In the next blink, she’d slipped out of the car. He caught her arm by reflex, keeping her inside the shelter of the door and his body. To anyone looking, he would look like the protective one, but his hand was clammy, fucking trembling. She gripped his upper arms, her fingers surprisingly strong.

“It’s all right,” she said. “The first time’s the hardest. I had awful panic attacks when I started walking around with just my cane. In zero to ten seconds, I looked like I’d come out of a gym, my clothes just soaked.” Her fingers plucked at his shirt sleeve, registering the way it stuck to his skin.

Despite that, she clasped that arm, turning him away from the car, guiding them both out of the track of the door before she nudged it closed with her hip. “I don’t blame you a bit for freaking out over a church social. They can be terrifying. You just stick close to me whenever you see one of those church ladies coming your way. I’ll tell them you’re my boy toy on the side when Peter’s too busy for me, and that’ll keep them from matching you up to their daughters and granddaughters. Unless you see Vivien LeCheau coming toward us. You can’t miss her. She’s a cross between a cougar and a viper. If she’s coming at us, get square behind me. I’ll put one of May Clark’s potato salad spoons in places the sun don’t shine.”

She knew it wasn’t the social that had him acting like a pathetic idiot, but of course the teasing helped. He would have cut his own throat if she’d coddled him.

“What does Miss Vivien look like?” he managed. “Hot cougar?”

“Boy, you better watch yourself. That kind of temptation comes with bad day-after consequences. Glenn Close and her boiled rabbit look like Cinderella and her house mice in comparison.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“There you go.” Dana had tucked her fingers into his elbow, setting him into position to lead her up the church walk. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. He kept looking in all directions, as if he was escorting POTUS himself in the middle of an L.A. gang fight. He couldn’t do this. He fucking couldn’t.

“Just one step at a time.” She tightened her grip on his tense biceps. “One breath at a time, one step at a time, and then you’re moving forward.”

But never away. He was always afraid he was moving in a circle, right back to the beginning.

Coming back to the present, he felt the old surge of resentment, bitterness. Did being deserving really mean anything?

Though he held it back, Dana picked up on his mood. The woman could pluck things out of one touch and silence that most people couldn’t if they were given a ten-page action report.

“Some wounds don’t heal fast, or at all. But you learn to manage them as things go on. You’re managing, Max. Is she good for you? I’d think she would be.”

“Yeah. She is.”

“Good. You’ll be good for her too. You don’t have to turn your back on the past as much as figure out what place it needs to hold in your life so the present can come in, give you a future.”

“You use that in your sermon?”

“No, just thought it up right now, but I’ll jot it down for future ones.” She flicked his neck. “Wiseass frogman.”

“Dumbass supply grunt.”

God help him, but he loved Dana as if she was his own sister. A sister who often flirted outrageously with him and took way too many opportunities to grope him. She was the type of submissive who sought punishment. He didn’t like to call it bratting, because it made the reasons she did it sound petty. It was clear she had a need to assert her independence as a fierce affirmation that her injuries hadn’t defeated her. Peter’s punishments were the balance, the safety net that evened it all out.

He guessed he had internalized more about the BDSM world than he’d thought. He’d picked up a lot just by being a witness to how the K&A men and their wives experienced it. Thinking about his behavior with Janet, those complex exchanges with her Mistress side, he wondered for the first time if he was seeking answers to some of his own needs within her desire to Dominate.

He’d indicated something like that to Dale, hadn’t he? It had a different feel and flavor to it, for sure, but when he and Janet were playing their intense, complicated games, things stilled in his head and heart, eased in his gut. Things he’d gotten so used to feeling and enduring, they’d become a chronic kind of emotional pain.

Because of that, and so many other things, he found himself looking forward to tonight.

* * * * *

He parked his truck in the alley alongside Janet’s house. It was raining, the sky a white-gray cloud cover hiding the sun. Humidity percentages had fallen, such that it was cool enough for a light jacket, a ward against the dampness. The rain was the gentle, constant kind, though, encouraging a couple to stay in bed for a lazy afternoon of lovemaking and watching old movies. With that in mind, he’d brought a small grocery sack of options for her to consider. He’d debated whether to bring flowers and settled for a single rose, something unique he’d picked up from the florist. The petals were a swirl of vanilla-white and dark-red color. He expected she’d appreciate the irony.

He was starting toward the front door when his phone buzzed with a text. Come around back, Max. I’m on the porch.

He let himself through the privacy fence, circled to the back stairs. The walkway flagstones were slick and dark with rain. Hearing a change in the tempo and density of the water, a smile curved his lips. She had the hot tub bubbling.

Imagining the things that could be done there had his blood simmering as well. When he opened the screen door to find her already in it, that reaction intensified. She had one arm stretched along the edge of the tub, the other bent to hold a wineglass. With her shoulders and the rise of her breasts exposed, it was obvious what he could discern through the concealing froth of bubbles was bare skin. The pair of robes hanging on a screen nearby confirmed it. All her lovely dark hair was piled on her head, damp tendrils curling on her neck. She wore the ballerina charm she’d worn the other night, the one she’d seemed hesitant about.

“I’ve never had an evolution start quite like this,” he said, reminding them both of her earlier text. “It’s a hell of a lot more inspiring than boat drills.”

“I hope so. What’s in the grocery bag?”

He placed it on the sidebar. “Gourmet hot chocolate, if you want to keep it simple. Whiskey, sugar, milk and honey, if you’d like something stronger.”

“A hot toddy. What a perfect idea for a rainy day.”

He pulled out an envelope, held it up, then set it on her sidebar. “My test results. All clear.”

In the blink it took her to digest the significance, her expression became something different. Her lips parted, doing that subtle little moistening gesture that made his cock harden. She nodded demurely, however, extending her hand for the rose.

As he placed it in her grasp, he covered her fingers with his, sliding them down to caress her wrist. He wanted to cup her jaw, kiss her with all the hunger the envelope unleashed between them, but something held him back, as if that chain only ran out so far before it pulled him up short. It was a correct instinct, for she drew her hand away to bring the flower to her nose. Toying with it, she considered him.

“During your training, you have to prove you can swim a certain number of meters without taking a breath. You also have to descend to a prescribed depth without gear, and then come back up, swimming no faster than the bubbles you’re blowing out.”

“Yeah. Else you’ll get the bends.” He sat down on the edge of the hot tub, trailing his fingers in the water. It was toasty warm, the moistness on her neck a result of the steam where it hit the cooler air. “Did you have a good day, Mistress?”

Her expression flickered. “Yes,” she said after a pause. “Mostly.”

“Me too. Mostly. As in I mostly thought about you.”

Her lips curved in a small smile. “You’re good at this.”

“With you, I work at it.”

“I’m glad. Because what I want you to do will likely require some effort.” She brushed the rose over her cheek, dragging it along her throat as she closed her eyes, lifted her chin to experience the petals along her skin. It made him hunger to put his mouth on the same track, taste the rose-scented flesh.

“I want you to go down on me under the water, Max.” She fixed him with her dark gaze. “You get to surface three times. But before you need a fourth time, I expect you to make me come.”

He rose from the edge of the pool, shed his jacket. “What kind of dive gear do you want me to wear?”

Her eyes sparkled, appreciating him. “Nothing more than the dolphins wear.”

“If I was as well hung as a dolphin, I’d go naked as well.”

“I’m not in the habit of providing reassurances about the obvious, but you need have no concerns in that department, Max.”

He grinned. Stripping off his shirt, he tugged his belt loose, opened his jeans.

“You didn’t ask what happens if you don’t do it in three tries,” she said.

“Don’t need to. Failure’s not an option. But if it did happen, I’d just try, try and try again, however long it took me to succeed. Or until I run out of breath and die, captured between your lovely thighs.” Glancing at the sidebar again, he picked up one of the bottled waters there and leaned across the hot tub to place it on the ledge next to her shoulder. “To hydrate yourself, Mistress. You’re going to be losing bodily fluids.”

She caught him, tangling her fingers in his chest hair. Max closed his eyes, caught in the sensation as she teased a nipple, then brushed her knuckles down his sternum. “I’ve wanted to feel your hands since our last date,” he said, opening his eyes to stare into hers. “I was about to break protocol and take the initiative. Ask you out again.”

“You realized I have a protocol?”

“Yes ma’am. Right now, you want to be the one calling the shots, saying when we’ll get together. You also don’t really like to be touched unless you give permission, but there are certain moments when your body language tells me it’s okay.” Proving the point, he touched her temple, traced one finger down her cheek bone, moving over for a brief touch of her moist lips. She was motionless, her left hand resting on his chest while he did that, those intriguing eyes watching his face.