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  Stared at her exactly as he did now.

  Ohhh, hell.

  As he swiped her lip the second time, Z traced the seam between her teeth and the bit. That made his snicker stop. When that happened, Luna pulled in a shaky breath. Zeke’s smile faded. She was glad she’d filled her lungs, because when his lids lowered and his irises went molten, air was officially added to her body’s No Admittance list.

  Stare at me like that forever.

  “Very nice, Luna.”

  Forever and a day.

  His husky words wove pure magic into her body. She needed to acknowledge him, but no sound stirred except a soft moan from deep in her throat. For some reason, that made his lips rise again. But this time, his smile didn’t tease. It was more like…

  What? What was he thinking? Hell, she barely connected to what she was thinking. All right, that was funny. What thoughts would those be, exactly? The ones consisting of nunh, he’s so beautiful, or gah touch me again, Master?

  He’d told her they’d do this in his time. By his rules. It had been so easy to Yes, Sir him, without absorbing the truth into her soul. She believed him now. She adored him for it now. She needed more of his domination now. And could do nothing to demand it.

  Even when he dropped his hands from her and disappeared.

  She whimpered in frustration. The ropes around her arms, once friends, were the sentinels that prevented her from knowing where he’d gone or what he was doing. She dropped her head, glaring at the dark, throbbing red nubs of her nipples, still bound in his clamps. Her mind swam, still hostage to the spell of his control. Though she could hear his steps and feel his presence, she craved his touch again. Longed for his words. Needed the next sweep of power and blessing of pain he had to wield.

  She hated every second of it.

  She loved every second of it.

  As her mind plunged deeper into her surrender, a deeper moan erupted from her throat. She drooled a little past the gag. She tugged at the ropes, savoring every burn they gave her skin.

  Until Zeke slammed against her spine again.

  Her breath rushed out as he splayed a hand to her stomach. His other hand trailed lower. Two of his long fingers dipped into the valley of her buttocks. They stopped at the rim of her tight back hole. Luna pulled in air through her nose as he slowly pressed at the sensitive nerves.

  At the same time, he trailed his other hand into the layers of wet arousal between her legs. A thousand sparks shot through her pussy, her thighs, to the ends of her toes. “Ahhh!” The cry came from her but sounded like the scream of another, a being spun of pure sensation, created solely to be his special welcome-home toy. Oh damn, yes. More of the world spun away. She forgot the dungeon, left the world behind, even the awful memories of Saint Cecelia’s that had threatened before. Right now belonged to Zeke—his touch, his hands, his control…especially as he captured her most sensitive button beneath his fingers.

  She released a high, long keen.

  “Good girl.” His voice was dark as coal as he squeezed something cold into the opening of her ass. Hell. The only smell she loved more than leather was leather mixed with lube. As he worked the tapered tip of an anal plug against her entrance, he ordered, “Be still now, subbie.”

  Despite the morass in which everything from her clit to her cranium now swam, she tried to swing a glare backward. Be still. Really? Sure, boss. She’d get on that as soon as she got over the fact that first, his fingers were turning her pussy into a not-so-small electrical storm, and second, he was preparing to invade the tiniest cavity in her body with something—

  That stretched it far beyond comfort.

  “Unnnnck!”

  The syllable was a miserable fail at the F-word. It did the trick all the same, easing off the tempo on her body’s wild megamix of pain, frustration, and nympho-level arousal. Her womb, teased by two forces outside her control, throbbed like a savannah without a tiger to rip through it. Yet Z twisted the plug in deeper, stuffing her more full than she’d ever been back there, hurting her so exquisitely, so erotically.

  “Uhhhhnnnn!”

  She bucked against his grip, feeling that he hadn’t gotten it in all the way, unsure if she could take the rest.

  “Girl, what part of ‘be still’ did you not understand?”

  Hell.

  With heaving lungs and trembling legs, she gave in to his command. And learned that her ass could indeed take the rest.

  “Aggghhh!”

  Stars shimmered behind her squeezed eyelids as he seated the plug completely. He pressed the base to her ass cheeks with an approving grunt, letting his fingers linger along her skin. “Perfect.”

  His voice was lower. Grittier. Mesmerizing as the lightning he continued to spread through her sex, helping to gather the downpour over her savannah. Terrible torment. Throbbing rapture. She wanted to burst so bad…

  “Mmmmph.” The pressure from the plug turned into a steady, beautiful burn. Everything was a mad mix of pain and pleasure. In the black behind her closed eyes, she spiraled higher into the storm. She was pulled by relentless winds, flying across the veldt. She was lashed and helpless, at the mercy of the beast now driving her on with a bamboo cane at her ass. His feral breaths ripped through her blood. His guttural commands filled her head.

  “Feel it all, Luna.”

  Another stinging blow. Another scream from the depths of her soul. Yes. Oh, yes!

  “Take it all, Luna.”

  Another. Harder. Sharper. Her penitence. Her deliverance. Yes, Master. Anything you want to give me.

  “Shatter for me, Luna.”

  The bamboo came down. His fingers pushed inside. The storm crashed. The climax claimed. She was devoured.

  Yet before the pulses in her sex died away, his mouth was back at her ear. His breathing was heavy, harsh, pure animal. It matched the next whack he rained on her, going for the virgin flesh of her upper thighs this time. Relentless. Driving her to another limit. Ramming her past it.

  “Now you’ve had your warm-up.”

  Chapter Five

  Rayna didn’t want to be here.

  Sally couldn’t have been thrilled about it, either. But the therapist looked as serene as the Dalai Lama in one of her office’s big leather chairs, blond curly hair pulled up loose, and a Foo Fighters sweatshirt pulled over faded jeans. From behind her trendy oversized glasses, her eyes were warm and kind.

  That didn’t stop Rayna from continuing to feel like a giant shit.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” she muttered.

  “We’ve established that,” Sally answered gently.

  “On a Saturday night.”

  “That, too.”

  She grimaced. “I can’t believe you insisted on meeting like this.”

  “I can’t believe you thought a phone call would handle it.”

  She tugged at a thread in the tan T-shirt in her lap. Zeke’s T-shirt. He’d left it in her room this morning. Not surprising, considering his commitment to his bat-out-of-hell flight from the house. She hadn’t found it until she’d finished scrubbing the kitchen, scouring the bathroom, and cleaning out the den closet, only to find she still wasn’t tired enough for the TV lullaby that had saved her from returning to the bedroom last night.

  As if fate still had it in for her, she’d walked into the bedroom and found the damn shirt like it was a homing beacon. To compound the mistake of picking it up, she’d smelled it. In an instant, he’d filled her senses again. She was meeting his brilliant hazel gaze. Exploring his burnished skin. Letting him fill her body. Letting him see more of her soul.

  Burning their friendship because of her damn hormones.

  Twenty minutes after that, she’d dialed Sally. Gotten desperate enough to call her therapist’s cell at eight p.m. on a Saturday.

  “I would’ve been fine,” she murmured, “after a little bit. I just needed to talk and—”

  “Rayna.”

  “What? I wasn’t in total crisis, okay?”

  “
Rayna.”

  “I was in a little rough spot.”

  “You were in tears.”

  “It was a bump.”

  “A lot of tears.”

  “Okay, okay.” She started making accordion folds in one of the T-shirt’s sleeves. Sally didn’t say anything for a very long pause. Crap. The woman was watching her. Being watched was intimidating. It meant she was a target. That any minute, three of King’s men would swoop in, hold her down, spread her legs, and—

  This jewel isn’t your shame. This diamond is a symbol of your miracle. It’s your true medal of honor…

  She forced down a shaking gulp. Clung to the words, begging them to echo some more in her head, hating them when they did. Her fingers hurt from gripping the beige cotton. Shit. She was stronger than this. He’d been the one to show her that. And he’d be the first to tell her she had to do it without him, too…

  “Ugh. I’m a mess.” She fidgeted, considering a get-me-out-of-here moment of her own. “Look, I’m sorry I bothered you, Sal. I’ll call one of my brothers. This isn’t fair to you. You’re gorgeous. You must have a date lined up or something.”

  “Yep. A really good one.” Sally chuckled. “He’s very adept at putting a movie on pause, keeping dinner warm, and understanding that when his woman is a shrink for MRW services, her hours aren’t nine to five.”

  “Sounds like a keeper.”

  The woman’s face softened. Her lips crinkled in that “I’ve got a delicious secret” way that only other women understood. “We’ll see.”

  Rayna nodded at Sally’s shirt. “Does he like the Foo Fighters, too?”

  The woman squared her shoulders. “Are you going to play deflection until I call you on your shit?”

  She shrugged. “You have to admit, I’m good at it.”

  Sally didn’t return the mirth. She let a sizable pause go by. “Who belongs to the shirt, Ray?”

  She let her gaze fall again to the beige lump in her lap. Tried to tuck in the spots where she’d dampened it with her tears. This heartache was so ugly. And stupid. And useless. “You mean who belonged to it.” She ran a finger along the worn collar. “Me,” she finally said. “It belongs to me. He left it behind. Which means it’s officially mine now, right?”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “It’s a no thing.”

  As Sally’s brows ticked up, she backpedaled over her thou-protesteth-too-much answer. “It’s nothing, okay? It has to be. It’s what I agreed to, all right? And the last time I checked, I was a grown-up who knew the difference between strings-free sex and stalker expectations.”

  One side of Sally’s mouth kicked up. “So you slept with someone.”

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Nothing. I think it’s wonderful. You’re moving forward with life, getting on with what a normal twenty-seven-year-old woman should be—”

  “It was Zeke.”

  After ten seconds, she got ready to repeat it. Maybe the bomb was really that huge. Though Sally looked more Zen-perfect than ever, she didn’t even lift her pen to jot this in her ever-present session journal.

  Finally, Sally stated, “So he got back early from the deployment.”

  Had the woman spoken like they were just trading costume ideas for the Halloween bash next week? “Uh…yeah.”

  “Bet you were glad to see him.”

  “Uh-huh. I was. And then I slept with him, Sal. Did you get that part?”

  “Yep. Sure did.”

  “And you’re not shocked?”

  “I’m stunned that you thought I’d be.”

  She went silent while scrunching one of the T-shirt’s sleeves into an accordion fold. Yay. The self-appointed stupidity medal just got bumped from silver to gold.

  “Let me guess,” Sally went on. “You two agreed it would be a friendly little tension reliever, right? Just a way to burn off some stress? But hindsight isn’t bearing that out?”

  She let the fold fall apart along with the edges of her composure. “Hindsight.” It fell out on a whisper. An image engraved itself on her mind with not-so-nice severity. Z’s broad, bare shoulders as he’d made a beeline for her front door. “Sure. That’s a good way of saying fucked-up-to-shit, isn’t it?”

  “That’s pretty harsh language.”

  She looked up. Hell, here came the tears anyway. “It’s a harsh world.”

  Getting her bitter side on didn’t help things one bit. The ache in her throat got heavier. The loss in her heart flooded deeper. Neither got better when she remembered the look Z stamped into her before turning from her. His stare, full of so much regret and discomfort, that she’d been certain of one thing. He’d likely been prepping it long before their night of reckless sex.

  Great. Out of all the Special Forces studs in the world, she’d slept with the only one who dealt the goodbye fuck after the deployment.

  She erased the wetness from her face in two furious sweeps. “Look,” she muttered, “I understand what happened. I even understand why.” After her easy catch of Sally’s tissue box lob, she went on, “I just don’t understand…all this.” She waved one of the white swipes. “I have a lot of friends on the base. And some of them come with equipment that’s handy at times…”

  Sally smirked. “Helps to know a soldier with a good-sized…gun.”

  She returned a watery laugh. “Yeah. It does.” As if she were getting naked physically as well as emotionally, she curled her knees to her chest. “But I’ve never had any problems putting them all back into their compartments. What’s my problem now?”

  Sally released a meaningful breath. “Zeke’s a little too big for a compartment.”

  Rayna snorted. “No shit.”

  “I didn’t mean that literally.”

  “Neither did I.”

  After another silence passed, filled mostly with her efforts to force the memories of Thursday night away, she hurled the tissues to the floor but kept the T-shirt.

  “I hate this,” she spat. “I hate feeling like this. All right, I admit it. I was just part of his job for a while. Maybe a part that lingered longer than most, but—” She rested her cheek on her knee. “I told myself it wouldn’t be forever. I knew it wouldn’t be, since the second we got out of that damn jungle. And nothing got any easier when I found out he’s a Dom—”

  She coughed to cover how she chopped back the rest of the word.

  “He’s a what?” Sally asked.

  “A—a dog lover.” She averted her eyes. “And you know how my back porch is a magnet for every stray cat in the neighborhood.”

  “Rayna.” Sally’s tone got layered with concrete all of a sudden. The woman leaned forward. “You’re racing all over the place with this.”

  She raised her head and winced. “I’ve noticed, thank you.”

  Sally uncurled her legs. As she came forward some more, she L-shaped her elbows atop her knees. “What do you want here, sweetie?”

  The ten-million-dollar question. If only searching her heart for the answer made her feel that way. If only she didn’t have to search her damn heart for the answer. When had Zeke come to park his beautiful ass in so much of it? When should she have pushed herself back from his massive shoulders and told herself that they wouldn’t be there forever? That one day, she’d be looking at the horizon without him in it?

  She should have known. She should have seen.

  She ducked her forehead back against her knees. “I just want to go back three months.”

  “You think that would give you the answers?”

  “No. It would prevent the questions in the first place.”

  “Because you’d make sure to keep Zeke in his compartment this time. Is that it?”

  The concrete was gone from Sally’s voice. She didn’t need it. The question did a fine job of crushing Rayna’s logic on its own. “Shit,” she whispered. “Maybe I’m just screwed.”

  Maybe she’d been that way from the beginning. Perhaps from the second the man had
scooped her from the dirt in that jungle, some chromosome had gone rogue and let in stupid expectations through a back window of her psyche. That meant Zeke was more than right yesterday, accusing her of turning him into Superman—or worse—when all he’d been doing was his job.

  Yeah. Screwed. That was her.

  She lifted her head enough to shoot another despairing stare at Sally. “Why did I pick now to be an idiot about this crap?”

  The therapist barely moved. “Why do you think now has anything to do with it?”

  She should have looked away once more. She knew what Sally was getting at—and dreaded it. About three weeks ago, during a session where Rayna had been more confused than usual about the inability to disconnect from Z, an inquisitive look had crossed Sal’s face. Two seconds later, she’d made a suggestion that first had Rayna giggling.

  Hypnosis.

  She hadn’t laughed for long. Sally had stated her case with serious intent. The therapy was doing wonders for the guys who’d seen intense battle, and maybe a focus like that would help Rayna feel more independent of her attachment to Zeke. Still, Rayna had rolled her eyes and accused Sally of simply wanting to see her dance like a duck or break into a Beyoncé tune.

  The subject hadn’t gotten dropped for long. Sally had been persistent in her suggestions about the therapy. Like now.

  But there was a difference tonight. Rayna was officially desperate enough to listen.

  She straightened a little. Released a weighted sigh. “You really think it’ll help, don’t you?”

  Sally smiled softly. “I think there might be something in your past that you don’t see now that might explain why you’re in bondage to these feelings for Zeke.”

  Bondage. Zeke. If the woman only knew how perfectly she’d tapped that vein. “You mean, like something I’ve repressed? But why?”

  “Perhaps it’s too traumatic to carry in your active consciousness,” Sally offered. “Or it happened so fast, you’ve mentally filed it away as nonimportant.” She tilted her head in contemplation. “Our minds are like a big sweater, woven with fibers of our experiences, present and past. Sometimes the tiniest of threads can unravel a whole sleeve before we see it.”