When Jeremy freed Brendan, Marguerite stood back and watched The Zone employee help him sit up as he checked vitals. Brendan was forced to lean on the other man while the world oriented itself and became what he knew it to be, though she was sure the band of fire across his lower back made his immediate future different. She stood away from him, in front of him, her clothes back in place. She explained the aftercare while he drank the glass of water Jeremy pushed on him. His gaze watched her hungrily, so she made sure her voice was firm, cool, reminding him of her boundaries and what would and would not happen after this night.

She saw the reminder sink in, the acceptance come into his eyes more easily than she would have expected. It suggested that tonight's experience had changed his reality, taken him to a different plane of understanding of himself and her. Brought him an inner tranquility. The post-euphoria of a successful pain session, she told herself, knowing it was at least partly true. When she gathered up her bag of items and put it over her shoulder, he rose from the bench and knelt before her, despite the pain she knew the position must be causing him.

"Thank you, Mistress."

She nodded, walked around him without touching him and left the room.

The carpeted hallway outside was blissfully empty. Moving quickly toward the women's changing room, she nearly ran into the door before giving herself time to pause and turn the bronze door handle.

They offered individual changing rooms along with an open vanity area. She went into one of the rooms, closing and locking the door. Sinking down on the bench, drawing up her feet so no part of her could be visible under the door, she laid her head on her knees, closed her hands around them. Then she let the shuddering take her, rack through her body like a sudden fever.

Why had she done that? Why had she taunted Tyler when every molecule of her focus should have been on Brendan?

She knew why.

But it took several more indrawn breaths for her to say it in her mind. Breathing in, lifting the diaphragm, breathing out, letting the energy channels open, releasing the buildup of nervous tension.

He was right. She wasn't a coward, though she had never wanted to be one as much as she wished to be at this moment.

She took off the boots, stood before the mirror in her bare feet. When she walked through The Zone, the people there saw what she wanted them to see. When she stood here, she saw someone much younger. Someone she had created the Ice Queen to protect, someone who was not strong enough to survive this world. Pale skin, pale outfit, pale hair. A ghost with the glitter of diamonds to give her life.

God, she was in a mood. Time to go home and treat herself to a cup of chamomile, an herbal infusion. She couldn't do tea tonight, not as wound up as she was. Reaching into the bag, she pulled out a cream-colored tunic and donned it over the bodysuit, belting it with a sash tied loosely on her hips. She found a pair of short heels for her feet and dropped the diamonds in their velvet box, tucked them back into the bag. When she tied her hair back on her shoulders, she was normal-looking enough for the street, the mundane world, though she had one stop to make first before she could escape to it.

When she stepped out into the hallway, he was sitting on the wide carpeted staircase that led up to the main floor. Because of the excellent soundproofing in The Zone playrooms, there was no audio evidence of what might be going on behind the nearly thirty doors along the hallway. There was an almost hushed stillness in this area.

All the music, voices and light on the main floor above were contained behind the heavy wooden doors at the top of the stairs.

It always made her feel as if she were alone in the great hall of a castle. The vaulted ceilings offered equal visions of pleasure and pain, silhouettes of bodies, the gleaming curves of exposed skin, a ready hand or brushing of lips. Nearly two hundred scenes painted along the arched expanse, a masterpiece created exclusively for The Zone by an anonymous patron, though everyone suspected famed erotic artist J. Martin. Life-sized erotic statuary was placed between every third and fourth door along the hallway, the silent sentinels guarding a world beyond the comprehension of most people's lives. But not hers and Tyler's.

She walked toward him, a straight line, her gaze fixed just past his shoulder, neither of them smiling. He sat on one of the lower steps, a hand on the dividing handrail, the other on his knee, a masculine pose. An authoritative pose. A still one, because he was a master at stillness, at giving nothing away by body language.

The dark slacks and white dress shirt open at the throat suited him. Stark black and white that didn't detract from the etched planes of his face, the intensity of his eyes fixed on her. He'd shaved before he'd come tonight, so his jaw was smooth, perfect. Her fingers curled with a sudden desire to touch it, feel that satiny texture that a man had after a shave, to lean in close enough to flare the nostrils and try to identify the aftershave he used. What would it be like, to be part of a man's intimate life like that?

See how he took care of himself every day? She'd never thought herself interested in such a thing before. The Zone's front door was a door she literally and emotionally closed behind her every time she left, such that she'd had Mistresses or submissives come into Tea Leaves and it took a couple blinks before she realized why they seemed familiar, or seemed to know her.

She stopped twenty feet from him and resisted the urge to defensively tighten the belt of the sash. Instead she remained motionless, studying the pattern of the carpet that ran on the stair alongside his hip. What did he carry in his pockets? Keys, perhaps Chapstick or gum. Were there pictures in his wallet?

She wanted to forget everything she'd resolved in the changing room and walk away. This could not go well. She could not do this.

"Was that entirely necessary?"

She didn't pretend that they both didn't know exactly what he was referencing.

"If you recognized it for what it was, then yes, I suppose it was." Not even by a tremor did she betray what was going on behind those pale eyes but somehow Tyler got the impression that the exterior of the formidable woman before him had become glass since she'd left the room she'd shared with Brendan. He'd surprised a street dog in an alley once, a female with glittering eyes and a very impressive set of teeth. Every line of her lean, muscular body had indicated she would be aggressive if pressed but he understood her primal fear of being trapped, helpless.

He'd stepped aside and she had shot out of the alley, escaping his perceived threat.

With the same instinct, he sensed Marguerite was at the end of some emotional tether and was showing her teeth to get him to step aside. And it wasn't just the emotional drain from an intense session with a sub. It had made him hurt for her, to watch her studiously avoid touching Brendan at the end. Like watching a mother refuse to touch her infant as it came naked and shivering from the womb, turn her back so it would not completely shatter her to give him up.

"Will you come sit by me a second?" He nodded to the spot on the stair beside him.

She looked startled by the mild request, the softer inflection. After a moment, she came up the steps, smoothed her tunic beneath her and took a seat in the informal position as easily as she might settle herself in more elegant furnishings. Of course - he suppressed his grim amusement - she sat on the other side of the railing from him, the one that cut down the middle of the wide staircase.

"You were magnificent tonight," he said. "This will probably rank in the top three experiences of that kid's life until he's on his deathbed."

"It was very moving to me as well."

"Watching you is like watching a highly trained horsewoman handle a fractious stallion. Though, admittedly, Brendan's more like a yearling." When he smiled, he was surprised to see an answering curve of her lips. She read him well. Knew when he was being sarcastic and when he wasn't, honest versus passive aggressive or overtly aggressive. But then why was he surprised by that? She had an exceptional ability to read people, which is likely why she'd approached him so warily, sensing his still somewhat roused temper.

"Wouldn't you like to be that steed for once, waiting for the lightest touch on your mouth, the release of the crop, finding your pleasure at the will of another? Just to see what it's like for your subs, what you do for them?"

She drew her knees up to her chest, locked her hands over them, rocked. "What do you want from me, Tyler?"

Everything. That one word encompassed it.

"I'll do it." She spoke before he could say anything else, startling him. "I'd already changed my mind and decided to do it, just before I came out here. It's a requirement and I value what The Zone brings to my life. I shouldn't have asked you to lie. That was wrong. I apologize."

He inclined his head. "Apology accepted. And thank you."

"For what?"

"For choosing me." Most of the Masters at The Zone would have given both of their testicles for the right to top the Ice Queen. She could have chosen any Master or Mistress approved for the mentoring program. It was a thought he preferred not to dwell on.

Mirroring his movement, she nodded her head. "So when will we meet at The Zone to do this? How many nights do you think it will take?"

"I'd prefer to have you come to my home on the Gulf for the weekend."

"I'd prefer to keep it in neutral territory."

"The Master determines the location. That's part of what it's about. You're giving up control for the sessions." At her frown, he added, "Look at it this way. I can cover almost all of the required areas in that one weekend. Come at six o'clock on Friday. I'll leave the directions to my house on your Zone email account. Bring the clothes on your back and a change to wear home Sunday. You won't need anything else in between." He rose before she could respond. "And before you run off, I want to show you something, something new to The Zone that hasn't opened yet. You'll be the first to see it. I'd like your opinion."

He offered her his hand. When she rose, declining his touch in favor of the handrail, he kept his hand extended, waiting. "Marguerite, we may have to touch each other this weekend. In fact, I feel fairly confident of it. Consider this practice, a small step. Take my hand."

"It's not the weekend yet."

"Marguerite."

She sighed, put her hand in his with little grace. He lifted a brow. "Are you cold?" She lifted a shoulder. "I'm always cold. The Ice Queen, remember?" Cold was also a sign of nervousness. Though her face was not revealing it, he realized her body was. Closing his fingers over hers, he started up. He stopped short at the second step to look back. She hadn't moved, her eyes fixed on their fingers loosely linked over the rail, his tanned masculine skin against her pale, delicate fingers.

"You act like a man's never held your hand before." He said it gently, not teasing.

"Last night you said that we would set up rules. I have three." Her gaze flicked up.

"Let's hear them, then." He eased her forward and they were walking up the steps, then the rail was gone and he was walking next to her, their fingers still intertwined. He headed down the opposite wing of stairs, past a barrier that said employees and contractors only, instead of making the left turn that would take them back to The Zone's open areas. He matched his pace to her stride in the short heels.

"No kissing. No actual sex. And I'd like to do this clothed." He stopped midway down, looked at her. "The kissing I can allow. Reluctantly.

And as far as sex goes..." His brow lifted. "You don't do sex? Ever? Where are you from?"

"Kentucky." She gave him an even look. "The rural part. Where we only have sex with family members. Tyler..."

He lifted a hand. "You have every right to set the limits on sex. But clothes are nonnegotiable. You know they're an important key to understanding a sub's vulnerabilities."

"All right." She agreed so readily, he realized she'd probably offered the three as a calculated strategy so she could get the one she really wanted. It was a child's trick.

With an inward smile, he admitted it had worked successfully on him.

"There are some marks on my body that I don't wish to explain."

"Like this?" He raised her hand, rubbing his thumb over the scar that looked like a starburst in the center of her hand, turned her wrist so he saw the matching scar on her palm.

"Like that." She closed her hand into a fist, though he continued to hold it in his grip. "Going through this type of training doesn't mean I have to bare all the corners of my soul."

If done right, it does. But he nodded. "Fair enough. Are you in counseling for anything, Marguerite?" She looked at him sharply but he pressed on. "I don't want to harm you emotionally, any more than I would physically. You're obviously carrying dark things around. I'm not sure The Zone exactly qualifies as a therapy center."

"You'd be surprised," she said sweetly. "Besides, what's a shrink going to tell me?

That the world's a beautiful sunlit meadow flanked by some truly wretched dark forests and if I take enough of his drugs I can stay inside that meadow, or at least as close to the perimeter as my vampire soul will let me get? Thanks. No."

"Vampire soul?" He lifted a brow. "You don't drain life, dearest." He tightened his grasp so she couldn't draw away. "On the contrary, I feel more alive when I'm around you."

"Where are you taking me?" Marguerite grasped for something safe, since he seemed determined to drag her into murky waters.

"This is the new wing. We're hoping to open it up for rental sometime in the fall.

This foyer will be the twin of the hall we just left. The same artist will be doing frescoes, sculptures and a ceiling mural with different scenes, an original work just like that one.

There will be ten new playrooms here instead of thirty. We've made them larger for more expansive role-playing, bigger groups or small parties. Special effects technology will give it even more options."

"I suppose that's where your contacts in the movie industry made you a very desirable partner."

"One of the many reasons I'm a very desirable partner," he agreed, giving her a wink, an astonishing bit of flirtation that did in fact amuse her. "Here it is." Unlocking one of the doors, he gestured her in, snapping on the lights.

The floor of the large room was still plywood, the walls only primed. A great deal of electrical work was going on, equipment hanging from the ceiling. Tyler stepped over and into a frame built of two-by-fours that looked like it was intended to be sheet-rocked into a hidden control room.

"I thought you said it's almost finished."

"It is. The hard part. Programming the lights, the sound." He gestured to the speakers. "With this kind of setup, you want to get everything right before you rough in the floor, walls, et cetera, because when we're done almost none of this will show.

There'll be access panels for repairs but those will be well concealed. Would you stand in the center of the room for me, in that circle marked with orange tape?" Boys and their toys, she concluded. He was intent on what he was doing, his fascination with the control panel obvious. She wanted to brush the soft strands of hair over his forehead, see if he would smile distractedly at her. Instead, she went to the circle. She froze as the room went completely dark.

"Tyler - "

"Hold on."

Spotlights came on from various positions on the ceiling, strobing smoothly over the room. She jumped as the light revealed a man and woman whirling past her in a tight turn. She spun at another motion behind her and let out a startled yelp as this pair of dancers passed right through her, molecules of light and color. Like the other couple, they were doing a graceful ballroom dance across the room, the woman's skirt flowing out from her like the glittering sweep of a peacock's fantail.

When he pressed another series of buttons, the dancers changed. Now she found herself on the stage of Swan Lake. Prince Siegfried knelt before her, his holographic face lifted to her with a surreal sad expression as if he was looking at his precious Odette.

The music came in then, the strains of the classical piece. The prince gracefully leaped from her, his muscular body perfect, movements of effortless grace among the froth of lace-clad ballerinas. The music drifted off, the images fading.

As she looked over at Tyler, he gave her a smile, though she noted there were shadows in his amber eyes as he watched the ballerinas fade to ghostlike images before disappearing entirely. But his fingers were moving. Now the speakers offered her a primitive, tribal piece. He made more adjustments to the lighting and the room was full of shadows like flickering firelight. Overhead a wash of stars were flung against the night sky, surrounding a heavy yellow moon. She was by a large fire surrounded by African women wearing colorful scarves wrapped tightly about ample hips, their upper bodies bare, jewels glittering on their arms and necks. Medallions struck against their breasts as they stomped and circled, slowed, sped up, dancing for the gods above to answer their prayers.

Or perhaps they were simply moving the way the music told them to move. The heavy beat resonated inside her most vital organs, making her want to join them, to let go of thought and simply move, open her body to the night. The women turned outward, moving forward, their thighs spreading out, hands reaching up to cup their full breasts. The whites of their eyes, the dark irises, glowed with firelight.

It was marvelous. She saw where Tyler was planning to take it. Even now, unfinished, the detail shone through. She noted he was studying something about the bonfire, making some adjustments. If he found something wrong, she suspected he'd be driving the special effects team insane tomorrow, because he would demand that it be perfect.

The program changed. She was in a club, Latino couples moving in silent, erotic dances with lots of close, undulating movements. The men stripped down to their jeans, the women in slit skirts and silken tops, club wear meant to titillate, their hair brushing their partners as they moved together almost as one body, feeling the music.

There were storyboards leaning against the wall which showed the design of gleaming hardwood that would be the floor, the chandeliers done in an art deco platinum that would hide further projection equipment, the walls in simple white, for they would be further areas to project the decor desired for each programmed scene.

As if reading her thoughts, a silhouette of figures appeared on the white expanse of the wall before her, spotlighted over the dancers' heads. The shadow of a woman, a man kneeling before her, his arms obviously bound behind his back. The woman adjusted cloth at her elbow, revealing that she wore elbow-length gloves. As she put her hands on his chest, she pushed him back slowly, moving him up to his heels so the impressive shaft of his erection was visible, jutting up from the black column of his thighs. Keeping one hand at his throat, collaring him to stillness, she reached down and gripped it. His head fell back to his shoulders in shuddering reaction.

The woman straightened, her lips moving in another command that could not be heard, that did not need to be heard. Her submissive came forward on his knees again, started to lean forward. Stepping around and behind him with one, two long-legged, sauntering strides, she drew attention to the jut of her breasts, the curve of her hip, somehow all the more prominent because only the dark outline of her could be seen.

Gripping his wrists, likely where the bindings joined, avoiding direct contact with his fingers, she put her hand to the small of his back and pushed him down. An apparent rough move but with her hands on the bindings it was a controlled descent. She braced her weight and made sure his face went safely, slowly to the floor, leaving his haunches high in the air. It was a poignant scene, her total control underscored by her careful protection of him.

When she prodded him with a spike heel, he automatically lifted his buttocks even higher. She stood back, arms crossed under those proud breasts. Marguerite could tell she held a slender switch in her right hand.

Tilting her head, she visualized the moment in detail. "This is me. With Marius, last fall."

"You've a good memory." Tyler moved through the flickering world of the dancers, coming to her side. He considered the images above them. "We pulled quite a few remarkable pieces like this from the security tapes. All transformed to silhouette work of course, though later we might ask the permission of the participants to portray them in full detail, within the walls of The Zone only, of course."

"But you didn't feel you needed permission for this."

"No. You're perfect for this medium. Elegant, statuesque, your every movement precisely choreographed. You were the first person we thought of when we came up with the idea, which is why I'd like to know what you think of it. I don't know of a tougher customer at The Zone than you." He raised her hand to his lips, pressed her knuckles to his mouth. From the look in his eyes she thought he was suppressing the urge to nip. Perhaps to keep the wariness she was feeling from evolving into full-blown retreat.

"It's all...fantastic." She gave him honesty because she didn't see any reason to dissemble. This was not about the two of them. "Literally and in the complimentary sense. Your detail..." She looked toward the dancers, was amazed to see the occasional gleam of skin that suggested perspiration, pulled off by some miracle of light and shadow. "You'll have people lining up to use this room."

"I hope so, because the capital cost is steep. We brought in guys who do work on movies that pull in millions but I think it will be worth the experience. We're going to try and offer five different playing scenes and add five more every year, make them even more interactive."

"The cost doesn't matter to you." She shook her head. "You've got more money than Kuwait. What matters to you is how people react to it. Will it have a glass ceiling?

Will they be able to see the images up there?"

"Some of the rooms will have the glass ceiling. Some of them will just have cameras to project onto the large screens upstairs, because of the wiring we need to run through the ceiling. But in either case they won't see the holographic images. Just the suggestion of lights and shadows."

"Good. That's the way it should be. The focus remains on the actual people in the room. Seeing their movements without the images will be intriguing. Absorbing." She pulled her hand from his grasp and backed to the center again, closing her eyes briefly as a couple, the woman in a colorful red strapless dress with flared skirt and her partner in jeans and a black T-shirt, rumbaed across her, the flickering light making a canvas on her white outfit, her pale skin.

"You should do an exhibitionism scenario, for couples that don't want to do it for real, or for a Master or Mistress trying to break a sub into it gradually. You could have a tight circle of people watching. Do a soundtrack of whispers." She stood next to one man taking a break, hands on hips, deep breaths expanding his bare chest, his pants snug enough that the bulge of his genitalia was impressively noticeable. His shaved head gleamed, dark eyes vivid in the flickering light as he watched his partner nearby bending over in a tiny miniskirt to adjust her shoe, her dark hair falling forward to cover her face. Though he was somewhat transparent, Marguerite put out her hand to touch, trace air, imagining what that gleam of muscle might feel like. Then she turned on her toe, stepping into his body, facing the imaginary circle of faces, visualizing a sub in the center.

"The sub could be stripped naked while 'they' all watch. The score is a jumble of whispers mixed up with a jazz piece... Murmurs, suggestions and you could change the background tape to the Dom's specifications. 'Make her play with her pussy...' 'Look what beautiful nipples she has', 'I want to fuck him next...' Adding to what the Master or Mistress is saying."

Tyler nodded, his eyes moving over the open expanse of floor, seeing what she was seeing. Imagining it the way she was imagining it. "Maybe you could help me plot out a script, be part of the production process."

"Maybe."

He smiled. She found herself needing to swallow, feeling the press of those firm lips on her hand again.

He moved back to the control room area, in its wooden open frame that would one day be hidden behind finished walls. She found she might like it better like this, where she could see what lay behind the magic. Seeing all the genius and sweat that had gone into it made it a far greater magic, more valued than the ability to wave a hand and make it happen without conscious effort or commitment.

When he looked up at her, her gaze drifted to the line of his shoulders, the strong line of his throat, the way his shirt stretched over his chest as he moved his hands over the controls. The smooth slope of his waist where his trousers were neatly belted, the lean curve of his hips beneath the cloth as he shifted his weight to one hip. She wondered what Tyler would look like in jeans, the snug fit at the crotch. She rarely watched him perform at The Zone. For one thing, he rarely opened the ceiling screen, preferring privacy. His skills were relayed by the subs who experienced them. Nothing about Tyler suggested they were exaggerations.

But none of that explained why he made her breath quicken when he looked at her.

Or why, after all the men she'd Dominated, her confusing sexual and emotional images about Tyler were never about Dominating him. Instead they lingered over touching his skin, getting close enough to inhale his scent at her leisure and feeling his arms around her. Simple, romantic images. Other more darkly sensual images sometimes beckoned to her from the shadows of her subconscious but she refused to go there.

She had a crush on Tyler Winterman, that was all. A two-year obsession that she'd been able to keep under control by keeping her distance. A crush.

He'd stopped the club dance music. A low note pierced the quiet of the room, stilling her thoughts with its clear, beautiful pitch. As it built in strength, it blended into a melody of female voices, all crooning the same note. Then one broke away, began a soft blues song of longing, of lonely need. Bass kicked in, thumping through the room like the heartbeats of all the souls of shadow and light slowly undulating around her, moving to the rhythm in sinuous motion against one another. She saw hands move down low on hips, grip, rock together, breasts pressed tight against male muscle. The woman who had sung that first long note came back in, a strong R&B talent that gave romance to the primal sound. Every beat of it, every stroke, seemed to be urging lovers to take that step toward movement, toward each other.

Up on the opposite wall, the silhouette of a different woman lay on her back and a man lowered himself onto her, penetrating her as she arched up. Slowly he began to rock his hips in and out, in and out, taking her up.

Tyler was behind her, his breath on her neck. So close the curves of her buttocks brushed the front of his trousers, the tops of his thighs. His hand came up under hers so it was raised into the air, curved over the top of his. Flexing his fingers so they came through the spaces of hers, he crossed them so they were over the top of her knuckles.

He brought their now laced hands in to fold them across her body, low on her waist.

With his other hand he gripped her opposite wrist but didn't lift it. Her arm was sandwiched between her thigh and his arm, both arms in a straight line pointed toward the floor. He closed the gap between them so his body was pressed completely against hers, chest to her shoulder blades, waist to the small of her back, his hips against hers.

The shape of his cock rubbed against the sensitive cleft of her buttocks such that she instinctively tightened there. She felt him harden further. His thigh moved forward, pressing into hers. Before she could decide to bolt, he began to move.

"Dance with me," he said huskily. "Follow my movements." An early training session. At least that's what she told herself to make it acceptable.

His thigh shifted again, his hand pressing against the hand on her wrist. He rocked with her, shifting hips, moving them in rhythm with the beat of the R&B score. Tyler kept them in the open circle area into which the dancers did not come, though on their turns the light flashed over the women's hair mere inches from Marguerite's face. They were on a crowded nightclub dance floor, surrounded by bodies responding to one thing. The sound of the music, the message of it, too demanding to be denied.

He took her down lower and her hand curled up into a fist in his as his thigh rubbed the back of hers, as their knees bent, then straightened. She leaned back against him and he lifted the hand he held by the wrist to the side of her face. Threaded her fingers through her own hair and then up, bringing her touch and the strands of her hair alongside his neck.

Marguerite closed her eyes, felt the beat of his pulse, dug her fingertips into his skin and her hair as he turned them. When she opened her eyes, she had a brief impression of bodies, light, shadows. She could feel his heart beat against her back, the press of his cock firm against her. Every time the bass thumped, it vibrated through their bodies, meshed with their heartbeats.

The hunger broke through like a wind tearing loose the lock on a shutter, slamming it open. She mewled, a soft cry of aching want as he laid his lips on her neck the way he had last night, only this time he didn't move or even bite. Just kept the pressure of his mouth there as she realized he was bearing almost all her weight. He rocked them and spun, shifted them in the steps of the dance.

Without thinking, she tried to slide her hand free, move down her waist for that throbbing scream for fulfillment. Instead of letting her go, he went with her, went down her body. She quivered in his grasp, arching in rigid, silent passion as his hand and hers covered her pussy through her tunic. With his clever fingers still laced through hers, he shoved away the tunic material impatiently and touched the soft lips of her pussy through the thin white fabric beneath. Brushed over them, and though she knew her fingers were there too, it was his firm touch that her body reacted to like a starburst, sudden, explosive.

Tyler swore under his breath at the surge of wet heat against his fingers. She could be wearing something inside... Not likely. Marguerite had not gotten wet for Brendan, but at his touch she was as soaked as a woman after climax. The Dom roared up in him, wanting to take, possess, devour.

"No, no..." She was gasping, twisting. Before he realized what she was about, she had pulled away, disappearing among the lights and wildly dancing figures of their illusory companions, as illusory as the woman herself.

Tyler swore again, turned on his heel to shut it down and go after her. He cursed himself for rushing her, cursed his lack of control, something he'd never had a problem with before. He wasn't in the mood to analyze it, though. His raging hard-on made it difficult enough to get to the control panel and told him the obvious. His mind was the organ he'd used the least in the past few moments. But he'd be damned if she'd elude him when his flaring nostrils had her scent, when his fingers were damp from the proof that she wanted him.

* * * * *

Marguerite strode out into the back parking lot, her motions too jerky, nothing feeling smooth. She felt a trembling in her limbs she didn't want to feel. She was shivering, cold and hot at once. She couldn't do this, couldn't afford this. She'd just have to leave The Zone, maybe stop this part of her life altogether. Damn Tyler Winterman. She was fine as long as she stayed away from him. What the hell did he want from her? She'd opened the D/s door in her life to find some answers to her past.

Well, she'd found them, understood as much as she needed to do so. It was time to move on.

That's what she told herself, though the idea of never coming here again, never seeking that connection with one of her chosen submissives in the exceptionally safe surroundings of The Zone, burned in her gut like an ulcer.

When she reached into her purse for her keys, her arm was seized, twisted with an explosion of pain calculated to scatter her wits. She found herself shoved hard up against the door of an SUV, a position which blocked her from the sight of the back entrance of The Zone and the security cameras. The silver point of a knife pushed against her throat and the whites of a pair of cold dark eyes were all she could see of the masked face before her.

"Purse, bitch." He yanked it from her grasp, his grip on the knife tight and sure, conveying the confidence of a man who often took from others the things they weren't willing to give.

Well, she was a professional in that area as well. She let her knees go out from under her and dropped to the ground. He swore, following her, trying to hang onto that purse strap. Curling her knees up to her chest, she formed a ball and kicked out, plowing into his stomach, thrusting him off her. It wrenched her shoulder as he lost purchase on his prize. As he stumbled onto his backside, she sprang up, stomping on his lower midsection, the same place she'd kicked him, following it up with a sharp jab with her blunt street heel into his crotch, the soft nest of testicles. He howled.

"Son of a bitch," she snapped. When he rolled away from her, she turned her back on him and headed for her car.

"Just plain bitch," he rasped. He latched on to her ankle, twisted and brought her to her knees. With a roar, he was up and on her, lifting her, slamming her against the side of the SUV. He punched her stomach. Despite the painful loss of air, Marguerite hissed at him and knocked her forehead into his, dazing them both. She scratched at his face with her fingers, trying to find his eyes with her thumbs.

She was seeing a haze of red anger, furious with his hands on her, the flash of his bared teeth, his smell, everything about him affronting her. She wanted every scrap of his existence eradicated but behind all the berserker rage, she knew he'd just gained the advantage. He had her by the throat, one hand tangled in the front of the tunic as he rapped her hard into the side of the SUV. He was trying to make her let go, give up and let him take what he wanted.

"No, no, no..." She tore at his face, kicked at his legs with feet that were just grazing the ground and struck at his shoulders but she couldn't bring any power into the fight in this position. She was losing.

Abruptly, she was dropped, crumpling hard to the ground, her ankle twisting beneath her. The robber spun away and it took her a moment to realize the wild pinwheeling of his arms and legs to regain his balance was because another force was holding him by his collar and the waistband of his baggy trousers. Swinging him around, Tyler rammed his head into the window of the car next to the SUV with a solid thunk. A thin chink signaled the window had been compromised. When Tyler pulled him back for a second blow, she saw a spider web of lines running out from the point of impact, a momentary impression before the window disintegrated into nuggets from the second ram.

When Tyler yanked him back this time, the man slumped to the ground and stayed there, shuddering with pain and the shock of the likely concussion.

Tyler gave him enough of a look to confirm he was out of the game. Then he was beside her. Marguerite had already managed to struggle halfway to her feet, using her hands behind her to crabwalk up the side of the SUV. She suddenly realized the car alarm had gone off, was wailing frenetically. Voices were coming from the back of The Zone, alerted by the alarm or the fact that Tyler's actions would have been caught on the camera. She realized with a great deal of satisfaction she was still holding her purse and shouldered it more securely.

She supposed it was smart thinking, hitting on a high-priced S&M club. The clientele surely wouldn't want to fill out police reports. But her assailant hadn't counted on the type of person who would be a member of such a club.

She nodded at Tyler, a brief move but one she hoped expressed the courteous thanks expected at such a moment. "I've got to go," she said. Reaching out, she touched Tyler's startled face, his strong jaw. Her thumb passed just below his eye, which still reflected a protective rage that made something tremble in her belly almost more severely than her legs. "I'm going... I don't want to do anything to him. I shouldn't have lost control of the situation. I let anger take over. Emotion." A variety of expressions crossed his features. His hands settled on her shoulders, holding her in place. "You lost control because you were dealing with a career criminal who had at least fifty pounds on you."

"I wasn't talking about that."

"I know that. You don't have to be in control, Marguerite. Not all the time. Not of this. Not of us." Tyler cupped the side of her bruised face, fighting his rage, his desire to turn around and rip the man's head from his shoulders and kick it across the parking lot like a soccer ball. "Why the hell did you fight him?" She stared over at the man. "Because no one's ever taking anything from me I'm not willing to give."

"Is that why you're so pissed at me?" He guided her face back, made her look at him. "Because I made you give something you weren't willing to give?"

"Tyler, everything you've gotten from me so far is something I wasn't willing to give. I can't give. But I don't want you to stop." Her voice dropped on that last sentence, so that for a moment he wasn't sure he'd heard what he'd heard. Then it registered. Enflamed him.

She let out a small sigh. "And that pisses me off more."

"I need money, man." The thief spat blood. "What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

Tyler was forced to turn from her. When she would have moved, made her escape, his hand snaked back, caught the edge of her tunic in a strong grip. Holding her, two of his fingers found a rip in the thin white fabric high on her thigh. He stroked the scrape gently, even as he leveled an expression of cold anger on the man on the ground.

"Wal-Mart is always hiring, asshole."

Two security people had arrived. Tyler nodded to them. "Tell you what. The lady's not interested in pressing charges but if I ever see you here again, even in the neighborhood, I'm going to treat you to your worst nightmare. I'll take you inside those walls and let some of the scariest women you can imagine put clamps on you in places you've never thought of, beat you with canes, stretch your balls until they drag the ground and fuck you with a railroad spike until you bleed. Got it?"

"Tyler."

She sounded more like herself now, her voice no longer that vacant whisper of a few moments ago that had galvanized his rage. Tyler looked up and her eyes were level, cool, remote. She reached into her purse, withdrew what looked like a handful of hundred-dollar bills and dropped them so they landed in her attacker's lap. By putting her hands over Tyler's hand on her tunic, she asked him to release her with insistent fingers. When he reluctantly complied, she knelt, reaching out to touch the robber's face, the bloody lip. She brought her face close and Tyler tensed but there was no reason to worry. The robber was frozen by this unexpected turn of events and a pair of arctic blue eyes.

"You can have my money." Her voice dripped with disdain. "Snort it, drink it or give it to charity, it doesn't matter, because ill-gotten gains do nothing but curse you.

We make our own fate, our own karma, no matter our circumstances. If you have the integrity and strength of character to understand that, then you'll mail that money back to this club to the attention of Mistress Marguerite. If you don't, then God help you, because that money won't."

Rising, she nodded to Tyler and the security detail. "Please let him go. I'm going home."

She turned, a tall, elegant woman with torn and dirty clothing, her hair falling down on one side. She began moving toward her car, limping badly. Ten steps away she bent slowly and retrieved her keys.

Marguerite made it five more steps before Tyler caught her. He didn't stop her as she had expected. Didn't turn her around and make her explain or demand she act a certain way. He put an arm around her waist and supported her, taking her weight, pressing his hip against hers so she had no choice but to capitulate and let him help, despite the dangerous shudder that ran through her limbs, telling her how close she was to feeling the aftermath.

Taking her keys from her hand, he deactivated the locks on the BMW. The lights went on, a warm, welcome sight. What was it about your own car that was always so comforting? She understood how shiny Cadillacs appeared in the front yards of the poorest homes. A car felt like freedom, security. The ability to stay or to go, wherever, whenever one wished.

"Anything broken?" He asked it quietly.

"No. I'm sure the ankle's just twisted. It'll be fine with some ice. The rest is just some bruises and cuts." She was also sure her back was going to be nicely black and blue in the morning. Mentally, she ran down what bath salves she had on hand at home, what medicinal teas she could use in compresses to minimize the aches and pains.

"I saw most of the fight running across the parking lot," he commented. "You're a tough lady."

She didn't bother to answer that. He opened the car door for her and she got in, feeling his hand at her elbow, her waist, guiding her.

"I'm following you home. I won't try to come in but I'm going to make sure you get there safely. And don't argue with me, goddammit." She laid her head on the headrest, looked up at him. Aware that he was holding her hand still, caressing her fingers. What could he do? Run that bath for her, carry her up those two sets of stairs she would have to face? As soon as she imagined someone doing that, the idea of taking care of herself became exponentially harder. She pulled her hand away. "Fine. I appreciate your concern, Tyler. You're a kind friend." He dropped to one knee so they were at eye level, put one hand on either side of her face with infinite, inexorable tenderness.

"We're not friends, Marguerite," he said. "Come Friday. Don't back out." Giving him a desperate look, she broke free, reached for the door. "Let me go, Tyler. Please."

It was a long moment but he at last stood up, stepped back. She shut the door, started the car and pulled out, forcing her body not to shake, her stomach to stop its nauseous heaving. Forced herself not to look back and see his eyes which conveyed how much more he wanted to give her. Far more than she could accept.