighs again.

“My sub has learned to misbehave,” he said reprovingly, but with a smile in his voice. “I like that she trusts her Master’s love and care enough to do that.”

He slid back, shortening the strokes so the ridged head was rubbing the base of her clit and sensitive petals of her sex. As he did, he set his teeth to her shoulder, and spoke again, his voice a husky murmur.

“But I also love her obedience, how much she wants to please me. I want to reward you for that.”

She sensed it wasn’t just pillow talk. He was headed somewhere with it. Jon was an extraordinary multi-tasker. He could put together engineering drawings, think about re-designing their garden, answer a phone call, and plot the next way he would surpass all her wildest sexual imaginings, all at once. The idea that he was about to spring one of those plots on her had her body responding even more fervently to him.

“So back to our girl-girl fantasies,” he said. “The five of us have quite a few of them. Peter came up with a way to explore them. Unanimously, we decided that you and Dana are the two of our women best suited to serve those needs. Who could be better to execute our girl-girl fantasies than the two who have fantasies about that, and each other?”

Amazement and trepidation wound together into one tingly ball in her stomach and chest.

“Rachel? Are you still breathing?”

She bit back a sound between a chuckle and a girlish giggle, another new thing for her in this life. The chance to be playful, celebrate the inner child, while exploring all the marvelous things that being a woman with such a hot, gorgeous Dom and husband could bring to her.

She turned when he withdrew and put pressure on her arm to allow her to do that. She looked up at him. His expression was always a wonderful mix of things. The firmness of a Master in the set of his lips, the abundant love of a husband in the glimmer of his dark blue eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Master. I’m honored to be in one of your fantasies.”

“You’re in all my fantasies,” he corrected her. “And I owe you this one. You two didn’t have your acceptance into our circle in the board room, the way Cass and Savannah did. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. I know you four share everything.”

Her lips curved. “Not everything, Master. Just the things that confirm how entirely perfect our four husbands are.”

“Uh-huh.” He touched her nose. “That aside, this is a gift long overdue. I meant to give it to you on our first anniversary.”

At her questioning look, his expression sobered. He stroked a lock of her hair back from her ear, his gaze a little too piercing. “I’ll explain more that night. Not now.”

His tone became lighter. “It’ll be a dual celebration. Peter is giving this to Dana for a special birthday gift. What were you thinking about, when I first came down and you were changing the water temperature?”

She thought back, finding the memory easy to retrieve this time. “Making Friday dinner for you.”

A smile touched his lips. “Friday is one of the highlights of my week, too. It tempts me to do it far more often. Often enough you’d decide I’m an ogre, making you do all the cooking and clean up.”

She chuckled and threaded her fingers through his black hair, wet on his shoulders. “My Master is never an ogre. You’re kind and ruthless, the combination I most need.” When his eyes flickered and mouth firmed, she saw both traits there again, as well as a deeper reflection. He was trying to figure out something. Something about her.

She lowered her lashes. “You drove all the ghosts away,” she said in a whisper. Her heart was unsettled, as if it knew he needed something from her, and she wasn’t sure what it was. “They can’t touch me when you’re here.”

He nudged her face up and kissed her, long and deep. As he did, he pressed her against the wall, his body hard and urgent.

“I’m also an animal,” he muttered. “Want your cunt now, beautiful sub.”

He snaked an arm around her body and lifted her up against the stone, his strength and flexibility taking her right where he desired. She clung to his shoulders, her nails digging in, just as he’d also wanted, as he drove into her, filling her. Demanding that she lose all thought of anything but this, holding on for the ride, and giving him as much of herself as he desired.

“All of you,” he said, and she wondered if she’d said it aloud. “I want all of you. That’s what I’m taking, and what I’ll have.” His gaze was suddenly even more fierce, turned upon hers. You need to always remember that, sweet girl. Those ghosts can’t have you. Not now, not ever.”

* * *

As she lay in bed with him that night, his even breath was against her ear, his arm around her waist. He cupped her breast with pleasurable possession, even in his sleep.

She wasn’t far from sleep, either, but her gaze drifted to the walls. To the gift Cassandra had given her for her last birthday.

It was a random assortment of frames, different sizes, different styles, that had been welded together in a pleasing arrangement. The frames were filled with pictures from her past and present. Unexpectedly, Cassandra had put one of Rachel as the center picture. It was a photo that had been shot during her and Jon’s wedding. She was standing on the second-floor balcony of Lucas and Cassandra’s plantation house, about to throw her bouquet.

In the first few days they’d been together, Jon had as much as said he was going to marry her. You’re the type of woman who needs commitment. Love. If I wasn’t prepared to bring those to the table as part of what I can offer you, I never would have started this.

She hadn’t been sure she’d ever be willing to get married again. Her first husband had broken her heart in so many ways she figured it could never be glued together again. Jon hadn’t glued anything together. He’d made it whole once more, helping her find the strength to heal. So, no more than six months after they started being a couple, when he asked her to marry him, she told him yes.

She hadn’t wanted anything fancy. Just a simple affair, and Jon agreed. They’d exchanged their vows under the branches of a two-hundred-year-old live oak in the back yard of Lucas and Cassandra’s house. A reception of no more than fifty people had followed. Close friends from her yoga studio, and physical therapy clients. An aunt who’d driven in from Florida. Jon’s friends, and the K&A men and their wives, as well as Cassandra’s siblings.

The picture in the center of the frame arrangement had been taken just before the bouquet tossing. She’d looked toward the setting sun, its beams projecting through the branches of the nearby trees making her golden hair gleam. Her gaze was soft, happy and pensive at once. Though the photographer couldn’t have known what moment he was capturing, Rachel remembered it vividly. She’d been in the grip of emotions so strong she could barely breathe. She’d realized she was coming out of a darkness that would always be a part of her, stepping into a future she’d never anticipated having. And everything about that day had given her all the more reason to set aside her fears and try to embrace that future with every part of her heart.

Most the women attending were already married, so instead of throwing the bouquet as a token of luck for the single women, she threw it purely for the fun of seeing who could catch it, and with the promise of a kiss from the man of the lucky woman’s choosing.

Letty, the adolescent daughter of her physical therapy work friend, Beatrice, had caught the bouquet. The precocious, outgoing girl had wanted to kiss Tory, the teenage son of Sarah, one of her yoga students. A smile touched Rachel’s lips as she remembered the flash of panic on Tory’s face, followed by an attempt to appear “cool” about it—did teens even use that word anymore? But there’d been an endearing, innocent awkwardness to it as the two teens executed a self-conscious pressing of lips, Tory flushing and Letty smiling as they were applauded.

It made Rachel think of Kyle, her son. Her gaze slid away from the center photo, to several of him at different ages. Her gaze stopped on the one of him around Tory’s age, standing by a boat with one of his friends. Because Cassandra had certainly worked with Jon on the selection, Rachel knew why that particular one had made it into the montage mounted on her wall. A reminder not only of her son, but of what her new husband had taught her she could expect from him.

* * *

It had happened a few months into their marriage. She’d stayed home, telling Jon she was taking a personal day to catch up on some gardening to-dos and errands. She’d sent him off to work with a bright smile that had died soon after he left.

It hadn’t been a complete lie. She went to the grocery store, bought the cake ingredients, and returned home to mix the batter. After she put it in the oven, she went out into the garden and tended the plot where her poppies would come up in the spring. She added a decorative border, using some creek rocks she had discovered and gathered on their extensive wooded property.

As the smell of the cake filled the house, she set out the candles, took a seat on the stool and waited. When the oven dinged, she put it on the rack, let it cool, and frosted it. White butter cream frosting on red velvet, Kyle’s favorite. She put the candles in, one by one, focusing on the placement. For each one, she remembered him at that age, until she reached nineteen, and there were no more memories. She instead imagined if he’d lived, the woman he might have met and married, the children he might have had. What he would have done when he left the military.

At various ages, he’d talked about being a dentist, a race car driver, a zookeeper, an architect. He’d liked to build things, so he probably would have ended up in a related field. Construction, maybe. He hadn’t had the patience for a lot of studying, but he could learn anything hands-on.

Going up to her yoga room, she removed the photo album from the table. The small lit candle next to it floated in a wooden bowl of water. She paused, holding the book to her chest.

This was wrong.

She’d learned to recognize the signs. Sadness could still grip her when she thought of the past, but these days it was more balanced by the other good things in her life. Yet right now she was gripped by the despair she’d felt on his past birthdays, when she’d been alone. The familiar, terrible feeling brought a spurt of panic, as if she was suddenly on the edge of a rain-drenched bank and was about to slip, fall back into the muck below, and she might not find a way out this time.

She shouldn’t have done this by herself. She should have told Jon what she did on this day, let him know. But she hadn’t. Maybe she should take the cake into town, to K&A, share a piece with everyone. Go to her yoga studio and repaint the one wall that she’d decided to make a softer yellow color.

She tightened her arms around the photo album. But this was Kyle’s day. She couldn’t…leave him, on his birthday. But she needed to call Jon. Right now.

Shifting the album to one arm, she drew the phone out of her pocket and held it against her forehead, emotions warring in her. Then she hit the one digit to speed dial his number.

The phone rang behind her. She spun and nearly jumped back a foot as she saw Jon leaning in the doorway. The photo album slipped from her grip, but he closed the distance between them and caught it before it could hit the ground. Setting it aside, he pulled out his phone and answered it. The twitch of his lips as he did so didn’t dilute the seriousness of his dark blue eyes.

“What can I do for you, sweet girl?”

She wet her lips, staring at him, her mind whirling. With him so close, his voice created an echo with what she heard through her phone. She held the phone to her ear, silly really, but he was standing there as if he was in his office, miles between them.

That was the problem. By doing this alone, she’d put a distance between them that had no place in their relationship. And had brought back that terrible loneliness when she’d been genuinely alone in the world. She remembered what he’d murmured to her at their wedding, when they were dancing.

You stand in my soul; I stand in yours. That’s the room we always share, no matter where we are.

She clicked off the phone and set it aside. He did the same, putting it in his suit jacket, his steady eyes never leaving her.

“I was calling you because I wanted to hear your voice,” she said. “And I wanted to tell you why I stayed home today.” She found she couldn’t form those words yet, though, so she fished for something else to lead into it. “Um…what are you doing back?”

“I had to finish up a report for Lucas at the office, go over it with him. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have left this morning. I was coming back afterward, but I was hoping you would call first.” His gaze slid to the phone and back to her. “You did.”

The warmth in his voice eased the tightness around her heart. “I’m sorry, Jon.”

He’d slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks, but he bent forward and brushed his lips along her temple, making her close her eyes and move her hands to his chest, palms resting against the heat beneath starched cotton.

“Tell me why you’re sorry,” he said.

“I think you already know.”

“I do. But tell me. I want you to say it while looking at me.”

She forced herself to open her eyes and look up at him. Though he wasn’t overly tall, she was only about five-three, so there were about seven inches difference in their heights. His face was close, though, bent attentively over hers.

“Today is my son’s birthday,” she said. “I always stay home on that day. I bake him a cake. The first year, after he died, I planted poppies, in remembrance of him, both as a soldier and as my son. I’ve propagated them over the years. Those are the poppies I brought to our home here, in pots, from the balcony of my apartment.”

He nodded. He’d complimented her on how well the flowers were doing during their blooming season. Many men paid little attention to the details of their home. He missed nothing, always noting if she’d hung a new picture or bought a seasonal throw rug. “Earlier this morning, I cleaned up the spot where I planted them and added a border. I used the rocks I’ve been collecting around our place, and on our trips together. After I bake the cake, I look through the photo album of his pictures. That’s what I was about to do next.”

She looked down, then remembered, and looked back up. He closed his hands around her upper arms, adding support as the rest of the words came.

“I cry. I sleep. I think of what might have been. I think of him every day, but I give myself one day out of the year to let it all out, all the feeling I have about losing him.”

“Alone.”

She swallowed. “I’ve always grieved him alone.”

His lips tightened, but his tone gentled as he touched her face. “Do you want to grieve him alone? A truthful answer, Rachel. If this is something you prefer to do by yourself, you can tell me up front. I’ll try to respect and understand that. I’ll go back to work, think about you, hurt for you, and when I come home tonight, I’ll comfort you however you need, but if you want that space, you have it. No wrong answer.”

He meant it. She could tell him yes, to go back to work, but it wasn’t a truthful answer. And truth was important, to them both.

“No. I don’t want to grieve him alone. I think that was what I just realized. That I didn’t have to do it by myself. It was why I was calling you.”

His expression eased. She knew he didn’t like her to be hurting and him not be close enough to shelter and protect. Her nurturing Master.

“All right. When do you eat the cake?”

Her spirits tilted in an upward direction at the casually posed question. Her Master cared first and foremost about her welfare, but he also had a serious sweet tooth. His blue eyes twinkled.

“Whenever you wish,” she said. “I thought about taking it into town and leaving it in the K&A breakroom for everyone to share.”

“Maybe we’ll cut up the rest for them. Tomorrow.” He winked at her and moved toward the door, the photo album now in one arm while he held her hand in the other. “Let’s go down to the couch. That’s where you were headed with it, right?”

She nodded and followed him down the steps into their open living room, with the wide glass windows and plants that tied the interior to the natural exterior. Japanese maples, aralia with its starlike leaves, and several bonsai in various shapes and sizes, placed on earth-toned wooden pedestals. It made their living room feel like an atrium, and she loved the effect. Their entire home made her feel more at ease.

He set aside the album to shed his suit coat, draping it on one of the chairs pulled up to the high counter that flanked their open kitchen. He also loosened and removed the tie, unbuttoned his collar and cuffs, and rolled up his sleeves. It was one of her favorite looks for him, the dress shirt with the belted trim slacks.

Though there was a lot to be said for him in jeans and a well-worn T-shirt that clung to his toned upper body, too. She liked the way he looked in anything. Though he was one of the most breathtaking men she’d ever seen, it didn’t have anything to do with his outside. Not since she’d learned about the generous heart and loving soul that gorgeous exterior covered.

As he guided her into a seated position on the couch, she sighed. “I was being stupid, thinking you wouldn’t know.”

He sat down next to her, putting a hand on hers. He gave her a look. “That’s one. Correct yourself.”

He only approved self-criticism if it was intended to build her up, like if she decided she needed to learn more about a certain yoga practice, or if she realized a therapy strategy hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped, and she was trying to figure out why. Calling herself stupid fell in his total disapproval range.

“Some part of me felt it was part of my old life,” she said slowly. “This ritual, that is. Not my son. I didn’t want to burden you with it. I didn’t want to darken what we have with the feelings I’ve always felt on this day.”

“What feelings are those?”

She shook her head, but the touch of his fingers transformed into a firm grip on her wrist. “That’s two.”

He also wouldn’t tolerate her not expressing her feelings, for fear of how he might react to them.

She closed her eyes. “Failure. A grief so strong and dark, it can swallow me. Loneliness. A loneliness I no longer should feel, because I have the love of a wonderful Master. So, to feel that way, even for a minute, compounds my sense of failure.”

“Am I more than your Master?”

“Master encompasses everything. Everything I want and need.” She swallowed, understanding the contradiction in her words, but he pressed on.

“Okay. What other things does a Master encompass?” His thumb was moving her ring on her finger, a caress as much as a hint.

It made her smile a little. “Husband.” It was still a miracle to her, hearing it said aloud.

“One more. It’s the most important job a spouse has. My wife told me that, on our honeymoon.”

The smile now bloomed in her heart, in the cracks. It helped, but it also widened them, causing pain. But maybe the right kind. She remembered the first night of their honeymoon, standing on a hotel balcony, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. They were so high up and the beach was so close, it was as if the ocean was right beneath them. Someone had a radio on, playing “I Need You” by LeAnn Rimes. When Jon had joined her at the rail, he’d drawn her into a slow dance. And she’d spoken the words in his ear.

You’re my Master, but you’re my friend, too. Thank you for that. I’ve realized friendship is the most important thing a marriage has to have.

“Friend,” she said. “Best friend, actually.”

“Yeah.” His grip tightened, a quick squeeze. He toed off his polished brogues and propped his feet, clad in thin black dress socks, on the coffee table. Then he picked up the photo album. Laying his other arm across the back of the couch, he glanced at it meaningfully as he balanced the album on his knees.

She settled back in the curve of his arm, inhaling the dry-cleaned linen smell of his shirt and his light cologne as she accepted that shelter. As she did, she let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Her heart felt lighter, even on this day, the day she’d often felt so weighed down with grief she couldn’t get out of bed.

She’d created the rituals, the cake and tending of poppies, the looking through the album, as a task list to ensure that she honored Kyle the right way. But also because the other way could easily turn into a week in that bed.

Jon had opened the album at a random page. “Tell me about this picture,” he said.

Kyle, around thirteen years old, stood by a boat tied off to a dock. The photo was somewhat washed out because of the brightness of the sun, Kyle’s hazel eyes like hers squinted against it. He had a huge grin on his face. He was standing with his arm thrown around another boy, overweight, with curly hair and matching grin.

“That’s him with his best friend in middle school. Deadhead.” She chuckled at his look. “They all called him that. His real name was Lawrence. He liked zombies. Notice the Night of the Living Dead T-shirt. I’d make them pizza snacks after school, listen to them talk about their day. They’d try to gross me out the way boys do, until I’d run them out of the kitchen and they’d go play basketball in the driveway. Sometimes I’d do bills or paperwork at the table, so I could watch them through the window.”

She realized she was rubbing her thumb over Kyle’s face, his sandy brown hair. In this picture, it had been lighter than Cole’s, but it had darkened to match his father’s by the time he enlisted in the military. “One fall day, I had the window cracked, and I heard Lawrence say, ‘Dude, your mom has an awesome rack.’”

Jon’s eyes lit with amusement. “Well, she does.”

She shook her head at him. “Kyle bounced the ball off his forehead and made this gagging noise before he said, ‘Deadhead, that’s my freaking mom. She’s…Mom.’”

“Do you feel like you’ve lost that identity?”

She pursed her lips. “Yes and no. No, because I’ll always be his mother. Always. But yes, because I lost it before he died, when I let his father turn him against me.”

Thinking about it, she realized that picture was the last one that had been taken before that change began to happen.

“I should have been stronger,” she said. “Should have stood up for myself instead of trying to placate and figure out what I was doing wrong.”

She didn’t need Jon’s affirmation or denial of that. It was an epiphany she’d reached, acknowledging her past mistakes, while understanding that she couldn’t change them. But she could do her best not to make the same ones again.

“There was a core to him that was so very gentle, so different from Cole. Yet he wanted his father to love and approve of him so much. Kyle already had my love, unconditionally, and he knew it. It sounds odd to say, but I think it made him value it less. Maybe because I realized too late that unconditional love doesn’t mean accepting unconditionally whatever your child says or does to you. It also meant teaching him to treat me with respect, because I deserved it.”

She sighed. “But it is what it was. Kyle did well in the military. I'm not sure if he wanted to be in the military as much as Cole wanted to have a son who was a soldier. He was a good soldier, but I noticed from his letters what Kyle liked most was the infrastructure stuff, helping villages rebuild, getting aid to people, that kind of thing.”

Jon stroked her hair, winding it around his fingers. “What happened to Lawrence? Did they stay friends?”

“Yes. Though he never became much taller, Lawrence lost a lot of weight and became more athletic. They entered the service together, but different areas. In one of Kyle’s letters, he said Lawrence had gone into a special forces branch, like Rangers or SEALs.”

She looked down at another picture and couldn’t help smiling. “This one was the day I taught Kyle to ride a bike. He was six. No training wheels. I was just thinking about that the other day, when one of my therapy patients came in and said he and his wife had been helping his daughter to ride her bike without training wheels.”

She traced her hand over that picture. It didn’t matter she’d just done it to the other one. It was Kyle, at different ages, different memories, and she liked connecting to those moments through touch. “We were both laughing when he figured it out. After a while, he stopped the bike, threw his arms around me and asked me to spin him. He liked that. He was almost too big for me to do it at that point, but I managed it. I’m glad to be getting those memories back, spontaneously like this.”

At Jon’s quizzical brow, she explained, a shadow crossing her heart. “For a long time, the ones that came to mind the most were those near the end. When he treated me like Cole did. Then, the coffin coming back…the funeral. The way Cole acted.”

Jon moved his stroking touch to her shoulder, her upper arm, holding her closer to his side. She could feel his desire to protect. Help. It was a reminder of how a woman could rediscover her strength, when a good man supported and loved her.

“Thanks to you, I started getting those other memories back,” she said. “I realized I made mistakes, but I didn’t deserve contempt. Cole made me believe that I did. I let him do that to me. I would have figured it out eventually…and Kyle would have figured it out, too. I knew his heart. He was a loving boy. Time. We just ran out of time, but there was never a moment he wasn’t loved. He might not have been at a place to appreciate it, but…”

She wiped away tears, smiling when Jon helped with his long, gentle fingers. “I was meditating not too long ago and…I felt it. Felt him. Felt his love, like he was reaching across that space, and I knew he was okay. We were okay. I suspect that’s been there waiting for me, waiting for me to lift the walls I’d put up around myself, sealing in all that grief and guilt. The guilt drained out, the past let go, and there he was.”

She took a breath. “I heard him. Just a word. Mom. It was everything.”

He put the photo album aside and held her, letting the tears take her. The cry was hard, as it always was, with a lot of body-wrenching sobs. However, for the first time since Kyle’s death, the grief didn’t take her into despair. When the tears ebbed, she was on a quiet, contemplative shore, held in Jon’s arms. And she felt as if life, horrible as it could be, held a lot of mystery and wonder, and Kyle was cocooned somewhere in that mystery, safe and well.

When she eased back, Jon pressed his lips to her forehead. She rested her palms on his chest, the white shirt front, inhaling the fabric and all it held. The K&A offices, the New Orleans city streets, their home…and the unique scent that was all him.

Removing his arm from her shoulders for only a moment, Jon reached toward the coffee table. She noticed a trade-size booklet that he must have placed there before coming to find her. So focused on his unexpected arrival and the photo album, she’d missed it. He handed it to her and put his arm around her again.

“This is the other reason I went in to the office. Cassandra was finishing it last night.”

Against a teal blue fabric cover was a glued wooden frame, which contained side-by-side pictures. One of Kyle as a baby, and one in his dress uniform, the last formal picture taken of him. Along each side of the wooden frame was a repeated stamped series of words in metallic gold. “In honor and memory of Kyle Madison. Rachel’s son.”

Her fingers were trembling, and she could feel new tears on her cheeks. Jon helped her turn the pages. There were nineteen. On top of his observant nature, Jon was a good listener. He and she had gone through the photo album they’d just been looking at before, and he’d apparently remembered the right picture to match Kyle’s age, one through nineteen. Because on each page was a reproduced color picture of Kyle at that age. Next to the picture was a photo of a gift appropriate to that year.

Romper Room toys, Lego sets, a colorful set of classic children’s stories, like Treasure Island and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Then a bicycle, music player, game box, and the list went on, all the way to nineteen.

“Those are the gifts we all donated to the local children’s home, in honor of Kyle.”

She clutched the book tight, laid her chin on the top of it, turning her face into Jon’s touch as he lifted his palm from her shoulder to cup her cheek. He used that pressure to direct her to lean back against him, tuck her head beneath his jaw as she held the book against her breast.

“You’ve been working on this a while.” She took a tremulous breath. “Oh, Jon. I really am sorry. To think I thought… I really do sometimes revert to the way I thought before, that I have to handle everything alone. Part of it is the submissive thing, I think.”

“Yes, it is.” He squeezed her. “But the kind of submissive you were before. You know better now. That’s why you called me. Not soon enough, mind you.” The lines around his riveting eyes creased in humor as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “So that’s three. Tomorrow, after Kyle’s day is done, we’ll start our morning with a stimulating punishment.

“Promise?” Her stomach muscles fluttered as she contemplated it.

“Guaranteed. It is a birthday, after all, and what’s a birthday without a spanking? I think Kyle would have agreed with me that you should have known I wanted to be here with you, rather than not be bothered or burdened.” He tapped his belt with significance as he gazed up into the air. “Let's see. Since I believe Kyle is on yet another life’s journey, I think it makes the most sense to go with the age he’d be now. Don’t you?”

* * *

Returning to the present and the arms of her husband, the warm nest of their bed, Rachel let her gaze drift over her son’s smiling face in the photo montage. When she closed her eyes, that fond memory and Jon’s arms made it easy to fall into dreams.

Though just before she did, she remembered his promise about that girl-girl fantasy he and the other men were devising. The poignant memories of a mother gave way to the anticipatory flutters of a woman. How would it happen? And Dana…how did she feel about it? Would they be allowed to talk about it with one another beforehand?

Probably not. Jon, as much as the others, liked the sensual tension that not knowing what was going to happen could create. She had no doubt of one thing, though. When it did happen, it would be another sexual adventure she’d dreamed of, but never expected to have.

* * *

The wait wasn’t long. Wednesday night, as they were washing up their few dinner dishes together, he told her there was a Friday night poker game planned at the K&A board room.

“Oh. That’s good.” Though she was secretly disappointed that they would have to miss or move their Friday night ritual, she never begrudged him time with the K&A men. Guys needed guy time, the same way girls needed girl time, and a poker night would certainly need to be on a weekend night when no one had to get up early for work. “Do you want me to make some of those homemade baked chips that Ben and Lucas like?”

“They’d appreciate that. But you’ll be coming with me. As my submissive. Remember what we talked about a few days ago? The girl-girl fantasy?”

She was glad she had her hands in the soapy water, not holding a dish to hand over to his side. “Um, yes.”

Jon, apparently in a far calmer state, put the plate he was rinsing in the drainer. He propped a palm on the edge of the sink and ran a hand down her back, caressing the top of her buttocks and then dropping his touch to caress those curves, rub them in a slow, circular and completely distracting manner.

“Dana will be there with her Master. You’ll be there as service subs. To handle drinks, snacks, and whatever else is needed.” His eyes sharpened upon her. “Whatever I tell you to do, you’ll do.”

“Always, Master.” The response, and the move into that headspace, was immediate. His intent gaze reflected his approval. He lifted his touch to pick up a towel and gestured to her to give him her wet hands. He folded them up in the towel and began to dry them, massaging her fingers through the terrycloth.

“Since you work a half-day on Fridays, I want you to schedule a massage with Sally,”—her co-worker who did massages for the PT patients—“and then plan on coming home, taking a bath and getting a good nap. Nothing but pleasurable, relaxing activities.” He squeezed her hands through the towel. “Just like your usual Friday ritual prep, I’ll provide you any instruction you need. You’ll come to my office at six-thirty.”

He spread the towel over the dishes in the drainer, and wrapped an arm around her waist, bringing her up against his body for a teasing kiss, a nip of her bottom lip. “Now, let’s watch some NCIS reruns.”

Really? Being pulled right up against his body, she could tell she wasn’t the only one aroused by their Friday plans. Jon drew back enough to thread his hand through her hair, give it a tug.

“You’re hell to resist, sweet girl, when you have that hungry look in your eye, and your soft body is right here, mine for the taking. But none for either of us until Friday. I want your mind totally on your Master’s desires between now and then. As for me, I want to be fueled by everything I plan on doing to you that night. It will make me particularly demanding.”

Imagining what that could mean only made her desires worse. And NCIS wasn’t a random choice. They both liked the show, but he knew she had all sorts of Dom fantasies about Mark Harmon’s stern Gibbs character. Fuel to the fire, indeed.

Well, she had her revenge at bedtime, since Jon liked her to wear nothing or one of the silky, transparent gowns he’d bought her to bed. She chose a blue-gray one that was like a shimmering storm cloud over ocean waters, the fabric clinging and flowing in all the right ways. She wasn’t trying to make him change his mind. Not exactly.

When she came out of the bathroom, brushing out her hair, he was lying on the top of the covers in nothing but a pair of black sleep shorts while he read something on his tablet. She paused in the doorway, gaze coursing over the fit, muscled body, the light layer of black hair on his chest, the way strands of his dark hair feathered over his brow. The pursing of his sensual lips and crease of his silken brows as he worked out whatever problem he had on the screen.

As soon as she shifted, however, his gaze immediately rose to her, coursing over her from head to toe. She was wearing lace panties beneath the nightgown in the same color and sheer fabric.

“Couldn’t take pity on your Master and wear flannel?”

“My Master didn’t include that in his list of my bedtime clothing choices.” Her lips quirked, and she pointed at his mostly exposed body with her hair brush. “But I could say the same.”

He grinned. “I’m allowed to be a sadist.” Then his expression became more focused and he set aside the tablet, lacing his fingers behind his head as he studied her. “Take off the gown. Leave on the panties.”

He was planning to have her sleep with him that way, another method to drive them both crazy. To ensure that Friday night, she would be so mindlessly aroused she wouldn’t worry about anything. And he would have a backlog of ideas of things to do to her, just as he’d threatened. The plan wasn’t a bad one. Just agonizing, enduring the wait.

She unlaced the thin ribbons, unbuttoned the tiny row of buttons over the straining bodice, and let the gown slide off her shoulders. She could have drawn the whole thing over her head, but if there was one thing she’d learned, her Master liked presentation.

“I am the luckiest fucking man in the universe,” he murmured, his blue eyes suddenly very heated and focused on her curves. “Cup your breasts and toss your hair back, lifting your chin.”

She did it, her fingers slightly quivering, same as her knees did when he issued orders in that thick voice.

“Your nipples are so swollen. Do they need attention, sweet girl?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come here.”

She came to the side of the bed and Jon slid an arm around her hips, molding a palm to her left buttock. He cupped her breast, much as she had, only with a much more significant impact on her senses. She bit back a little moan as he watched her face, the working of her throat and parting of her lips.

“My girl is shamelessly wet, isn’t she?”

She nodded. He curled a finger around her hair, wrapped it to draw her down toward him. She strangled on a cry as he licked her right nipple lightly, oh-so-lightly. And he kept doing it. No suckling, just the friction of his tongue teasing all the sensitive nerve endings. Her hands opened and closed at her sides. She knew he wouldn’t want her to touch without invitation, that he wanted all her focus on this, and how it was making her feel. Sometimes she wished she didn’t know so much about what he expected of her.

The half-humorous, all-desperate thought disappeared into liquid need as he shifted to give the other nipple the same treatment.

When he drew back, the throbbing between her legs was as forceful as her pounding heartbeat. She bit back a startled noise as he slid both arms around her and used his impressive strength to lift and swing her over him. He laid her down beside him, her facing away so he could spoon around her, one arm over the top of her bare breasts, their weight resting on his other forearm, wrapped above her waist. He pushed his solid erection against her bottom.

“Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” she said, her breath a rasp, especially when he curled one hand around her throat and tightened it. Another surge of arousal gripped her, and she knew the panties were going to be soaked.

Dropping his other hand, he curled his fist around the Brazilian-cut back and twisted, pulling the crotch up in the front and compressing her clit.

“How do I know if I fuck you now, that you’ll be as hot and wet as I want you to be on poker night?”

“Because I never stop wanting you, Master. Never.” She dropped her head forward as he set his teeth to her shoulder again, only this time he bit her far harder, making her mewl but not pull away. Never.

He changed his grip, pulling the panties to the side, and she let out a moan of relief as his cock slowly pressed into her, sliding into the heated wetness with ease, despite the more challenging angle. Once he was halfway in, Jon banded his arm low around her hips and brought her all the way down on him in a decisive, firm movement that tore a groan from her lips.

“That’s my girl.” He tightened his hand on her throat. With that and the arm around her waist, he started to bring her down on him in a pounding, demanding stroke. He didn’t stroke her clit at first, making her wait for that stimulation as he got harder and thicker inside her, as his breath rasped against her ear.

Then he moved the hand that had been holding her panties and laid his palm over her mound, his fingertips pattering in little maddening touches over her clit. The build-up happened slow, but was intense. When she was ready to shriek with the sensations, he knew it.

“Let me hear you, Rachel.”

She expected she let everyone in the county hear it, but she didn’t know how to stop, and her Master didn’t want her to hold back, anyway. As he began to release inside her, she rocketed over the pinnacle, screaming out her pleasure, which only built as his massage of her clit became firmer, more insistent.

His groan against her ear, the animal sounds of his release, were blissful to her. They moved together on the sheets, the ceiling fan giving them a touch of cool air for their damp and heated skin when they finally slowed. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest against her shoulder blades. Finding his hand at her waist, under her breast, she took it and held on. When she did, her hand tightened almost of its own accord, as if it had received a message deep from her soul, yearning and afraid.

She closed her eyes, dispelling such things, but he responded to the pressure, holding her even closer. Everything in his presence reassured her, his touch and heat a guarantee that wrapped around her. It was like a coat providing shelter for the room inside her where it felt as if it would always be endless winter. When he spoke, he nudged her away from that cold place with lighter words.

“Such a bad girl. Teasing your Master.”

She smiled against the arm he had propped beneath her head. “I was just following his orders, wearing one of the things he’s approved for me to wear to bed.”

“I’ll make a note to add footy pajamas in that godawful seventies green to the list.” He paused. “No, that won’t work. You’ll still look gorgeous. Though it would disturb me on so many levels, I’d still have a hard-on if you wore that.”

She chuckled and elbowed him, but then he started stroking her hair and she subsided. He moved from her hair to her shoulder and side, his hands strong and soothing, his body a comfortable bulwark behind her. Though she thought if they hadn’t taken the edge off, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep, his hands said differently. His touch always possessed this magic, equally able to arouse or bring her peace. Before long, she was easing toward a dreamless sleep.

Right before she did, however, she remembered how the evening had started. On Friday, she was going to be part of a girl-girl fantasy. In front of all five K&A men.

Excitement and worry returned, all at once. Her sleep might not be so dreamless after all.

* * *

It took a great deal of effort to concentrate and give a hundred percent to her morning yoga classes and afternoon PT clients, but she did it, because she refused to let herself give them anything less than her best. Plus, as Jon said, it just made that knife edge of need grow sharper.

His behavior only added to that. After that first night, he kept his resolve—and his Master nature came out in full force. Curling up behind her in their bed the next night, he stroked her body however he pleased, until she was biting back moans of frustration. He’d told her to be still, but on an involuntary jerk, she pressed her hips back into the cradle of his and couldn’t stop herself from rubbing against his steel erection.

He circled her waist with one strong arm and turned them both, so he was sitting up, feet on the floor, and she was over his knees.

“You know better,” he admonished, and the hair brush she’d left sitting on the nightstand landed with a solid whack against her buttocks. It was his favorite way of spanking her, except for his hand.

She bit back a yelp, strangled on moans as he gave her an even more vigorous than usual punishment with the brush, caressing her cunt in between strokes. During the last few hits, he slid his fingers into her, so she was squeezing down on him. When he removed his hand, she was so in need of release tears were in her eyes. He kissed them away, laid her on the bed, kissed her mouth gently, soothed her down with those magic hands and told her how she was an amazing submissive, and how lucky a Master he was. How proud he was of her.

He knew the emotional always held more sway over her than the physical, even when she was at the very edge of that pinnacle. She curled in his arms, stopped shuddering at length, and was content, knowing she’d pleased him by not climaxing. Building the response he wanted to unleash on Friday.

She did find herself thinking about what he’d meant, though, about this being a delayed first anniversary gift. Why had he waited?

She would find out. No reason to think about it too much. To think too much about anything. Not that her telling herself that ever did much good when a concern decided to take root and spread out thorns.

No, that wasn’t true. She’d gotten much better at taking a mental spade to those thoughts and digging them out. Even if she never seemed to get all the roots, she was successful more often than not these days, trimming them down so they couldn’t infiltrate every aspect of her life.

The next day, she felt the lingering burn of that punishment on her ass whenever she had to sit during physical therapy. Thank Goddess, it was Friday, but the minutes ticked by so slowly. Work helped, her clients keeping her busy and distracted, and Sally gave her a wonderful massage at lunch time that helped her muscles relax, even if her mind didn’t. Once she arrived at home, it felt like the clock was going backwards. She followed his direction, however, doing a little gardening, reading until she fell asleep, and then eating a light dinner before soaking in the grotto.

The closer it came to the time she would head for the K&A tower, the more stimulated she felt by the lightest brush of anything against her skin. She had no concentration. He’d left her three envelopes of instructions and a go-bag on the bed. Each one had a note on it as to when she was supposed to open it. The first envelope was the only one she was allowed to open at home.

Wear whatever is easy to take off, gorgeous sub. You won’t be wearing it long.

The paper seemed to hold a hint of his scent as she brought it to her nose. She imagined him writing it, the fall of dark hair over his brow as he concentrated. She was always tempted to stroke her fingers through those soft strands during such a moment. A thought which brought back to mind his departure this morning, when he’d given her a melting heat level kiss, full of promise. His hands had roamed over her as he’d pressed her up against the wall by the door, his tongue teasing hers, teeth catching her bottom lip.

“I hate you,” she said, when he released her and picked up his briefcase. A sexy grin that made her want to bite his lips was his answer.

She donned slacks and a blouse, a variation of what she wore to work. It was comfortable and, more importantly, easy to shed. Then, finally, she was in her car and on her way to the New Orleans business district, allowing enough time to navigate the remains of Friday rush hour traffic.

All the way there, she struggled to focus on her driving, and mildly regretted telling Jon she preferred to drive rather than have him send a car. Normally, she didn’t feel like her blood was about to burn through her skin like paper and turn her into living flame while she was negotiating traffic.

When she finally pulled into the parking deck, her heart was thumping, her mind full of imaginings of what would happen when she stepped off the elevator at the executive floor of Kensington & Associates.

The sun was setting. Tonight it would be clear, she knew. Which meant the stars would be out, with a sliver of moon. A romantic night. A perfect New Orleans night.

After she found a parking spot, she opened the cream-colored paper of the second note. He could have sent the messages to her phone, but when it came to things like that, her hi-tech inventor always went old-school. And romantic. Her lips curved when daisy petals tumbled out of the folded paper onto her lap.

When you get off the elevator, your only identity is that of my submissive. You will not speak unless addressed by me or one of the other Masters. Go to the ladies’ room, and stand directly in front of the mirror. Take off everything but your collar, and put on the robe I’ve left you. They’re in the go-bag. Leave the robe open.

I know you’re wet for me, sweet girl. Don’t do anything to change that. There are four gifts from the others in a box on the table. Put them on. Then come to the board room, where you will circle the table once, showing all of us how beautiful you are. After that, you will kneel by the door until you are commanded to do otherwise.

I love you.

It didn’t surprise her that he would add that at the end, a reminder and a promise. She ran her fingers over the words, picked up the daisy petals and touched them to her lips, enjoying the silken feel of the slender pieces.

As far as being wet, he was right; she’d spent the day half-aroused. Now his instructions took her all the way there. Her body quivered with anticipation, the desire to be touched. Commanded.

Leaving the car, she went to the elevator, entering the family code that would take her to the top floor. Family. She took a breath. She was part of this rather unusual family of Dominants and submissives, whose interactions with one another would likely be considered wrong by others. She thought about how she felt with Jon, however, and knew those other people’s truths were not hers.

She’d had no worries about being on the parking deck at night, alone except for the few cars that had been there. She recognized Ben’s Mercedes Roadster, Matt’s BMW. Lucas had likely biked into work and would take a company car home. Jon’s vehicle was there, a sporty thing that was a hydrogen fueled prototype. Ironically, it was parked next to Peter’s gas-guzzling Hummer, making her smile.

But more than the reassuring evidence of their presence, she wasn’t worried, because K&A security was top notch. There were eyes on the cameras positioned around the deck. Anyone up to no good was sent on their way with a clear understanding that they would not be returning. A homeless person who took refuge in the parking garage was courteously escorted to the shelter run by members of Dana’s church, and given a bed for the night, as well as access to whatever resources they were willing to accept.

That thought caused an additional smile in her heart. Matt Kensington was known as a hard businessman. There was a ruthlessness to him that could give a girl curled toes, but he and the men who worked with him were generous with the blessings they’d achieved, never hesitating to act for those less fortunate who needed a hand getting back on their feet.

The elevator doors opened. She was looking at Janet’s desk, empty this time of night, but left as neatly ordered as she’d expect from Matt’s terrifyingly efficient admin. Janet was also a Mistress, a popular one, at their local preferred BDSM club, Progeny. But Savannah said Janet wasn’t involved with anyone outside the club, no personal attachments. Rachel wondered who might change that. Yes, she was a hopeless romantic, but she couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to find love, or at least staying open to the possibility, if it presented itself.

She heard male voices drifting down the hall. A husky laugh—Peter’s—came from the board room. She heard Matt respond—she couldn’t make out words, but when Jon and Lucas jumped in with their own input and Ben laughed as well, all of those different timbres ran velvet over her skin. They also set off butterflies in her stomach that fluttered right up into her chest. They were men whose voices carried those elements that would attract a woman’s attention. Masculine, confident, resonating alpha. But also kind and intelligent.

Standing there in the dim light projected by the off hours power saving fixtures, she was listening to men she was here to serve. Masters who would be treating her as a submissive from the second she crossed their threshold tonight. It added another quality to their voices, stripping off some of the top layers to a more primal level that made those butterflies become more manic.

Not in a bad way. It was the type of anxiety that tightened her body, readied it, and called forth the need in her that had stayed unmet so long. It could surge forth so powerfully, take her over, sometimes in bad ways. But that had been before Jon, when she had no compass for it, no way to channel it, so it had been chaotic energy, no control or direction. He’d been the missing piece, providing both of those things. Understanding the depth of her need, he’d engineered this tonight. Another chance to step deeper into this world, leave the debris of the past, the condemnations and judgments, even further behind.

Those condemnations and judgments hadn’t been easy to shake. Cole’s truth, that her desire to be a submissive was wrong and sick, still clung to her at times, dragging her down. Even now, after several years of marriage, every time Jon gave her a new room to visit in this world, she’d find herself hesitating at the threshold just like this. Warring between excitement and dark fear, where a part of her wanted to retreat, curl up and burrow, take cover before she could fail, disappoint.

Yet that was also the moment he’d extend a hand, take hers, the pressure and warmth of his fingers, the look in his dark blue eyes, driving away those fears, reinforcing what he’d told her in so many ways, spoken and unspoken, since they’d met.

Words that she found when she opened his third note, though she kept her ear tuned for Jon’s voice. Rose petals fell out of that one. He’d told her to open it here, when she was standing in the front office area. His intuition was uncanny, and one of the great reassurances of her life.

The only way you can disappoint me, sweet girl, is if you don’t follow your heart. Your own desires. I fucking love watching you get lost in those. It’s my favorite thing, and I love it when you surprise yourself.

He cursed rarely, so when he used it as an emphasis, it had impact. Closing her eyes, she stood with the note clasped in her hands, all her senses reaching out to the voices in the board room, one in particular. She needed to go to the ladies’ room and prepare, but Jon’s own note had to told her to follow her heart and desires, and she wanted to use that sensory input to take her even further from her fears, from anything that would detract from this amazing, possibly once-in-a-lifetime experience he’d prepared for her.

Then a different sound came from the room. A sharp thwack, followed by a woman’s moan. Rachel’s eyes opened, her fingers tightening on the paper. She knew it had to be Dana. Another thwack, another soft cry. Rachel swayed on her feet, eyes half closing again, as she got lost in that music. It took almost no thought to imagine herself in whatever position Dana was in, being paddled, for that was what she was almost sure was making that impact sound.

Her phone made the raindrops sound that told her she had a text. It pulled her out of her reverie and, when she removed it from her pocket to look at it, the words spiked a delicious ball of anticipation into her lower belly.

You’re making your Master wait, Rachel. That’s not a good idea.

She moved toward to the ladies’ room. As she pushed the door open and crossed the threshold, she was met with a faint, airy fragrance like clean linen. There was a bouquet of fresh flowers on the wide counter and Garden District watercolor scenes on the walls. A couch provided a place for a woman to sit if needed.

Remembering the instructions, Rachel moved to the mirror. But not before she noticed the shoebox-sized enamel box sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. A folded card on top of the box said simply “Our gifts.”

She wanted to take a closer look, but she needed to follow Jon’s instructions in order. As she set down her car keys on the counter, she noticed there were two temporary web cams mounted on either side of the mirror and angled right where she was standing.

Stand directly before the mirror…

She was being watched, and she knew exactly by whom. Wetting her lips, she began to unbutton her blouse. It was hard for her fingers not to shake as she imagined—no, not imagined, not if it was truly happening—five male sets of eyes watching her every move.

She shrugged out of it, but slowly, letting the silky fabric whisper down her arms. Putting her hands behind herself to unhook her bra, she released it and shifted her shoulders, a slight shimmy, to get it to tumble off her breasts. When she undressed alone, it was functional, quick. But she remembered how Jon had looked at her when she took off the nightgown by untying the ribbons and slipping those little buttons.

She suppressed the knee jerk part of her that was self-conscious, urging her to hurry. Her Master was watching. His friends, all Masters, were watching. She was here for their pleasure, and more than that, she wanted to give them pleasure. Make her Master proud.

So she kept her back straight and head up, displaying her generous breasts to their best advantage. She wiggled out of her slacks, turning around when she bent over to pick them up, drop them on the arm of the couch. Pivoting back to face the mirror, she looked at her body. Jon liked it when she did that, really looked at herself. She was yoga-toned, but not thin like Dana. She was a Renaissance painting, with D-breasts and generous hips, a round backside. Lifting her arms to release her hair, she shook her head and let the thick blond locks tumble down onto her now bare shoulders. Jon loved her hair. He also loved it when she did that, because it made her D-breasts quiver.

Last article of clothing. Hiding a mischievous smile, she sat down on the couch, still in view of the mirror cams when she perched on the edge, on the point of her buttocks. As she hooked her thumbs in the sides of her panties, she drew her legs up, knees bent, toes pointed to the floor. Tightening her core, she slid the panties up and over her knees, letting them fall off her toes. Then she bent to pick them up. The crotch panel was soaked through.

She obeyed her Master’s directive and didn’t staunch her dampness with the container of thick tissues on the counter. Instead, she laid the panties next to them.

She didn’t wear her collar at work, which only emphasized its significance when she put it on like this. She removed the velvet pouch from the go-bag, and loosened the drawstrings to slip the collar free. The band of silver wire was bound by gold posts. It also had a sapphire pendant, bound by wire, that nestled in the hollow of her throat when the collar was clasped snugly around her neck.

As she did that, she felt that lovely, dense stillness descend upon her. Her nipples became tauter, her body flushed. She lifted her hair to ensure she hadn’t caught any strands in the collar, then let it drop, the locks falling with a feathery touch across her shoulders again.

Pulling out the robe, she shook it out and found it was a lovely ivory color. When she slipped it on, the fabric was so soft it clung to her breasts and hips, and so sheer it showed the dark smudge of her nipples. It only came to mid-thigh.

Leaving it open, she moved to the coffee table, bringing the box back to the counter in front of the mirror. It might be the size of a shoebox, but they’d never use something so mundane. The enamel top of the box was a colorful garden scene, a 3D molding of different flowers. When she opened it, she found it was a music box. Along the top ledge of the lined interior was a strip of tiny enamel flowers. A small flock of butterflies, created with dyed pieces of silk and attached with thin pieces of wire, arced and spun over the flowers as the music played. It was a classical piece she didn’t recognize but which evoked spring days and the smell of sunlight and earth.

She loved her gardening, so the box was an enchanting gift, probably picked out by Jon. She let her gaze fall to the contents in the box’s well, and her eyes widened, her lips parting.

The first thing she saw was a pair of jeweled nipple clamps. Green-gray glittering stones that matched her eyes, mixed with silver scrolled beads, dangled below the rubber grippers. There was a note attached to them that she reached in and picked up to bring closer, the beads sliding against her knuckles.

Put these on only snugly enough to fit. Making them tighter is the privilege of a Master, not a sub. No name, but she knew they were from Peter. Each K&A man had their particular “specialty,” when it came to pleasuring a woman, though each was more than capable of taking care of her from head to toe. Peter’s was breasts.

A chain connected the clamps. There was also a chain attached to the middle of that chain, and she realized from the clip at the end it was intended to loop around her collar. It could be shortened as much as desired by reattaching it to any point in the chain. She imagined the pull on her nipples from that and pushed down a little frisson of fear. Peter liked to put clover clamps on Dana, which were painful and she hated as much as loved.

But no one would do anything to Rachel more than she could handle. Her Master knew her, knew what her limits were.

Aware that she was still under scrutiny, she lifted the first clamp. To fit them, she needed to pinch and roll her nipple. Given her current, aroused state, she had to stifle a moan at the spear of sensation that resulted, increasing as she turned the little screw the required number of turns to hold it in place.

After she did the same with the other, she looked at herself in the mirror again. Her nipples were turning a deeper rose from the compression, the sparkling chain draped between them. She connected the other chain to the base of her collar, forming a glittering web over her upper body.

Another deep breath, and back to the box. Next was a silver-coated plug with a flared base that looked like an open rose. There was a small tube of lube to go with it. Ben’s gift, because helping a woman discover just how erogenous an area the ass could be was his special gift.

The plug was a little larger than the one Jon sometimes inserted into her, so Rachel applied the lube generously before attempting to seat it. Once again thinking of her audience, and not allowing herself to be self-conscious, she turned away from the mirror, presenting her backside to view. One knee was slightly bent, her foot going up on the toes as she half-twisted her torso to begin to insert the plug.

She panicked a little, as at first she was too tight. Her arousal had some tension to it. Not necessarily the bad kind of tension. Just the “I’m going on a roller coaster that goes three hundred feet in the air and will come screaming straight back down” kind. An experience that combined excitement and terror into one adrenaline spike, because of what couldn’t be controlled. And these five men were controlled by no one.

Rachel took a few more breaths. Jon told her never to push. Always ease. It would go. She undulated her hips, tossed her hair back, and caught her lip in her teeth as she focused, focused…there. It made it through the first circle of muscles, and then the next, with only a bit of burning and discomfort, a fullness that was unsettling but not unpleasant.

She had to brace herself on the ledge at the additional wave of lust that suffused her as she seated the plug deep. She adjusted it to ease some of the burning, to relax her muscles further, and she bit down on her lip again. Goddess, she wanted to keep moving it, as her pussy reacted with a contraction, more arousal trickling down her thigh. But she knew that wasn’t permitted. Again, Master’s privilege.

Her fingers were shaking as she plucked out the next item. Just looking at it sent an additional spasm through her sex. From Lucas, the male who loved eating pussy better than anything in life. Jon’s description, but it had been echoed in various ways by the others during their social gatherings. Barbecues at Matt’s place, dinners at Lucas and Cass’s. Football games at Dana and Peter’s.

It looked like a large, thin coin, but according to the note with it, it folded over the clit and was pinched into place, a soft, moldable metal.

She experimented and found that was the case, though her breath became even more shallow as she used the pressure of her fingers and made it conform to her shape. Her clit throbbed like a small heartbeat in its hold.

One more gift. A pair of glossy black heels with a silver buckled strap to go around the ankles, like a cuff. The soles were sapphire blue. She was glad they weren’t needle thin stilettos, because she’d likely break her neck on the office carpet, but they were at least three inches. With surprise, she realized they had to be from Matt, because she was certain the enamel box was from Jon.

She sat back on the edge of the couch to put on the shoes, and suppressed a moan at the stimulation of the other three items, which expanded into a whole new wave of sensations when she bent to fasten the buckles on the ankle straps.

She rose, and thought again of her audience, what she could give them. Moving back to the mirror, she re-checked the positioning of the nipple clamps, and slid her fingers over the clit shield, caressing her labia briefly before she twisted around, lifting her backside toward the mirror to verify the positioning of the plug. Then she ran her fingers through her hair, tipping her head back. It was powerful, she realized. Being a purely sensual creature, able to immerse herself in her own eroticism, heightened by the voyeurism of five powerful men.

When she left the room, she walked with heightened awareness of her body’s movements. The sway of her hips, quiver of her breasts, the brush of her hair between her shoulder blades. Her pussy, ass and nipples throbbed from the stimulation of the men’s gifts, and the fluttering silk of the open robe made it even more torturous. Every caress of her skin with the fabric increased the impact of the toys, and what it all meant.

She’d taken off her clothes, put on the toys and robe. Now she walked in high heels across the cream and beige patterned carpet toward the board room where five Masters waited. Four she would serve in whatever way her Master allowed, because he knew the idea of serving them under his command excited her.

The thought stirred things deep down in her soul she’d never been allowed to consider okay, let alone expect to give the man she loved pleasure. Something that wouldn’t harm the love they bore for one another, but would only be another adventure they explored together.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Rachel. Just because he’s okay lending you out like the bitch in heat that you are, doesn’t make it right.

The exorcist-style injection of venom into her brain brought her to a full stop, her body jerking in a sudden, involuntary wave of dismay. The disruptive force poisoned the clean sensuality she’d been experiencing. Ruined it.

No. No, it didn’t. She clenched her fists, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Another. She’d been worried this would happen. Much more worried than she’d allowed herself to know or reveal, even to Jon. But she thought back to that day, looking at Kyle’s photo book. She wasn’t alone with these thoughts. She not only had Jon’s love, she had her own strength.

Though the voice was a warping in her subconscious, putting Cole’s voice on old insecurities and wounds, she gave him her answer.

“Just because you feel that way, doesn’t make you right. I know what love is. You made me forget. No. I allowed you to make me forget. I always knew what it was, in my heart. Limitless, undefined, between the hearts and souls of those who feel it. Jon opened up that room, let it free. Let me fly. You’ve no power over me. Not anymore. Go to hell.”

She started to walk again, letting out another breath, letting it go. Though she felt the fiercely uttered words down to the soul, she quickened her step. When she set her gaze upon Jon, felt the rightness of it, their truth, things would steady.

The door had been closed, though, and there was an envelope taped to it. Pausing, she saw Sweet Girl on the front, written in Jon’s hand. Pulling the envelope off the wood, she opened it and shook a satin black eye mask out in her hand.

No instructions needed, though the back flap of the envelope said, “Knock when ready.”

Her hand closed over the mask. She never refused a direct command, but for just a moment she struggled against the desire to open the door first, so she could put her eyes on him. Somehow, that would help validate what she’d just told her subconscious, put those ghosts back into the closet, help increase the strength of the lock on that door.

If she truly needed that, she could do it. But instead, uncertain, but wanting to obey her Master, she put the mask into place so it was securely pressed against her face, blinding her. Her heartbeat accelerated again, and the creases of her palm felt slightly damp.

She had so much going on in her head right now, but when she put the mask on, some of it became more still. She was really going to do this. But was she ready? Would those ghosts break out, would her emotions overcome her, would she ruin this…

Stop it, Rachel. Knock, damn it.

She knocked, stepped back. Waited. Footsteps and, when the door opened, she inhaled Jon’s scent, felt his warmth. She was right. Things steadied, her heartbeat leveling out as he clasped her hand.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he murmured. “Come with me.”

He guided her over the threshold, and brought her to a halt. Things had fallen silent, but she could feel the presence of the others, imagine them arrayed around the table. She could still hear Dana’s breathing, strained, little catches, and the implication of that sent more heat to Rachel’s core. She couldn’t tell where Dana was, but the noise seemed central to the room.

Which meant Dana was likely on the board room table. On display. Which set off a whole new confusing set of feelings.

Jon’s hand tightened on hers, drawing her attention. “You wanted to know why I didn’t give this to you on our first anniversary as planned. Would you like to know the answer to that now?”

She nodded, then remembered. If any setting could scream “official Dom/sub behavior required,” it would be this one. “Yes, Master.”

“Since we’ve been married, we’ve worked through a lot of things as Master and sub.” He touched her chin, thumb sliding over her lips. “You’ve had a long, hard road, Rachel.”

“I’m sorry for that, Master.”

“See, right there,” he said quietly. “You’ve gotten better, but you still apologize for things that are not yours to apologize for. Your strength has astounded me, the way you discover yourself more and more every day.

“The night I took you to Progeny, and my brothers gave you pleasure, that memory was tainted for you by Cole’s appearance. It was supposed to be a moment where you could let go of the past, embrace the future and your place in our family.”

“It did that,” she said earnestly, moved. “No matter what he did that night.”

“Yes and no. It was a good milestone for us, but a difficult one. I wanted you to have the night you should have had with us. A night that takes any thoughts you have, that it’s somehow wrong to want what you want, and gets rid of them, once and for all. We’re giving you this fantasy because that’s how we take care of what is ours.”

She swallowed. She thought she’d had a lot of things going on in her head. In Jon’s voice, it was obvious she wasn’t the only one carrying around a lot of feelings about things tonight.

“I want you to understand what a gift you’ve given me, Rachel,” he continued, keeping that fierce note. “Letting me take that journey with you. Knowing I’m the man you’ve chosen to be at your side as you heal, become more confident? It’s treasure. When we reach the end of tonight, I hope you’ll never question that again. But even if you do, it changes nothing. I hope you’ll understand that, too.”

Her brow furrowed, but he shifted the topic. “Now, truth. Is what we have planned tonight something you want? Something you will enjoy? Something you’ve fantasized about? I want you to set everything else aside, any worries or fears you have, think it through, and then answer me truthfully.”

As he spoke, he’d moved behind her. The mask loosened, fell away, and she was looking at what was directly in her line of sight.

Dana was on the table, in the center. She was on her hands and knees, draped over a padded stool that supported her mid-section. She’d been given the same gifts that Rachel had been—plug, nipple clamps, clitoral shield and sexy heels—though the soles of Dana’s shoes were mint green and the buckles were gold, and the jewels and beads on her clamps matched. She wore Peter’s collar, a wide strap with a waterfall of decorative chains and a St. Christopher’s medal pendant. She also had a ball gag stretching her mouth, the straps digging into her sculpted cheeks and buckled around the back of her head. Which was up, her chin pointed forward, a pose likely demanded by her Master. She was on display, a centerpiece.

Since Dana was blind, there was no need for a blindfold, so her Master had the pleasure of knowing her other senses were heightened, while he could still see the reactions in her pale green eyes. Her arousal was also communicated from the slight twitching of her hips, the quiver of her small breasts, a result of the breathy sounds escaping around the gag.

In her current position, Rachel was seeing Dana’s profile, but if she went to the end of the table, she would be able to see the glistening, flushed lips of Dana’s sex, the redness from the paddling, and likely the damp tracks of arousal that had already been coaxed from her. It made Rachel wonder what else they’d been doing to her before she arrived, or if being put on display like this after the spanking, decorated with the toys, had been enough.

“Is she something you want, Rachel?”

“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. Eagerly. She pressed back into the touch of his hands, his body against hers.

Wetting her lips, she let her gaze steal around the rest of the room. The men had fallen silent as she appeared, and she could feel all their eyes on her, though she didn’t meet any of them. Not just because they were Doms, but because she was too overwhelmed. They were all here. She’d known they would be, but actually seeing them was an impact on the senses almost more potent than the stimulation of the toys.

Walking vibrators, with a fifty-yard range. Dana had made that comment at Rachel’s bridal shower, sending all of them into peals of laughter. But it was the Goddess’s honest truth.

In their suits and ties, they were devastating to female senses. Casual wear was a different but no less pleasurable experience. Since at the moment all the men were standing at various places in the board room, her lowered gaze provided her the treat of a lot of well-fitted denim. Dark blue, stressed, faded to almost gray, black.

As she raised her gaze from the terrain of the dark blue jeans, she saw Peter’s rock band T-shirt had a workout, stretching over his massive shoulders and biceps.

Ben wore a hunter green T-shirt over the faded jeans. The shirt had a bar logo that included shamrocks and dragons. Ben had the body of a street fighter, a lot of layered, compact muscle, and a resting tension that made him seem eternally alert. Which made his humor and propensity for pranks an odd contrast, but it worked for him.

It was rare that she saw Matt in jeans, but the man wore them well, the black denim matched by a short-sleeved black button down loose over them. While no one had Peter’s mass, Matt was the closest, with broad shoulders, wide chest, and a musculature that was Brad Pitt Troy territory. Lucas wore the stressed jeans and a polo shirt embroidered with a bike marathon logo over the right pectoral. A devoted bike enthusiast, he had the lean, fit body to match.

And Jon. When he turned her to face him, she saw he had on a pair of belted black jeans, the blue dress shirt tucked into them bringing out the vivid color of his eyes. It was long sleeved, but he had the sleeves rolled up, embellishing the look of his strong forearms.

His were the eyes she could meet, needed to meet. When she did, he gave her a stern look and a quiet reminder. “Time to begin. Remember your instructions, Rachel.”

Walk around the room. Goddess give her strength. She left the threshold and moved into the space.

Other than the men themselves and of course Dana, what captured a person’s attention was their board room table. It was new, since they’d moved back to fully renovated New Orleans offices after Katrina. It filled her with pride to know her husband had been the designer of the center piece to this room.

The thick glass top had the shape of a lagoon, asymmetrical in a pleasing way. Decorative lines etched in the glass echoed those curves, like water that cut through the earth’s surface over time. The rounded ends of the table and slightly more narrow middle, reminded her of a woman’s curvy figure.

A foot below the glass top was a parallel platform of polished wood whose shape matched the shape of the glass table, only about two thirds of the size, so it didn’t interfere with the knees of those pulled up to it. The dark red-brown wood with black streaks was rosewood. It was supported with a cross piece beneath. She knew that because Jon had told her about the design of the table when he’d taken her to see it, before the office re-opened.

She’d learned about additional features—and why Jon was so involved in the design—from the other women. The etched grooves in the glass were functional as well as decorative. The glass could separate into six different pieces, smoothly sliding over each table leg to form side tables. If the executives needed to turn toward the multiple screens on the far wall for a video conference, such an option allowed them to shift their notes, tablets or laptops to that facing position. But that wasn’t what the women had wanted to tell her about.

The rosewood base divided into two pieces at the narrow waist part of the shape. It would tent like a drawbridge, turn over and come back together, revealing that the base frame was more than support. It also served as a St. Andrews’ cross, with bronze fixture pieces at the appropriate points for attaching chains, cuffs, etc. There were also additional tracks slotted into the thick wood platform, positioned above and below the crossing point of both beams, that permitted the attachment of a programmable arm. It could hold a variety of devices to pleasure a woman at any reasonable angle.

While a woman was lying on the cross, the glass top could be brought back together with another press of a control button, so the men could continue whatever they were doing, while the pleasurably tormented woman was displayed beneath glass.

Tonight, it simply looked like a table, but there were other options in the room she’d heard about that she didn’t doubt might be called into service. The thought of that added to the weakness of her knees. She noticed the table was covered with a large piece of black foam, about the thickness of her yoga mats. It was cut in the shape of the table surface, but slightly smaller, leaving about a foot of glass exposed along the perimeter. Seeing Dana’s hands and knees pressed into the cushioned support told her why it was there.

One side of the room was a bank of windows. She recalled the windows were tinted so, though she saw a romantic postcard view of the lights of the New Orleans business district, and the markers on the Mississippi riverfront, no one could see into their room. Recessed lighting gave the room an intimate ambiance, though she expected it could be brightened to a more businesslike wattage when needed.

Jon had also been involved in some of the feng shui elements of the room. A couple of their propagated Japanese maples were here, and a three-platform pedestal that bore a trinity of orchids, under which clever silver channels allowed a continuous flow of water to a basin. The sound was like the whisper of mist, the distant gurgle of a stream, rather than water falling from a faucet. The water moving from channel to channel relaxed and soothed, a meditative effect she might need to utilize a few times tonight, if Jon aroused her to the point of extreme agitation and then required her to hold back her release. A very probable certainty.

She saw the side bar was stocked with alcohol and snacks, including chocolate, because she scented it as she turned in that direction to begin her circle of the table.

She’d debated it in her head for a quick second—turn away from Jon, so she finished her circuit in front of him, or start with him, so she could perhaps receive a reassuring brush of his hand before she began? She chose the first option, because he would be able to touch her longer, if he wished, when she completed the task.

As she tried not to rush or go too slow, she realized she was self-conscious again. That wasn’t what she wanted to be feeling. She recalled how she’d felt in front of the mirror, thinking of their regard. Her head lifted, her back straightened, and she made the most of walking in the heels over the carpet. She let her hips swing naturally, and knew the change in posture had her breasts tilted, the taut peaks on display.

She didn’t make eye contact, but she was aware of each man’s gaze upon her as she passed. It wasn’t merely the lust-filled regard that came from men appreciating a naked woman in their midst. This was the focused attention of five sexual Dominants, appraising her as a submissive, there for them, under the control of her Master.

The thought sent another spurt of arousal through her, and she faltered slightly. Her clit was pulsing in the grip of the shield, her nipples aching for attention as the chain between the clamps beat a light tattoo against her skin. The extra swing in her hips had the plug doing incredible things inside her ass, so the more steps she made, the more sensations washed through her.

Jon often called her a goddess. The last time he’d done it, he’d brought her down upon him when he was sitting in his home office chair. He’d threaded her legs under the arms, then reached up to her face, murmuring the words.

You’re a goddess.

It was hard to explain to someone, how belonging to a Master could make a woman feel like a goddess, powerful beyond description. Not powerful like politician or businesswoman powerful; powerful because she was loved, and loved so completely she knew she could do anything.

While it hadn’t been scripted, when she reached Jon, she knelt before him where he stood. Leaning forward, she touched her forehead to his knee, something she often did at home when they started a session. He touched her head, just as he did then, completing the ritual.

She remembered she was supposed to go to the door now, so she started to rise. Not unexpectedly, he put a hand under her elbow, helping her, but when his grip tightened, telling her he wanted her to stay where she was, she was more than happy to comply.

Gathering her hair up in one fist, he tugged it idly as he half-circled her, so her head was following his movements, her eyes upon him. Using his other hand, he curled his fingers on the back of the robe collar. Understanding, she rolled her shoulders back, and the robe slid off her shoulders, gathering at her elbows. He shook his head when she would have dropped her arms to let it slide completely free, so she stopped, the garment pooled at her elbows and waist, her arms bent and fingers lightly tangled together to keep it there.

He released her hair, letting it fall down her back. The strands whispered over her bare skin. He slid his palm over her shoulder, curled the fingers to trail his knuckles along the outside of her breast, then descended to her hip, beneath the robe. As he reached her buttock and caressed her there, he moved behind her and tugged so she straightened her arms and the robe fell free into his hands. He draped it over a chair and stood behind her, his breath caressing her ear and throat. He was so close she could lean back against him, but she controlled herself. With effort.

“Are you beautiful to your Master, Rachel?”

She straightened another inch, making sure her posture reflected her answer, though she kept her gaze lowered. “I am, Master. And I am beautiful to myself.”

“And to every man here.” The words came from Matt. He was across the room. His strong voice was always clear and decisive, so authoritative, it was difficult to imagine doubting any words he spoke. Especially in this environment.

“You spoke the right answer, sweet girl.” Jon curled his hand around her waist and brought her back against him with decidedly possessive force, his jaw nudging her head back to his shoulder as he set his mouth and teeth to her throat.

“I am giving you to them tonight, Rachel. To their desires and my own. When one of them tells you to do something, you obey them as you would me. But I’ll be with you every step of the way.” When she made a soft noise, both nervous and eager, he teased the pocket of her collarbone with his tongue, made her fists clench as he trailed the tip of it along the column of her throat, gently suckling her flesh with his firm lips.

“There was a time, me suggesting this would have taken you to a dark place.” He stopped, but kept his lips close enough she could still feel the heat of his breath. “Cole made you feel bad about your desires, ashamed to want your Master to do such a thing. Yet now you’re trembling and wet.”

His hand descended, slid between her legs and caressed, playing with the metal piece over her clit. She caught a moan in the back of her throat. “Do you feel any shame? Any fears or dark thoughts?”

“No, Master. Yes.” She wet her lips at the contradiction and admission. His fingers stilled, so she continued, hastily. “I did in the hallway, but I told him his words have no power over me anymore. Even so…I’m afraid I’ll feel those things when I don’t want to feel them. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you. Even though I feel nothing right now but a desire to serve you.”

“Your honesty is the second-best gift you give me. It proves your love, which is the first. So, how can you best serve me? It’s been the most difficult lesson for you to learn, but I think you’re beginning to understand and feel it in your heart, aren’t you?

“Yes, sir.” His written note immediately came to mind. “By getting lost in my own desires, since that pleases you most of all.”

“It does.” His voice took on a teasing note. “Though given the ways you could pursue your own desires tonight, I might have to choose some interesting ways to remind you who your Master is.”

“And that’s a threat, how?”

She flushed with pleasure, not only at his sensual laughter, but the sexy chuckles of the other men.

“We might have two misbehaving subs on our hands,” Ben observed. “It only took five minutes before we had to put the ball gag on Dana.”

Jon caressed Rachel’s mouth. “What would you prefer stretching your mouth, Rachel? A gag or a cock?”

She moistened her lips, catching his finger with her tongue, a quick flick. “Your cock, Master.”

“Only mine?”

He’d trapped her neatly, and she flushed again as another ripple of amusement went through the room. The intention was to tease her, she knew it, but something else went through her, something darker. Bitch in heat…

“Easy.” Jon ran his hands slowly down her arms and back up, even as he brought his body closer, which pressed his pelvis firmly against her backside and the plug. She gasped as he reached between them and manipulated it, seating it deeper. She clutched the arm that suddenly circled her waist and he spoke against her ear, his jaw to her throat. “If I gift one of my brothers with the lush pleasure of your mouth, it will be because it’s what I order you to do. Serving me pleases my sub, and her pleasure pleases me. Remember?”

“Yes, Master,” she breathed. Jon had done this exercise with her often, never allowing her to be frustrated with herself. He knew how to use targeted questions that pointed her back toward the right path.

“Would you want to do it if I wasn’t here? If I hadn’t ordered you to do it? Think it through, but more importantly, feel it. Feel the honest answer in your heart and don’t be afraid to say it.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I wouldn’t have the slightest desire if it wasn’t my Master’s will. If it didn’t give him pleasure. Or me pleasure.”

“Good,” he said, in that voice that could stroke her nerves like a song. He turned her to face him, hands on her shoulders. “Now, I want you to get on the table. Go to Dana, and remove her gag. I want you to kiss her.”

Her gaze flicked up to him, showing her surprise. He stroked his thumb over her lips, his hand on her face. “Can you imagine that, sweet girl?”

She could, and the idea of it had her unconsciously wetting her lips. Jon’s blue eyes lit with sparks of fire. “But that’s all you get to do. For now. You can’t touch her below the shoulders, but you can kiss and caress her all you wish within those parameters. Don’t stop until I tell you to do so.”

She realized the men were moving to take seats around the table, but when Jon turned her and nudged her toward it, she was only thinking of what he’d just told her to do. And that was a mistake.

On her walk around the table, she’d kept the right amount of her mind on her balance. Even though they were only three inches, what most women would consider easy, she didn’t wear high heels often, at least not for walking. Jon enjoyed seeing her wear them in the bedroom, while on her back, her legs raised, or on all fours, her backside in the air, the heels pointed outward over the edge of the bed. So she was mortified when she snagged the carpet and started to take a plunge.

A pair of strong hands immediately caught her. Two pairs. Peter and Ben had both moved quickly. It couldn’t help but make her blush, give her more butterflies. Their rapid response spoke to their obvious close attention to her every movement.

“We were hoping you would do that,” Ben teased her. “Give us a chance to be chivalrous. I don’t know how you women walk in those things at all. But God bless you for wearing them.”

“That drag queen down in Texas offered you the chance to wear her boots,” Lucas reminded him from the other side of the table. “She said you two were the same size. I was looking forward to that.”

“Yeah, because you like to stare at the swing of my ass,” Ben retorted.

“It’s so cute and tight, how can we resist?” Peter said dryly.

Rachel hid a smile and Ben tugged her hair, his other hand still resting on her lower back. “Hey, no disrespect of a fellow Dom in front of the subs. Else I’ll have to be all the harder on them to make them behave.”

“That’s exactly what you’re hoping,” Jon said.

“Damn right.”

Jon’s hands took the place of Peter’s on her opposite hip. Ben’s hand slipped away, though the lawyer’s response had added exponentially to the lingering heat of his touch.

“Rachel, I told you where I want you,” Jon said. “And you know I don’t like repeating myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Figuring out the best way onto the table took only a second, because the question was answered for her. Jon turned her toward him and lifted her onto it, putting her backside on the cool surface. He pushed his body between her legs as he gave her another brush of his lips. “Turn over and go to her on your hands and knees,” he instructed.

“Yes, praise God,” someone murmured. Possibly Ben.

“Once you get to her,” Jon continued, “sit up on your knees, and have her do the same. She has cuffs on each wrist. Draw her arms up so her wrists are behind her head, and latch them to the back of her collar. I want your bodies close, so press your knee against her cunt, your other one to her hip on the outside. Mind the heels on the glass.”

“Yes, sir.” As he backed off, she shifted, pulling her legs up onto the table in a fold and then rolling from there to her knees. It was an easy enough move to do with her yoga experience, but she didn’t usually walk on her hands and knees. However, a glimpse of glittering male gazes became a weighted blanket of heat. It helped her add sinuous grace to the movements as she made her way to the center of the table.

The cut size of the mat meant her knees were immediately pressed into the cushioned support, no chance of her having to handle the unyielding surface beneath.

These men could be hard on their subs. Every one of them had a ruthless side. When the ladies met for their monthly girls-night, they shared stories with one another freely. But those ruthless moments were always, always balanced with notes like this, ways to protect and care for them. Any discomfort or pain was the kind that led to pleasure, a mindless surrender, a letting go, to simply be this.

Theirs.

She reached Dana and inhaled the woman’s scent, so familiar to her. Perhaps because of what they were, the women were frequently physically affectionate with one another. At those female get-togethers, they often retired to Cassandra’s sun porch with glasses of wine, and Dana liked to sit close to Rachel, her fingers playing in Rachel’s hair. Sometimes she laid her head in Rachel’s lap.

Now they had permission to take physical affection, the bond of friends, subs, family, even further—to sexual enjoyment and indulgence. It gave the caress she feathered over Dana’s cheek a different, lingering feel. Either because she was already heavily aroused or because she sensed it, Dana turned her face into Rachel’s hand, brushing her cheek and nose against her palm.

Rachel unbuckled the gag, sliding it out, stroking Dana’s nape as she did so. Dana had dark hair, soft and wooly, closely shorn so it emphasized the shape of her skull, her swanlike neck. Rachel had seen a couple of pictures of Dana before the explosion that had taken her sight, and she’d had sharp cheekbones. The IED had done a lot of damage to one side of her face, but the brilliant cosmetic surgeon had compensated, so that her cheeks weren’t as well defined, but they had a soft line to them that drew attention to her lush lips and firm but feminine chin.

The gag had been wrapped in a cloth to absorb the saliva, and there was a small silver tray next to the woman, with a tube of lubricant sitting on it, ready for further use. Rachel put the ball gag there.

Dana’s cochlear implant helped her hearing considerably, but she still missed things, and Rachel suspected her friend hadn’t heard Jon’s specific instructions, murmured against her ear. She expected he’d kept his voice low specifically so they could enjoy hearing her repeat his instructions.

Rachel stroked Dana’s mouth to ease the strain of the gag. “Our Masters want us to kiss. Sitting on our heels, your knee pressed against…between my legs. Mine the same with you.”

Despite the arousal that still gripped her, her body reacting with twitches under Rachel’s touch, a tiny smile appeared on the black woman’s face. “Can’t say pussy aloud, girlfriend?” she whispered.

Rachel tugged her earlobe playfully, then delivered the rest of the instructions. “You need to sit up, so I can put your wrists behind your neck, attach the cuffs to your collar.”

Dana nodded. Rachel steadied her as she sat up, and when Dana spread her knees, Rachel confirmed what she’d concluded earlier. Dana’s sex was wet and swollen with arousal. It was the first time she’d had the pleasure of viewing another aroused woman this close. Though she’d had her fantasies, Rachel was still surprised at her strong urge to reach down and stroke Dana there, feel a slick, aroused…pussy, that wasn’t her own. She bet Dana’s clit beneath the metal piece was throbbing just as hard as her own.

But her Master had been clear on what was allowed, and Rachel knew punishment would result for disobedience. Another surprise—while she wasn’t sure what form that would take here, she had a very unwise desire to find out. She suspected Dana already had, and the gag and paddle had been the consequences of her actions.

While Rachel liked having the Dom/sub undercurrent between her and Jon plugged in 24/7, even if they weren’t actively in session, Dana was currently the sub among them who enjoyed the most extreme punishments. A paddling from Peter wouldn’t have been love taps. If he’d given the honor to Ben, rumor was he could make a hand spanking as extreme as a wood paddle. With sharp cutouts.

She swallowed. Might be best not to risk the deep end too soon. Instead, Rachel focused on the immediate requirement.

In the mainstream world, requirement implied an obligation, a chore. In the BDSM world, it was a gift. Because it was service. Which meant the pleasure of doing as a Master bid one to do. In this case, there was definitely nothing onerous about doing that bidding. She stroked her hands down the sides of Dana’s face and slid an arm around the woman’s waist, a brief contact to help her align with Rachel’s body, hopefully not perceived as a breaking of the rules.

Dana adjusted with her. As her knee pressed against Rachel’s core, bone pressed against wet, soft flesh. Rachel bit her lip, absorbing the sensation. Her reaction was heightened by seeing Dana have a similar response, as Rachel’s knee made the same contact. Dana’s sex was a damp cushion against which Rachel wanted to press harder, because she knew exactly how the increased pressure would feel to her.

With her other knee aligned with Dana’s hip, she settled for squeezing Dana’s folded leg between her thighs. It was meant as a confirmation that they were in the correct position, but the reaction was explosive, sending another dizzying wave of arousal through her.

She was aware of the men’s silent regard the way she was aware of Jon’s arms around her when he was kissing her. A cocooning that shut out everything else but what was happening immediately between their bodies, their souls. Someone had dimmed the lights so she and Dana were almost spotlighted, the lights of the city a jeweled background at her peripheral vision.

She curled her hands into half fists so she could trail her knuckles down Dana’s toned arms, over her elbows, to her forearms and then her wrists. When she closed her hands around them, she thought of how she felt when Jon did that to her, and her grip tightened, just as his did, restraint and possession.

Dana’s unfocused eyes still managed to convey intensity, her lips parted and wet. Rachel wanted to kiss them. Wanted to explore her mouth. But first she had to prepare Dana as she’d been commanded. Lifting Dana’s arms over her head, she gave Dana time to follow her guidance, the woman bending her arms so her elbows were pointing upward, her wrists crossed and at the base of her neck. Dana’s fingers rested on the backs of her shoulders. The shift in her body language suggested this was a very familiar servant pose for her, a trigger that took her deeper into her submission.

Rachel had to stand on her knees so she could reach behind Dana, figure out the latch that would connect the rings on the cuffs to the back of the collar. First, though, she ran her fingertips under the waterfall of looped chains that formed a decorative scalloping along the bottom edge of the thick strap of Dana’s collar. Rachel stopped at the St. Christopher’s medal, caressing the tender pocket of flesh beneath it where Dana’s collarbones met.

She didn’t think about doing it; she just had a desire to touch the collar on another submissive, that proof of ownership. If Dana’s hands hadn’t been behind her head, Rachel suspected Dana would have given in to the same urge, linking her fingers under the silver wire choker Rachel wore, tugging the sapphire pendant dangling from it.

The vertical posts of gold that bound the band of silver wire weren’t all alike. The one closest to the lock in back had an engraving on it, a Sanskrit phrase which translated to “Owned.” She’d let Dana feel that before, so Rachel expected Dana would have slid her touch all the way to that post, anticipating how another sub’s touch upon it would make Rachel feel.

How she hoped her touching the other woman’s collar made Dana feel.

As Rachel leaned forward, she received the answer to that. Dana’s tongue flicked over her nipple, and her mouth sealed over it to suckle.

Goddess… Jon had said she couldn’t touch Dana below the neck. He hadn’t made any provisions about Dana touching her. Rachel heard Peter’s purr of approval.

“Little troublemaker. Stay just like that, Rachel. Let her have a taste of your magnificent tits.”

I am giving you to them tonight, Rachel. To their desires and my own. When one of them tells you to do something, you obey them as you would me.

Rachel managed a nod, her trembling fingers resting on Dana’s shoulders for support as Dana deepened the contact, pulling harder on the nipple. Her tongue flicked over the clamp in a way that had Rachel crying out, a hard pulse happening between her legs.

“Holy fuck, that’s beautiful,” she heard a male voice murmur, but she couldn’t tell who’d said it. Probably Peter, and then she was sure as he added, “I want her to do that until Rachel comes.”

“Getting ahead of yourself,” Lucas said. “Got to win it in the cards.”

“We all know Ben’s going to cheat, so he’ll win every hand.”

“Even so. Rules are rules, gentlemen,” Matt spoke. “Else we’ll wear our lovely subs out before the night even gets started.”

“Good things happen when you wear a sub out,” Ben said. “Especially the kind these two gorgeous ladies are. The mind goes away and it’s all about whatever you need from them. They’ll keep trying, even when they don’t have the energy to stand. It’s a thing of fucking beauty.”

“Even so,” Matt repeated. “Let’s stick to the program. For now.”

She wasn’t sure what rules or program were governing them, but her energy was concentrated on doing her best not to move, not to rub herself against Dana’s thigh and bring herself to climax. By the time Peter sighed and commanded Dana to stop, Rachel was quivering with the effort.

“Finish my instructions,” Jon ordered.

It took her a moment to recall what they were, which shot panic through her chest, a reaction that gave the arousal possessing her another charge. Fortunately, she recalled the instructions in time before she had to ask him to repeat them, something sure to earn punishment.

She latched the clip on the cuffs around Dana’s wrists to the back of the collar, which would keep her arms in that lifted, crossed-behind-her-head position. Then she sat back on her heels and adjusted so their knees were back where they’d been ordered to be. Dana let out a little shuddering sigh that Rachel was sure she mirrored, but then she focused on the last part of the instructions. Kissing Dana until Jon told her to stop.

She’d spent so much wasted time in her life just trying to get through each day. Wake in the morning, get dressed, go through the motions of being a functioning, pleasant person, no matter how dead and heartbroken she’d felt inside. There’d been many flickers of light in that darkness, yes. Her yoga studio, her patients, like Dana. A breathtaking sunset, or the brilliant red of her poppies growing thick and full on her apartment balcony. Many of those things she’d appreciated in hindsight, too numb to recognize at the time they were helping hands, pulling her forward.

Since being with and marrying Jon, she’d been learning to appreciate things in the moment, slow it down, take the time to experience every amazing feeling and thought as they were happening. It wasn’t only Jon who had helped her with that lesson. She’d noticed that about all the men, especially when it came to this. They wouldn’t rush a second, because they wanted her to do everything she wanted to do, within the parameters of Jon’s instruction. Which meant they’d want her to savor the new experience of touching another woman like this.

She ran her hands fully over Dana’s face, her short-cropped hair, her ears and slender throat. Rachel had been her physical therapist, helping her fight through the grueling exercises to regain her mobility. Drying frustrated tears, rubbing her back and murmuring encouragement as Dana fought the unspeakable pain and sometimes despaired of ever feeling like the woman she’d once been.

Now, having emerged from the hell of physical rehabilitation, Dana kept in fighting shape, thanks to workouts with Peter, so Rachel knew all those slim muscles were as resilient as steel cable. And the personality beneath was just as unbreakable.

But she was also all soft, enticing girl, like a porcelain doll. Jon was right. Though she identified predominately hetero, Rachel did have some serious girl-girl fantasies. But just like her feeling about being shared with other Masters, that interest had a defined group. Jon would never share her outside the K&A circle, and she had less than zero interest in him doing so. Her female fantasies had also always centered around the K&A women, ever since she’d given herself free rein to expand upon them.

Particularly Dana. Perhaps because Dana had flirted with her in an aggressively physical way when Rachel was still in the early stages of her relationship with Jon, and those memories had become the foundation upon which she’d built. But regardless, here she was.

She’d been ordered to kiss Dana, and so she did. She started with her brow, her cheekbones, her jaw over the pulse in her throat. Then she made her way to her mouth.

Dana met Rachel’s kiss with fervor. This was the first time Rachel had experienced the energy pouring off Dana close up when they were both deeply aroused. Pleasure surged to greater heights when she put her mouth on Dana and Dana tried to almost devour her, seeking fulfillment in some mindless, crazy way. Needing touch and connection.

Rachel easily got lost in it, cupping Dana’s skull, fingertips pressing into that short, springy cap of hair. She slid them along a neck that seemed far too delicate to belong to the stiff-necked, courageous Army sergeant who’d gotten in a firefight and taken a nearly fatal hit from an IED. But it did, and that mix of strength and fragility, feminine beauty and a core of steel, hit Rachel with longing and revelation.

She loved her. She loved Dana, the other women, and their Masters. She loved all of them, and Jon most of all. It was as if they were all connected in some inexplicable way, her and Jon’s love bonded to the love of all the others, so they were all for one and one for all, as the song and story went.

She kissed Dana and kept kissing her, swimming in the endless pleasure of it. Women liked to kiss, and often men didn’t indulge it long enough. Not these men, praise Goddess, but the chance to simply kiss a pair of full, moist lips as long and in as many ways as she desired was a rare treat.

Dana pressed her body against her, the restraints notwithstanding, and Rachel pressed back, assuming the no touch below the neck rule meant with her hands. She caressed Dana’s face, her throat, holding her still, stroking her as she kissed her. As their tongues tangled together, stroked, sounds of hot need were coming from them both. The pressure of desire built between her thighs from nothing more than a kiss.

Jon had done that to her more than once, kissed her until she reached an open-air climax, her body jerking on the bed as he teased her mouth with his, commanded her to come in a murmur.

But this time, the pressure of their knees, shifting slightly from their unavoidable movements, was becoming a dangerous friction, especially with the additional stimulation of the clit piece. The plug also contributed, responding to the pressure of her heels against her backside. Her nipples in the grip of the clamps were hard as they’d ever been, aching, a feeling compounded as she recalled Dana’s mouth there.

Rachel made another noise against Dana’s lips, answered by a similar needy cry. Her fingers dug into the side of Dana’s throat, hooking in her collar. Their nipples brushed, the chains between the clamps making a little metallic clicking noise.

“Stop,” Jon spoke, his voice satisfyingly throaty, nearly a growl.

Rachel pulled back reluctantly, Dana following as far as she could before the kiss broke and the woman had to catch herself so she didn’t topple forward. Rachel was ready to steady her if needed. Rules were rules, but she knew protecting one another was always top priority. But Dana’s stomach muscles contracted and she avoided the mishap, sinking back to her heels again.

“Come to me, Rachel.” Jon again.

She moved across the table on hands and knees, body swaying with lust-fueled movements. When she reached the edge of the table closest to him, she sat back on her heels, her eyes lowered, back straight, hands clasped at the small of her back, her resting pose when he didn’t specify otherwise. The plug in her ass did that adjustment thing that made her very aware of it, and her bound clit. She could see the blue shirt tucked into his belted jeans, and the mouthwatering erection pressing against the denim.

Jon clasped her waist and slid her forward, guiding her to a seated position on the cool glass, the edge of the mat against the curve of her buttocks as her legs dangled off the edge. As he held her there, a firm hand at her waist, he reached between her legs. When his thumb pressed against the metal piece, she shuddered.

“Look at me.”

When she did, the blaze of heat in his intense blue eyes, the set of his mouth, almost wrested another moan from her. As he held her gaze, that moan did escape, because he slid two fingers inside her cunt, and his thumb rubbed against the metal, warming and manipulating it.

“Come,” he said. “And be loud about it.”

Two things she couldn’t have controlled, even if she’d wanted to do so. Her hips lifted to his touch, pulling him in deeper, and a scream tore from her throat as the climax hit her like a hard wave. It shoved her against a solid wall and held her as it pummeled her with relentless contractions against his fingers. Her clit throbbed inside the torturous hold of Lucas’s gift, intensifying the situation, so it wasn’t one scream but a whole symphony of them that echoed through the room.

As the wave crested, she bowed back, arching over Jon’s arm. Even as the climax passed, fast, impossibly intense, the aftershocks remained, making her jerk and quiver, little whimpers coming from her. It was on that slow, sweet downward spiral that her glazed eyes focused on Dana.

Peter had brought her to his side of the table, though she was on all fours again, head up once more. He’d also ensured the padded stool had moved with her, for it was positioned under her for support. Her ribs were lifting and falling, her hips making little jerks as if she couldn’t stop herself from emulating the coital rhythm.

“I told you to stay still.” Peter rose from his seat. He spun a paddle in his hand and, as Rachel watched, he brought it up in a sweep to hit Dana at the fullest part of her buttocks. Another moan escaped Rachel in response.

“Lift that disobedient ass, Sergeant,” Peter barked.

Dana complied with a whimper as Peter landed the next blow, hard enough to rock her forward on her hands. It sent another intense aftershock through Rachel, almost like a second climax. It took a few more seconds to level out, especially as Peter continued to paddle Dana’s backside, her buttocks wobbling in reaction, thighs flexing, hands curling into the mat, more cries wrenching from her.

Rachel’s pussy continued to pulse like her rapid heart. Jon scooped her up and put her on her feet. He turned her to face the table, pushing her down with a hand to the back of her neck. He was…oh Goddess, he was…

It took less than a second for Jon to open his jeans. He thrust into her with just the right amount of force, her still slippery and contracting tissues pulling him in eagerly. The force of his thrust home pushed her forward almost as aggressively as Peter’s paddle had Dana. As her nipples rubbed against the mat, her upper body pressed down on the chain so her forward movement created a sharp tug on the constricted points. A cry tore from her own throat.

“Hear that?” Peter told Dana. “Good girls get fucked. Bad girls get paddled.”

Dana made a pleading noise and Rachel couldn’t stop herself from uttering another moan that would undoubtedly add to the other woman’s torment. Jon wrapped his hand in her blond, thick hair and used it to anchor himself, working himself in her.

Her gaze darted around the room. He was taking her in front of the others. If she were in their position, she would have wanted to look, but in an indirect way, avoiding eye contact.

That wasn’t the case with them, and it made her arousal, the confusing tangle of emotions in her, even more impossible to control. Every man she looked at had his gaze locked on her face, their expressions studied and appraising, watching the contortions of her mouth, the wideness of her eyes, the way she was making pleading noises. The sway of her breasts and clutch of her hands on the mat as Jon pushed her forward with the strength of his taking.

He came within a minute or two, not unsurprising because of how impressively thick and hard he was, but it also emphasized he was using her to relieve his lust. His sub. His property. She didn’t care what the world thought of such thoughts. In this moment, it was true, and there was nothing more she wanted to be, because as his, she was her truest, fullest, best version of herself.

The jet of release bathed her channel and cervix, her hips lifting and body shuddering, taking him deep, taking all of him. Her eyes somehow found a focus on Matt’s hand. Strong-looking and large, the long fingers had a light covering of dark hair over the top. He was at the head of the table and had his body slightly rocked back, as if he had his chair pushed back on its axis. But his arms were long enough that hand still rested on the table surface, the fingers somewhat curved. It was his left hand, so it bore his wedding ring.

She’d once seen Savannah kiss that, after a dinner she and Jon had hosted at their place. Savannah had been curled up next to Matt on their couch. Matt had lifted her hand, kissed her knuckles. She’d nuzzled his shoulder, then lifted his hand and did the same to his wedding band. What seemed to initially amuse him had changed into something else as his wife and submissive lifted her gaze to him, her mouth on the ring.

Jon’s left hand had curled over Rachel’s shoulder, giving him a more substantial anchor to thrust into her during the height of her climax. Now she dropped her cheek to it, feeling the coolness of his own wedding ring beneath her flesh.

Goddess… She had a feeling that word was going to come to her mind a lot tonight. An appeal for strength, or to give fervent thanks. She’d already invoked it for both.

Jon eased out of her, wresting another quiet sound from her throat both from the friction and the timing, since Peter landed his last blow on Dana then, the woman responding with a sharp cry as he apparently put a little extra zing into what was already a pretty aggressive paddling.

Peter murmured something soothing, and rubbed his large hand over the abused area. “Just can’t ever learn to behave, can you, Sergeant?”

Dana shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was choked with tears. “No, sir.”

A grim smile touched Peter’s mouth, and he bent to press a kiss between her shoulder blades. “I love you, Master,” Dana said. When she turned her cheek to her shoulder, Rachel saw the tears that matched the broken voice.

Peter increased the pressure of the kiss, and brushed his forehead against the base of her neck, holding there an extra moment, a tactile answer that responded in kind.

Then he straightened, but he didn’t draw back. He ran his hands over Dana’s ass, her lower back and higher, combining caressing and checking the tension in her muscles to ensure she wasn’t uncomfortable in the wrong way. Though Dana no longer needed PT, Rachel gave her bi-monthly massages to keep the back and joint issues that could plague her after such a traumatic injury at bay. But no one was as diligent as Peter about keeping an eye on that.

Easing a hip onto the table, Peter bent and kissed Dana’s shoulder again. “Want to come, bad girl?”

Dana nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you think you deserve to come?”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

The response caused a smile on Peter’s face, but his gray eyes were storm-cloud dark, focused on Dana’s face. “All right then. If I let you come, you’ll owe me some time on your knees, taking my cock in that smart mouth of yours.”

“Yes, sir. Please, sir.”

Peter twisted partly around as he ran his hand down her back. Rachel held her breath as the hand disappeared behind Dana’s hips. Her head came up further, lips stretching back as Peter massaged her clit and labia, his gaze upon his wife.

Jon had tucked himself back into his jeans and drew Rachel up to stand between the pressure of his clothed body and the smooth edge of the glass table. As Rachel watched Dana’s climax build, her hands unconsciously wrapped around Jon’s arm banded around her, just below her breasts. She quivered against him as she saw the process she’d just experienced seize Dana. Her expression twisted, lips opening and stretching, her body stiffening and arching.

As the climax started, Peter used his free hand to grip the chain between Dana’s nipples and tug, his long fingers caressing, flicking a nipple. Dana screamed, and Rachel saw the fierce male satisfaction on Peter’s face, his fascinated absorption with his sub’s response, which made him work his hand even more energetically behind her hips. He twisted his fingers in the chain to make it tauter, the pull on the nipples more insistent.

“Fuck…” Dana’s soldier language tended to escape her in uncontrolled moments, and this was undoubtedly one of them.

Though it was mesmerizing, Rachel wanted to know how the men were reacting. She found them as absorbed as she was.

Matt had risen from the table, maybe to refill his glass, and he leaned his hips against the side bar, arms crossed, raptor gaze intent. Ben had that dangerous expression that made his green eyes glitter, his mouth set in a concentrated line. Lucas leaned back in his chair, a slow rock back and forth, as he watched Dana’s reaction. Jon was still as he held her close, but the grip of his arm told her he wouldn’t be letting her move away.

They were totally into it, but there was a provocative detachment to it, she realized. When a man wanted a woman he didn’t have, there was an edginess to his attention, predator calculating prey strategy. This was the attention of men who knew what they were enjoying was theirs to enjoy however, whenever they wished.

It was the attitude of conquerors, the best kind. She suspected when they were handling a business deal they demonstrated the same singular focus, knowing the battle was won before they even started, because they’d accept no lesser outcome.

They might be merciless about acquisition, but everything after that point made a conquest feel blessed. Case in point. As Dana was sliding back down the hill to semi-sanity, Jon eased his hold enough to run his hands over Rachel’s hair and shoulders, down her arms. He turned her toward him, shifting his grip to clasp both her hands. As he did, he stepped back and gave her an appraising look.

She wasn’t sure on her feet, and he noted that. Lifting her back onto the table, he bent to unbuckle the shoes. He stroked the area the wrapped straps had cuffed before he eased her back to her feet, holding onto her until he was sure of her balance.

“Go to the sidebar and eat a couple deviled eggs, drink some water. When you’re steady enough, check and see that each man has what he wants, drink and food-wise. This was just the preliminaries. We’re about to start the game.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant until she noted that Ben had picked up a deck of cards and passed them to Lucas. She felt a little faint. Just the preliminaries? Ben’s goal of pushing them far beyond the wear-out point might just be realized. And encouraged and supported by every man here.

But she had to give them credit. They excelled at aftercare, and had diabolical ways of using it to start them up that ramp again, even when a woman thought she didn’t have it in her.

Peter had eased Dana down to her side and taken his seat behind her. He’d brought her even closer to the edge in that curled up position, so he could stroke and murmur to her. She was facing toward Rachel, Peter’s arm around her waist, hand possessing her breast, his other hand tucked into her pussy from behind. Because his hand required her knees to be slightly apart, Rachel could see the glistening lengths of his fingers gliding in and out, gently, as she made little noises, a reaction to his stroking of those highly sensitive post-climactic tissues.

Jon hadn’t been kidding. This night was far from over. Thank Goddess. And please, great Lady, help us survive it.

* * *

The sidebar was full of snacks she’d only vaguely registered when she entered the room. She followed her Master’s direction, knowing it would be wise to refuel. She drank half a bottle of water and ate two of the deviled eggs she was sure had been made by Ben, since she’d never had a deviled egg so good. The man had culinary skills equal to the little old ladies in the Piggly Wiggly grocery store deli section. They could cook comfort food in ways five-star restaurants wished they could.

As she ate, she watched the men interact in a whole different way than they had a few moments before. They were razzing one another about what game they were going to play, who had cheated the last time. This provoked an indignant response from the accused—Ben, of course.

“It’s a waste of effort to cheat, because you guys suck at cards,” he retorted.

“I think we should shake him down beforehand,” Lucas suggested. “Make sure he doesn’t have cards tucked in somewhere.”

“Go for it, bicycle boy. I’ll take out what’s in my pants and bitch slap you with it.”

“Notice how every conversation goes back to his dick?” Lucas queried.

“It’s like the Washington Monument,” Ben said. “It’s so big it’s the center of attention, no matter where you are in DC.”

Jeers and guffaws were followed by Lucas's dry response. “Well, with his brain being that small, it has to be proportionately balanced with another body part.”

Peter hadn’t joined in on the male bonding ritual and, as amusing as it was to follow the byplay, Rachel’s attention was drawn back to what he was doing to Dana now.

As she’d recalled earlier, there were hidden options to allow for BDSM play, when the room wasn’t being employed for K&A business. After he’d let Dana recover from her climax, Peter had used a remote control to lower a series of lines from behind a panel in the ceiling. He laid Dana on her back on the mat, positioning a lower profile cushion to support her back, which also arched her up in a pleasing way.

Attaching the separated wrist cuffs to lines, he drew them up with a control, so her arms were out to her sides and lifted a few degrees above her. He did the same to her legs, spreading and lifting them, attaching an additional set of cuffs just above her knees and adding lines there so her lifted and slightly bent legs weren’t supported only by the ankle lines.

Rachel swallowed, hard, as Peter matter-of-factly lubricated up a thick dildo. He put one hand on Dana’s mound, his fingers parting the lips of her sex to begin feeding it into that channel.

“Lift up for me, Sergeant. Work it into you.”

Dana complied, her lashes fluttering, eyes closing, an automatic reflex as she concentrated, trying her best to obey her Master. Peter helped, caressing her clit, teasing and pinching, to help her muscles loosen and ripple. Dana’s hips lifted and lowered, circled. As the dildo disappeared, inch by inch, Rachel could feel her own internal muscles contracting.

She noticed the male banter had ceased, their attention back on Dana. Lucas held the card deck under one hand as he rested on his elbows, his gaze intent upon Dana’s stretched sex, since he sat on the same side of the table as Peter, and had a pretty close-up view.

It was all the way in. Peter strapped it in place around Dana’s hips with a harness he cinched with a jerk, pulling a gasp from her.

“Can you be good, or do we have to do another gag?” he demanded in a stern tone. “Before you say something smart, next time it will be a ring gag. I’ll replace those cushy rubber nipple clamps with the clovers, and let Ben go after your ass with Jon’s metal ruler.”

Dana flinched. Rachel knew she both hated and loved the clover clamps. Hated the pain, but loved the rush. It would be a toss-up whether her friend would misbehave enough to win their punishment. As for that ruler, Rachel had vivid memories of it herself, enough to give her a shudder. Like Dana and the clover clamps, she had a love-hate relationship with it. She remembered when Jon had last used it on her, another one of those times she’d reverted and called herself stupid. He’d taken her right after, increasing the burn of those strikes on her ass as he thrust into her from behind.

At Jon’s throat clearing, she realized she’d finished her eating and drinking and was merely standing, staring at Peter’s preparation of Dana. She was supposed to be checking on the men’s food and drink needs.

“Rachel, that ruler is behind the bar,” Jon said evenly. “I thought I might need it tonight. Bring it to me.”