“No. It wasn’t goodbye.”
“I got that,” she said breathlessly. There was a little curve to her lips, but uncertainty as well.
She sighed. “I’m out of courage, Ben. I know I went about it the wrong way, but I didn’t know how else to do it. Now I’m thinking all I did was open myself up for the worst rejection of my life, something that will be hard to survive. But I can survive it.”
Lifting her chin, she gave him a direct look. Though she was still in his lap, her body had tensed, ready to move away, to put distance between them. “Maybe you think you made the message clear enough at the club, but we were both pretty emotional that night. So here and now, when everything’s quiet and clear, I need your final answer, no matter how scared I am of it. I don’t want you as my mentor, unless it’s part of you being my permanent Master. Am I wasting my time? Is there any chance you’ll ever be in love with me, the way I am with you?”
She’d said she was out of courage, but he knew of no one, man or woman, who would risk an emotional blow as baldly as that. She kept her gaze locked on him, didn’t flinch, even though he could tell how fragile she was, how vulnerable. A kitten and a lioness together. A shapeshifting sorceress.
“I’ll answer you, but I want an answer from you first. I know you’ve thought a lot about what happened at Surreal. What was your conclusion?” He’d remind her to be honest, but at this point he realized she didn’t know how to be anything else.
That chin lifted higher, tightened. “You wanted me. You didn’t want anyone else touching me. And the way you acted at the car…” When a shadow passed through her eyes, he couldn’t stop himself. He put his hands on her face.
“Was unforgivable. Unconscionable. I’d go through any level of hell if it could take me back to that moment. I never want you to be afraid of me, Marcie. I never want you to connect me in any way to what happened to you as a teenager.”
“Damn it, Lucas,” she muttered, but he increased his grip, bringing her eyes back up to him.
“He was right to tell me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and she had no idea how it relieved him, down deep in his gut, to see the irritated truth of it in her eyes. “You were purposefully trying to hurt my feelings that night, and you succeeded. Yes, you’re pretty scary when you’re riled like that, but…” She shook her head, put her hands on his wrists, squeezing. “I know you, Ben. I was freaked out, I admit it, but after I thought it through, I knew the only reason you did it was because you were scared.”
He blinked. Her fingers were cold and nervous on his, but she’d delivered the truth as steady as if she was the Head Mother in The Sound of Music.
Jesus Christ. Jon was right. She was more emotionally mature than him.
It made him smile, he couldn’t help it. Her brow raised, her expression puzzled, but he just pushed her head back down next to his, stroked her hair as she lay in his arms, quiet, waiting on him. The water birds made their strange calls, the reeds rustling with the wind. He wasn’t even really thinking. He was feeling. She liked being a bad girl, would always push the limits. It was a symptom of the feelings she had inside her that she wanted to get out, that she trusted him to handle, to use to pleasure them both. She knew he liked challenges, and she was the challenge of a lifetime.
Closing his arms around her, he rose, bringing them both to their feet. She looked up at him, that uncertain, waiting look, but she still had that tightness to her chin. She was ready for whatever he decided. He stepped back, releasing her.
“On your knees,” he ordered.
They were on a rough wooden dock, but it didn’t matter. Everything inside him tied into a hundred different knots as she responded immediately, began to sink to her knees. He caught her elbow. Slipping his coat off her shoulders, he put it down to protect her knees. “Now.”
“That’s an expensive coat.”
“Your legs rank up there with the Seven Wonders of the World.”
She gave a tiny smile, though she was still too serious. Too sad. That wouldn’t change today, because today was about far more than what was happening between them, but he could change this part, maybe make it better.
When she sank down to her knees, he touched her chin, making her look up at him. “A slave is braver than her Master, Marcie. That’s the way it works. So you say it first, lay it all on the line for me. Take the risk.”
By commanding her to her knees, he’d given her hope, and he loved seeing it spark in her brown gaze. She closed her hand over his wrist, a breach he allowed because her fingers felt too good to resist. He wanted the connection. “I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen years old,” she said. “Every guy I met, I compared him to you. I counted the days until break, when I might get a glimpse of you on the holidays. As soon as I realized what I was, I started calling you Master in my heart. I have a diary I wrote to you throughout college. I love you, Master. I love you with every part of me, and I love every part of you. I’m here, and I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
He blinked, looked over the slow moving water, though her fingers squeezed his. “Please let me love you, Ben.” Her
