EIGHT

She wanted to help him up the stairs, but she knew he wasn’t going to let her take care of him, at least not that way. The way he would let her take care of him had her mounting the stairs quickly. As she slid into the apartment, she was already unhooking her skirt. She shimmied out of it, the socks and canvas sneakers, and put them all neatly in one of the kitchen chairs. Then she moved into his bedroom and sank to her knees. She parted them and laced her fingers behind her head, keeping her eyes down. Since he’d liked the way her body had arched when she’d held her hair on her neck, she chose this position over other possible permutations of the submissive posture, like palms flat on the floor or at her sides.

She heard him coming up the stairs, one at a time. Her gaze moved to the nightstand. Going on instinct, she scrambled across the room to put the antibiotic ointment and extra stump socks into a drawer. She also moved the prosthesis into the closet and closed the door, coming back to her kneeling position just as the door opened.

When he entered the bedroom, she kept her eyes lowered, wanting to give him the chance to catch his breath and be everything he wanted to be for her. The crutches and his one leg braced themselves in front of her.

“Look what someone left me while I was away,” he murmured. “A gorgeous sex slave.”

She trembled as he slid a finger along her bare shoulder, hooking the bra strap and caressing her collarbone. “Are you wet for me, Athena?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Prove it to me.”

She slipped her fingers into her panties and rubbed them against her slick lips. Lifting her hand, she rose onto her knees, still keeping her eyes down. He clasped her wrist, making her quiver harder when he drew her fingers into his mouth, sucking on them.

“Nice, but I want you even wetter. Masturbate while I get undressed. I want to see you touch your breasts, play with your nipples. Keep your eyes on your body, not on me.”

She wanted to offer to undress him so she could feel the shape of him beneath her hands, but his tone of voice said she was expected to be silent, obedient. She vibrated with the desire to serve. She put her hand back into the panties, knowing the thin fabric and the spread of her thighs would show him the movement of her fingers over her cunt. With the other hand, she reached into her bra cup, cradled her breast, moving her fingers over the nipple as she squeezed and kneaded. Her body rocked up at the stimulation, her ass rotating against her calves as she sank back down on them again. A gasp slipped from between her lips.

“Don’t get too enthusiastic, slave. Your orgasm belongs to me.”

“Yes, Master.” From the squeak of protest and the scrape of metal, she knew he’d taken a seat in the kitchen chair. She heard the thump of his jeans as he skinned them off, tossed them to the floor. His shirt landed on top of them. He must have taken off the boxers with the jeans, because when he settled onto the bed, she had the brief impression of a bare, muscular haunch. He propped the crutches by the nightstand. Then he dropped a scrap of cloth on the ground next to her knee.

“Put that on.”

Everything inside her protested. It was a blindfold. She wanted to see him, wanted to learn every curve and plane of him by sight as well as touch. She wondered if he wanted her to wear it because of his amputation. She hesitated, putting her fingers on it.

“Please let me see you, Master.” She didn’t want to break the mood, or push him into a place he wasn’t ready to go, but she also wanted past this hurdle. She never wanted it to interfere with their time together again. She wanted to prove to him it truly didn’t matter. He was a warrior who’d lost a limb in battle, that was all.

Long moments passed. Since she assumed he was thinking it over, she let her hair down so it spilled over her shoulders, down her back. She put one arm behind her, bracing herself so she could arch up and undulate with greater flexibility against the manipulation of her fingers on her sex. Slipping her slick fingers into her mouth, she then brushed those wet fingers over a prominent nipple, pushing the bra cup back with her knuckles so he could see her do it. “Please, Master,” she breathed, hips lifting up as she dropped her hand between her legs again. “I need you inside me. Please.”

She wouldn’t look until he said it was okay, but she wanted to be immolated by the heat she was sure would be in his eyes. He was the type of Master who would be intensely turned on by begging, that whole alpha-male-testosterone thing. She was the type of sub who loved to beg, so it worked out perfectly, didn’t it?

“Come here.” The animal growl of his voice confirmed it, and she had to restrain herself to keep from scampering to the bed like a puppy, as eager to please as Perry.

He’d stretched out on the mattress, so her gaze fell on the arch of his right foot. Aware of his weighted silence, of the time he was giving her to look, she slid her attention slowly up that toned calf and then moved over to the other leg where it began, just below the knee. She knew the worst thing she could do was try to school her reaction, make it anything less than honest feeling. His left leg down to his knee looked like any other leg. Well, the leg of a man with Dale’s level of fitness. Muscled, a light sprinkling of hair.

It was paler than the other leg, but the stump probably wasn’t supposed to be overexposed to the sun, such that he took more care to protect it. She saw the scar, the seam where the skin had been lapped over the end. She also saw abrasions, several sores on the pale skin. Perhaps that was the reason he’d had the topical sitting out, and why he wasn’t wearing the prosthesis.

“May I touch you, Master?” she asked. Though his apartment was small, her voice echoed in the utter stillness that cocooned them both.

“Yes.” His voice was thick. Still her Master, still certain of himself, yet there was another note to it. This was new to him as well, which made it all the more precious to her.

She molded her fingers over his knee, slid them down to the stump. She didn’t touch the sore spots, mindful not to cause them any further irritation. Shifting onto the bed, she sank to her knees between his, which he spread further to accommodate her. She braced her hip against his right leg, rested her hand on his left knee again.

“I’m so glad that you’re alive.” She didn’t try to disguise the keen emotion in her voice, and when she lifted her gaze, she most wanted to see his face. As gorgeous as his body was, all virile male, his cock in a promising semierect state despite the emotional distraction, she needed to see what he was thinking and feeling.

He was staring at her face, so when she raised her lashes, their eyes locked. His expression held something deep, painful, powerful, but he wasn’t displeased. He was . . . maybe he didn’t even really know what he was right now. She just knew it was right, whatever emotions were weaving them together. Staying in the clasp of that brilliant, unfathomable gaze, she let her fingers drift down her sternum, to her abdomen. His gaze held hers an extra moment, then he followed her fingers to where she slid them over the outside of her panties, drawing his attention to how the panel had become soaked with her response. She caressed herself, catching her lip in her teeth at the sensation of pleasuring herself before him, at his command.

“Take off the bra.”

She obeyed, reaching behind her to unhook it. She dropped it off the side of the bed.

“Bring those gorgeous tits to my mouth. I want you to hold them while I suck on them.”

Her breath shortened at the demand. She straddled him, sitting down on his abdomen, sliding back so his stiffening cock pressed against the seam of her buttocks. She wanted to get rid of the panties, too, slide her wet folds over him, but he hadn’t ordered that yet.

He’d recognized this part of her almost instantly, and that had given her the confidence to admit she’d known it as well, though it had been unacknowledged for so long. Even so, every time he summoned it from her, she was amazed at how quickly she could be immersed in this, a need to be totally under his command, anticipating every word, every look, her body trembling and eager.

“Beautiful,” he said, and she knew he was talking about that as much as how she looked. He was absorbed in it. Every level he took a sub under his command was another level he could reach in his own desires. She marveled at the revelation, even as his gaze flicked up, giving her that rough impatience that thrilled her.

“I’m waiting, Athena.”

She grasped her breasts and leaned forward, moistening her lips as his gaze riveted on them. He gripped her hips, held her steady. Parting his lips over one nipple, he bathed her with the heat of his breath alone, no other contact, such that a measured flick of his tongue at last made her jerk violently. Her reaction became even more implosive as he kept doing it, so restrained. Her pussy wept and her nipples got harder, tighter.

“Please . . .”

He drew back, studying the strain in her face, the wildness she was sure was in her eyes. “Stay right where you are.”

He lifted onto an elbow, reached into the crack between the top of the mattress and the headboard. He came back with a knife, a six-inch blade he must have scabbarded there. “Do you trust me, Athena?”

“With anything.”

“Then don’t move.”

He slid the flat of the blade down her sternum, over her navel, then the tip of it was caressing the flesh above the waistband of her panties. When he reached her hip, he hooked the elastic. The panties parted, the steel cutting through the mesh effortlessly. He ran the blade over the top of her thigh, then moved to her opposite hip, doing it to the other side.

“Arch your back. I want those breasts on display.”

She obeyed, taking a firmer grip on the curves, lifting them so the nipples tilted up at a more provocative angle.

“That’s my girl.” He pulled the panties free and set them aside, along with the knife. She glanced at them on the nightstand, the military-grade knife with its heavy black handle and guard, the thin swatch of her ruined panties draped over it, then her gaze was back on her Master.

He turned his hand over, sliding it beneath her so he cupped her pussy fully. She lifted up into that cradle, pressing her lips together as his fingers spread over the base of her buttocks and his thumb stroked her clit, sliding down to part her labia, tease inside those sensitive walls. Then he used the pressure of his palm to make her stand on her knees. The wet tip of his cock slid down the seam of her buttocks, then between her legs, to lie straight and stiff along his belly beneath her.

He withdrew his hand. “Bring your breasts back to my mouth. I want you to rub yourself against my cock like you’re trying to make yourself come. Tell me when you’re close, but you won’t come.”

“No, Master. Not without your permission.”

“Damn straight.”

She closed her eyes, loving that possessive growl.

“No more talking. Your only focus is my commands.”

She leaned down, anticipating his mouth once more. As she did, her clit came against the hard shaft for the first time. It made her internal muscles convulse, milking out more slick fluid to ensure the slide along his length was more pleasurably excruciating. He tortured her the same sensual way as before, teasing her nipple with his breath, then the flick of the tongue, here then gone, followed by a slow lick around the areola. His hands landed back on her hips, their strength aiding her as she slid herself down his length, keeping her back elongated and arched so he had full access to her breasts.

Her pussy pressed against the heavy weight of his testicles, then she was sliding back up again, all the way to the friction of his ridged head. She wanted to keep going, wanted to close over him and sink down, let him penetrate her to the root, but that wasn’t what he had commanded.

She cried out as he closed his mouth over her right nipple. It increased the pressure of her grip on her breasts, such that the peaks became even more sensitive, especially the one in the hot cavern of his mouth. When he began to suckle, her hips moved more frenetically against him. He gripped her buttock with the other hand, working her over his cock, not letting her hold back in the least. Her response built hotter, faster. He switched to the other breast, tormenting them equally.

The man definitely knew how to walk and chew gum at the same time. And probably juggle and figure out the theory of relativity. He worked her hard and fast against his cock, then directed her to make slow, sweeping circles over him, her ass rubbing against his upper thighs. Throughout all that, he never stopped suckling, licking, biting at her nipples and breasts. She was rocking on him, moaning, pleading in incoherent little noises. Her body vibrated, coiled . . .

“Master . . . I’m too close . . .”

He clamped both hands on her waist and lifted her, shifting them so quickly and with such impressive strength her breath caught for a whole different reason. He’d lifted himself to a seated position on the side of the bed, and she was face down over his lap, the hinge between her thighs and hips hooked over the thigh of his half leg, her upper body draped over the other leg. One of her hands caught his calf, the fingertips of the other sweeping the floor. Those fingers convulsed as he spanked her hard, the sting and the power of her near climax making her writhe and gasp. His cock was a tempting steel bar against her stomach.

He rubbed firm circles over her abused flesh as he squeezed a breast with the other hand, fondling the nipple where it pressed against the side of his leg. “Who do you belong to, Athena?”

“You.”

“And when you climax, who orders that?”

“You do, Master.”

“Only when I command it.”

“Yes sir.” Oh, but she was hurting for it, and him holding it out of reach only made the need worse.

“Spread your legs wider,” he said brusquely. “You hold still. No wiggling.”

When she complied, he started spanking her again, only now he alternated between her ass and short swats of her wet pussy. Trying not to move was utter torture. She felt like an explosive device, the pressure to detonate unbearable.

“On the floor. On your knees, forehead to the ground, ass in the air. Face away from the bed, but stay close enough your feet are beneath the bedrail.”

He helped ease her to the floor, which was a good thing, since she was so aroused she was unsteady. How long could he push her like this? She expected as long as he wished.

She’d seen what he did to Willow, had experienced a taste of it at her home, but she was starting to grasp the full depths of the kind of Master he was. Ruthless, taking her beyond her limits, teaching her to stretch herself to meet his every demand. He could make her his slave in truth, because at the moment she’d do anything for him, anything to relieve this burning need that he had stoked to a full blaze. But it wasn’t a matter of mere physical release. She didn’t want to put her hands or a vibrator between her legs to ease the pressure. She needed her Master’s touch, his cock, his mouth . . . his command. She wanted to please him, wanted her release to belong fully and utterly to him.

She was in the prescribed position, forehead to the floor, haunches in the air, her feet tucked under the bed. He was straddling her, still sitting on the bed, one foot planted by her right calf, the other leg spread so his knee extended over the mattress on her other side.

“Stay like that, Athena. I want to look at what’s mine. Pull your hair up over your head so I can see every inch of your beautiful skin.”

She did it with clumsy, uncoordinated fingers. She was rewarded by him bending down to slide his hand from her nape to the valley of her spine, then up to her buttocks. He parted them with his thumbs, exploring her there in a way that made it clear no orifice was off-limits to him.

“Have you ever been fucked here?”

She shook her head.

Slap!

“No sir,” she yelped. “No, Master.”

“Good.” His finger traced the rim, setting off a spiral of sensation. “I’ll be the first. But not today. That pleasure will be for another time.”

She hoped that didn’t mean he wasn’t planning to take her at all. She needed him filling her so badly it was like a lifelong, fervent wish.

“I want to do wicked things to you, Athena. Your submission brings out the beast in me.”

Good. She felt like a wild animal herself.

“I’m going to take you back to Release one day. You’ll go there as my slave. I also want to fuck you in your bedroom. You understand? Not today. Not tomorrow. But one day. If you fully surrender yourself to me, there’ll be no half measures. Nothing held back. I want to own all of you.”

She knew things could get exaggerated in scenes, but this didn’t feel like that. The dangerous promise in his voice roused a nervous, uneasy response in her. No. She wasn’t ready for those things. But he’d told her not today. Not tomorrow . . . one day. She could work with a forecast. All she needed, truly, was for this moment to go on forever.

“Move on your hands and knees to my closet. Open the door as far as it will go.”

It was only a few feet away, but it made her feel so subjugated, in a crazy, thrilling way, walking away from him on all fours. He was seeing her flushed and wet pussy, the weight of her breasts swaying with her movements. When she opened the door, there was a full-length mirror on it. In its reflection, she saw he’d pulled a condom from the night table and was tearing it open. As she watched hungrily, he unrolled it over his thick, hard length, shifting his thighs out wider.

“Come back to me. Still on your hands and knees, moving backwards. When you get here, I want you to stand between my legs and face the mirror.”

She’d stopped thinking. It was all feeling now. Heated, needy feeling, an ache in her chest, her lower belly. When she reached him again, she rose, keeping her back to him as he’d required. He gripped her thighs, let his palms glide up her body, caressing her hip with one then sliding across it to between her thighs, making her moan, her body sway, as she watched him do it in the mirror. He steadied her with the other hand on her hip as he worked her clit between his knuckles, stroked her labia with clever fingers, dipped them into her pussy. Her nipples were a dark color, so tight and aroused, her breasts like ripe, full fruit. When he slid both hands up to cradle them, pressing his mouth to her lower back, she whispered his name.

“Master.”

His touch dropped back to her hips, and then he was lowering her to his lap. “Keep your thighs together.”

He speared the tight opening with the skill of a man who knew a woman’s most intimate places . . . pussy, ass, heart. She was being maudlin, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. He stretched her, brought her all the way down onto him, pushing her upper body forward so her nipples brushed her knees. He shifted her as he went, achieving a full and deep penetration. She was folded over an ache growing in her lower belly and chest, at odds with the pleasure she was experiencing. He wound his hands in her hair, gathering it to him, his knuckles grazing her cheek, and then he bent, brushing his lips over the tender protruding bones of her spine. Her heart cracked.

“Shh. You’re a treasure, girl. Be with me. All the way with me.”

“I am, Master.” Her voice broke. “Please, may I touch you? Please.” She thought she might die without that contact.

“Yes.”

She put her shaking hands on his knees, fingers curving into them, noting that there were some different protrusions in the left one, as if the knee had suffered some damage as well. But she tilted her head toward it, brushed it with her lips, her inner muscles clenching on the length of his cock as she did it. She was simply lost, but in a way hard to define as good or bad. It was all inside his sphere of influence, so she wasn’t really lost at all. Just completely out of control, possibly for the first time in her life, relying fully on another to bring her back home.

His fingers tightened in her hair, then he let it go to slide his hands back down to her hips. “Hold on to my legs, Athena. You’re going to need the anchor.”

He began to thrust. Holding her close this way made his strokes short, intense. With her legs pressed together, it catapulted her reaction to an explosive level in a matter of seconds. But at this angle, the climax so perilously close was not close enough. Just close enough to have her screaming at every stroke.

He kept going, showing admirable control, while she was clawing his legs with no restraint at all. With each full penetration, she pressed the soles of her feet into the floor, her inner muscles squeezing him like a vise. His breathing was harsh, and several times she heard a muttered, reverent curse, which just took her higher.

When he brought them to a halt, she almost wailed, even knowing she wasn’t going to get a climax until he was damn good and ready. Using those impressive biceps and stomach muscles, he lay back on the bed, unfolding and taking her with him, shifting her body to adjust to the new angle. He was stretched out with her face up on top of him, back to his front, his foot braced on the floor to anchor them. She kept her thighs tightly closed at his brusque command, the balls of her feet barely reaching the floor between his. The position pushed him up high and tight inside of her. One hand went to her throat, the other to her clit, and his hips pumped up against her, slow, torturous, careful movements for them both. Too wide a range would break the connection. But the moment he started rubbing her clit, things started to unravel.

“Master . . . please . . . may I . . .”

“Yes. Come for me, Athena. Let me hear it.”

Because she couldn’t move much in this position, the waves kept coming, higher and more intense, so she was crying out in prolonged agony, one of the most extreme climaxes of her life. He released when she was at the height of it, and drove her even higher, his powerful body shuddering beneath her, every muscle going hard to match the rigidity of his cock, so deep inside her.

She was a shaking mess in his arms. When he eased her off him, he shifted them both so they were together on the mattress, his head on his pillow and her turned toward him, cradled in his arms. Her muscles had no strength to help him at all. He was stroking her hair, murmuring to her.

“Shh, girl. It’s okay. Easy, love.”

She kept jerking a little bit now and then, a combination of aftershocks and nerves. He slid his hands over her, slow, easy strokes, cupping her bottom, teasing the side of her breast with his knuckles, massaging the nape of her neck, pressing kisses to the top of her head. Her nose was running and he had a box of tissues by the bed, but her limbs were too numb to reach for one. Since she hadn’t lost enough of her sense of decorum to use his flesh as a handkerchief, she kept sniffling.

He rolled against her so she was squashed with wonderful pressure between him and the mattress. It was a brief moment, allowing him to reach over the side of the bed to the floor. When he caressed her cheek with a soft cloth, an unexpected sob choked her. It was his T-shirt. She pressed her face against it and him, letting the shirt absorb her physical reaction and his chest hide the emotional one.

At length he spoke, with tender amusement. “So, was it good for you?”

She must be on the edge of hysteria, because she started laughing. It was a painful transition, like trying to run after drinking a full glass of water, but he held her tighter, so that whatever was trying to tear her apart, laughter or tears, wouldn’t gain the upper hand.

“It’s all right, girl. It’s all right. Shh.”

“Yes,” she managed at last. “Quite satisfactory.” Her words were slurred, like she was drunk, but she fought to get them out. “We should do it again in a month or so, when I’ve had a chance to recover.”

His chuckle was a soothing balm. “I’m going to want you again, far sooner than that. You’re going to have to build up some stamina.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“No. I promise I won’t do that.” Another kiss on her forehead, this one lingering. When he lifted his head, she tilted her chin to find him studying her with an unfathomable look, one that went on for some moments as he slid his fingers along her lips, her cheeks, her wet lashes.

“What?” she whispered.

“I was thinking of a song. It’s one the kids play at the community center. I don’t pay much attention to it usually, but I’ve caught the chorus a few times. ‘You must be the reason I’m alive.’ The way you looked at my leg, what you said . . .” He shook his head, tightened his arms around her, pushed her head back to his chest. “It was good for me, too. Athena. Better than anything I’ve felt in a long time. Thank you.”

—

They dozed for a while. At some point Athena realized her two-hour lunch was going to run way over. She didn’t have any appointments this afternoon, but she still needed to let Ellen know she hadn’t disappeared off the planet. Well, in a way she had, but she didn’t want Ellen thinking she’d been kidnapped, since she was obsessively punctual.

She was sprawled over Dale’s chest, and when she began to move, his arms tightened around her, his grunt telling her what he thought of her leaving. She whispered she’d be right back, that she needed the bathroom, and those blue-green eyes appeared, lingering on her in a way that warmed her to her toes.

“Don’t be long.”

She fished her phone out of her purse, then slipped into the bathroom. When she sent Ellen the quick text, letting her know she’d decided to take the rest of the day, the response was instant and brought a smile to her face.

Understood, Mrs. Summers. (you go, girl!)

Shaking her head at her assistant, she set the phone aside and took care of some necessities, including using Dale’s brush to comb her hair and his washcloth to clean up her face. His medicine cabinet was typically male. Shaving gear, toothpaste. A couple of prescription meds, including an antibiotic and a painkiller. She assumed the first was for his leg and guessed the latter dealt with days where joint pain might be an issue, though the man gave the impression he was all but invincible. They’d last been refilled about six months ago, so he wasn’t regularly taking either one.

Thinking about that, she left the bathroom. When she crawled back on the bed next to him, she folded her legs under her and looked at the truncated limb, those sores at the surgical site.

“Was that why you cancelled our lunch date?” she asked. Though his eyes were closed, she knew he was awake and aware of what she was doing. A man didn’t keep a knife like that behind his mattress and sleep deeply. Her gaze touched it briefly, still tangled with her ruined panties.

“Yeah. It was stupid. I’m sorry.” His eyes opened then, his hand reaching across the mattress to clasp hers, a loose hold.

She shook her head. “We’re still getting to know one another, Dale. Crazy as that sounds. So did we overdo the other day, when we were at my place? Is that what caused them?”

“Yeah. That and taking care of the dogs that same day. I just didn’t do some of the things for it I’m supposed to do. It happens every once in a while.” Then he got that warning look. “Remember what I said. You’re not my nurse, Athena. Don’t go there.”

“No, I’m not. But I am your submissive. At least as long as you want our sessions to continue.”

“These aren’t sessions, Athena.” He reached up, caught her chin in thumb and forefinger. “Did you call them that because you didn’t want to make me feel boxed in, or because you believe that’s what they are?”

“You really don’t leave a girl anywhere to hide, do you?”

“Not my job.” His gaze held hers. “Athena.”

“No. I don’t feel like they’re sessions.” She put her hand over his, and he shifted it to take a grip on her fingers as they came to a tangled rest together on her knees. “But I’m afraid to assume too much, too soon. I don’t know you well enough and . . . these feelings are pretty new to me. I’m not sure of myself, either.”

He nodded. “It’s one of the reasons I’m keeping a tight rein on things. You realize that, right? For now, my job is taking care of you. Period.”

The words made her feel so strange. She had to breathe in and out a few times before the vise around her chest loosened. “I think I understand that. But I want to serve you as well. It’s different from taking care of you, isn’t it, even if they look a lot the same?”

“Yeah, it is different, but my understanding of that isn’t the concern. No matter what you say, I don’t think you’re far enough away from the nurse side of it that you recognize the difference.”

She could have been insulted by the comment, but he didn’t sound patronizing. He was stating flatly what he’d observed, and could she really argue with it? As she’d just said, she was dealing with so many new feelings when it came to this. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder if his judgment on her was affected by his own situation. He’d obviously dealt with the painful memories and emotions associated with his injury, accepted his situation and refused to call it a handicap, but he was a proud man who would have no patience with any kind of limitations.

She didn’t want to get into another argument today, so she tried to explain it a different way. “When I saw you with Willow, I wasn’t sure what kind of Master you were. Since Jimmy said you worked with a variety of submissives, at different levels, I figured you like the challenge of determining what each woman wants, what type of submission she needs. Like you told me, the intense attention to detail, the in-depth understanding that requires . . . each one was a mission, even if that mission extended over a few sessions or only one.”

She took a deep breath. Did he know how intimidating his silence could be, especially combined with the piercing regard of those eyes? “But what I wondered was what kind of Master you truly are, at the core. What you want for yourself. If you had a permanent submissive, what would she provide for you? Just now, I thought I felt it. You wanted everything. You were reaching down into my soul and I could actually feel your hand closing around it. It was frightening, and overwhelming.”

She met his gaze. “Submission, service, was so important to me, the gift I needed to give to the man I loved, to the extent that I became a Mistress to him. No half measures, like you said. In every way he needed, I became that for him. It seems . . . we may be a yin and yang to one another, but whether it’s a good mix, or a self-destructive one, I don’t know. But I do know it makes me want to say everything and anything to you. Be everything to you. No, I’m not your nurse or maid. But I can be far more than that, all that and anything more. And I think that’s what you want. Eventually.”

If you learn to trust me, and I learn to trust myself.

She didn’t add that, thinking it might be too argumentative. She’d said her peace, probably more than she should have at this juncture. She looked down at their clasped hands, waiting on him. At length, he shifted onto his elbows, reached up and touched her face with the other hand. “Maybe.” He sighed. “You’re the first woman I’ve let cross this line with me, Athena.”

The revelation amazed, thrilled and slightly terrified her, but he shook his head, telling her he wanted her to keep silent until he finished. “You said it. You have such a deep well when it comes to this that you became a Mistress to your husband, because that was what he needed. It makes you a superlative sub, but you crossed the line into a place you didn’t really belong, that didn’t meet your heart’s desire. And if he’s as good a man as I suspect he was to deserve someone like you, he probably saw it at some point, even if he didn’t completely get what you were.”

Demand as much for yourself.

Her hand tightened on Dale’s. They were Roy’s words, from a fairly significant moment in the life they’d shared. As if summoned by Dale’s comments, the memory attached to them returned as well.

Roy had been pretty sick at that point, and it was one of his bedridden days. She’d brought him a mostly liquid lunch he’d barely touched. She’d thought he was dozing, but then his hand twitched under the light grasp of hers and his gaze turned to her, holding the sorrowful knowledge that their time was getting shorter.

I was able to be everything I am with you, Athena. Man, boy, happy, sad, hero, bastard. Roy had smiled a bit at that. You took me over when I needed to give up the reins, and handed them back at the right moments. You knew me, down to my soul, and you gave me everything. I hope . . . You deserve better than that. It should be a pane of glass, not a mirror. Love is about seeing one another clearly through everything and accepting each other. What you gave me, you should have the chance to have that, too. It’s not a closed circle unless you can give as much as you’re given. I wish I’d been able to do that for you. But you make me a promise. If the opportunity presents itself, do what I know is so damn hard for you to do. Demand as much for yourself. Demand to be given as much as you’re willing to give.

He’d been on some strong painkillers, so she could tell he’d struggled with what he was trying to say. She hadn’t really understood what he was saying then, any more than she completely understood Dale’s point now, but both sets of words resonated with her.

“A Master is about more than demanding every corner of a sub’s soul,” Dale said gently. “He needs to be about protecting that soul as well.”

“So I can’t help with this.” She touched his leg, feeling strangely desolate.

“Maybe one day. But not now. I take care of that part of things myself. That’s part of who I am, who I need to be. But anytime you want to bring me food, you can knock yourself out.”

She smiled uncertainly as he lifted her fingers to his lips, kissed them. Then he squeezed her hand and winked, dispelling the somber mood. “Let’s eat that lunch. Fucking you has given me a hell of an appetite.”

—

She’d never thought of herself as the type of woman who’d respond to crude talk like that, but the way he said it, so sexy and male, his hot gaze sweeping over her, put her already broken antenna into another spin. He didn’t let her put on any clothes. Instead, he had her bring the lunch back to the bed and ate naked with her, feeding her bits of sandwich, reaching out to touch her breasts or telling her to keep her legs open so he could see her pussy as he consumed the food she’d made him. He kept that Master-sub dynamic so out front and center between them, such that the unsettling topics he’d raised were beyond her concentration. As a result, she was able to quell the uneasy sense of paradigm shift and just enjoy being with him. She’d deal with the rest on her own time.

He’d told her he expected her to build up her stamina, that he’d want her again. It didn’t take long for him to prove it. After lunch, he pushed her to her back without preamble and stretched out between her legs. With his strong hands curled around her thighs and one foot braced on the floor, he put his mouth on her cunt and brought her to the brink of another pleading, writhing climax in no time. When she was so close to release the heat of his breath on her quivering tissues might have pushed her over, he rolled over onto his back and made her turn so she straddled his face, her knees pressed into the bedding above his shoulders. He ordered her to take his cock in her mouth while he resumed feasting on her pussy. The command to come came with her lips stretched over him, vibrating against his cock as she screamed. She shuddered through the aftershocks while still frenetically sucking him. He kept licking and teasing her well past her climax, not stopping until she brought him to release as well.

The man was diabolical. By the time he decided he was finished between her legs, she was quivering with renewed arousal, as if he hadn’t wrung two extreme climaxes out of her. And that was apparently the state in which he intended her to remain.

For some Masters, that was a vital part of the turn-on. While a lot of men were done once both partners found satisfaction, Dale obviously liked to take a sub through the whole roller coaster multiple times. But instead of letting her get off the ride at the logical ending point, he took her past that and hit the brake at the peak of that first huge hill, right before the thrilling fall. It was enough to make a woman hit him with a blunt object, except for the fact she’d wait until the end of time for him to do it all again.

It was late afternoon when she dressed, collected her picnic basket and prepared to depart. He insisted on walking her to her car. She tried to dissuade him from it, not wanting him to go that far using the crutches. The look he gave her was one he’d probably used on SEAL recruits. At some point, she was going to prove to him she wouldn’t be so easily cowed, but she wasn’t going to rock that boat today.

Especially when he rewarded her by rocking her world a wholly different way. At the BMW, he pressed her back against the car door and kissed her so thoroughly, she felt the tingle all the way to the soles of her feet. He took his time with it, drawing it out such that the sun had dropped another notch in the sky when he finally released her. His last words, breathed against her ear, merely confirmed his agenda to drive her to distraction.

“I’m going to be so fucking hard this week, remembering how hot and wet you are right now. No more touching yourself when it’s not my command. You save it all for your Master.”

“When will I see you again?” she asked. Their fingers were laced together and her heart beat a little faster as he lifted her knuckles to his lips, brushed his mouth over them.

“I’m glad you came to see me, but for our next visit, you wait for my call.” He stroked a hand over her hair, his mouth softening as he gazed down at her. “I have to handle some prior commitments, but you’ll hear from me in a few days. I promise.”

—

She was a busy woman with many demands upon her time. Work, meetings at home, offsite and in the office. Yet there were certain things for which there was no distraction large enough. Dale Rousseau was one of those things. Several days later, her focus still wasn’t on her responsibilities but on Dale’s hands, his eyes, voice, the powerful body and, most importantly, the way he made her feel. Her skin felt exposed and tingling, the friction of her clothes just exacerbating it.

She was as besotted as she’d been as an eighteen-year-old, when she’d met Roy and developed the crush that would ultimately result in falling head over heels in love with him and into a life together.

Troubled by the thought, she rose from her desk. She’d been staring into space—again. When she moved to gaze out the window at the New Orleans business district, her fingers were twitching where they lay against the base of her throat, her other arm wrapped around herself. The first couple of days, she’d told herself her agitated state had to do with how new this all was to her, like a first love, but each day her feelings were more out of control. The waiting was agony. Dale Rousseau was turning her into a basket case.

She was more disciplined than this. She was a middle-aged woman, for pity’s sake, not a teenager. Truly irritated with herself, she went back to her desk. She glanced at her accounting software on the screen and noted Ellen had flagged the charitable giving ratio to profits in the first quarter. They had a surplus, which meant she could give a little more to one of their existing charities or do a onetime donation.

No big surprise, Dale’s shelter was the first thing that crossed her mind. After their lunch and before she’d left, he’d taken her to the section of the junkyard where the kennels were. The runs could be opened to allow the dogs to play in a communal area when he wasn’t letting them explore the junkyard. He’d landscaped around the area with a wealth of fragrant bushes that helped minimize the kennel odors. He and other volunteers for the shelter, some of them fellow SEALs, had poured the concrete pads and installed the necessary plumbing so he could keep the runs clean.

They’d also built a small supply building for food and other necessities, and he’d mentioned their plans to build a bigger building, perhaps one with an indoor exercise and training area, an examination room where a vet could visit and examine the animals on site. But her questions had revealed they didn’t have a capital fund at this point. Most of the donations given went to operations, like vaccinations, getting the dogs spayed or neutered before adoption and some efforts to publicize the animals up for adoption.

Ed Senior, the former owner of the place, was the father of a SEAL with whom Dale had served. Eddie had died in action. Though Dale didn’t say so, Athena had a feeling it was the same mission where Dale lost his leg. During his last years as a SEAL, and then through his retirement, Dale had checked in on Ed Senior, helping him with the maintenance and management of the dog shelter. The old man had stopped operating the junkyard as a business about five years ago, except for the occasional hobbyist or mechanic looking for an old car part. When he’d died a few months ago, he’d left the place to Dale.

Dale had moved onto the property and taken over the dog portion of it. There were a total of fifty dogs there now. Adoptions and donations were coordinated by word of mouth, and most of those came from the military community and their contacts.

Athena was very good at nonprofit management, and had helped improve the operations and fund-raising of a variety of New Orleans charities, first as a volunteer, and then later as a sitting member of several of their active boards. Sitting back in her chair, she considered the potential of the place, especially with a man like Dale running it. Their relationship was so new, she wasn’t sure how Dale would react to her advice, but increasing the publicity would improve funds as well as adoptions.

If the board voted on it, that tidy surplus from this quarter’s earnings, plus a hundred thousand from the discretionary funds she controlled through a foundation she and Roy had established for such efforts, would give Dale more options.

She buzzed Ellen, asking her to get her banker on the phone. Once her admin patched him through, she initiated the paperwork with him. She asked him to deliver the first check to Dale, provide him notice of the account and how it was set up. She wanted to give Dale a call, let him know about it herself, but he’d been pretty clear, telling her in that unmistakable Master voice he would contact her. Oh well. If he called her before the banker reached out to him, she could tell him. Otherwise, it would be a nice surprise for him. She couldn’t wait to see what he thought.

Nodding, pleased with the decision, she returned to work in a better frame of mind. She could do this. She could handle the type of relationship she was cultivating with Dale and keep her life in perspective.

Balanced.