“You want to go up to your bed, where there are warm blankets and my feet aren’t hanging off the end of the couch?” He had to stay mindful of the side table beneath his heels, where a trio of delicate ceramic flowers were arranged. If she became any more aggressive with her nails and teeth, he might react as if a doctor had hit his knee with a rubber hammer and send one of them shattering against her headboard.

“I’d say yes, but I don’t have the energy to get up.”

He grunted, levering himself into an upright position and shifting her so he had her supported in his arms. He stood up then, taking her with him. “No need for that, Mistress. All you need is me.”

She made a noncommittal noise but crooked her arm around his neck, adjusting so she was deeper in the cradle he provided. It said a great deal about the size of her personality that, until he held her like this, it wasn’t obvious how petite she really was. Small-boned, light frame. He thought about those leg fractures and tightened his arms around her, but the way he might hold an egg. Firm and protective, but not crushing.

He took the stairs slow. Halfway up, she touched his face, guided it toward hers for a kiss. He stopped there, holding her securely, even as he was caught by the power of her simple touch. With every gesture, it seemed as if she gave him everything. He’d had an impression that Dommes withheld a great deal, but inside the world she spun, nothing was further from the truth. She made things in his heart swell up, made him want to say unlikely things to her. He thought of the times he’d seen her take a sub to the point he was fervently kissing her shoe, telling her of his love, his devotion to her, but that was the endorphin rush, the mindless drive of lust. This heated kiss on her staircase in a suspended moment of time was something different.

At least for him.

The thought was an uncomfortable one. When he lifted his head, she touched his mouth, but she didn’t say anything right away, her dark eyes studying him. He wasn’t sure if that helped or added to his concern. “Take me to my bed, Max,” she said at last.

He’d only had a brief impression of her bedroom last time, since he’d been blindfolded most of the time he’d been in it. The mahogany tester bed gave him pause, then a wry smile. It looked like it belonged to a queen. The half panel arched over it was lined with velvet, and the headboard had leaf and heart patterns carved into the dark wood. The bed was piled high with thick comforters and pillows, and he could well imagine Her Majesty sleeping, a petite but formidable coil beneath it, her servants coming to wake her in the morning. The wardrobe and dresser matched the bed, but she’d softened the severe furniture with watercolors of Victorian scenes, well-dressed couples strolling in the park, picnicking in a meadow.

Letting her feet down by her bed, he pulled back the covers. As he did, her fingers slipped off his shoulder down to his chest. She liked to tug on his chest hair, give him that tiny pain. As she walked up the steps affixed to the base of the bed and stretched out on the mattress, she released her hair. The thick coil of it wound sinuously over the pillow. Her hand slipped to her breast, molding the curve, thumb tracing her nipple before she parted her thighs, put the other hand there. His chest tightened along with his cock, seeing the slumberous desire in her eyes. She was tired, but she wanted him. Again.

He had no idea what time it was. It must be late, given that he’d come after work, but time had stopped for him once he’d crossed her threshold. Maybe she was as much sorceress as queen. He wondered that Ulysses had ever wanted to leave Circe’s island. Of course, there was the matter of his men being turned to pigs…

When he shared that with her, her sinful mouth curved. “Not to mention his wife and child waiting at home. He loved them too dearly to be derailed for long, even by a sorceress’s deceptive charms. He was an honorable man.”

The shadow through her gaze was unexpected, and he put his hip on the bed, his hand on her face. “You are the best of both worlds,” he said. “The integrity and loyalty of Penelope, the seductive power of Circe.”

He meant it, but he knew he only had the faith of wishful thinking. He had no true understanding of what was going on in her head, how he really differed from the others, except for location. When he leaned down toward her lips, she put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “What is it, Max?”

Her voice wasn’t the appeal of an insecure woman, but a tone he often heard at the office, as she fixed some luckless person with a direct stare that could command truth out of Pinocchio.

“Me, being a dumbass.”

She considered that, her touch sliding along his neck, fingers tracing his collarbone. “You broke this once.”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t tell her the where, who, what or why, but how was okay. “Couldn’t get out of a blast zone fast enough, timing got fucked. Thrown about fifty feet, landed on something harder than me.”

She nodded. “We’re playing a game, you and I, but it’s an honest game.”

“I know.” Propping himself on an elbow, he traced a line down her sternum to her upper abdomen, stopping just above her mound to curve his fingers over her hip bone. “You demand honesty from every sub you’ve driven to his knees, every one of them who’s begged you for more. A couple times you’ve been close enough to me at the club I saw it in your eyes, how you feel when he declares his devotion to you, his desire to serve your every need. It’s a game you both understand. At the end of the night, he puts on his clothes, goes back into the world, and that’s that. He knows the emotions he expresses to you in that room don’t translate to anywhere else.”

“We’re not at the club.”

When he lifted his attention to her face, it was clear she would say nothing else, give him no more than that. Leaning in, he brushed his lips over hers, pressing there a long moment before sliding out of the bed. He pulled the covers over her to her waist, making sure she’d be warm. “It’s time for me to head home.”

She sat up, bending her legs beneath the blankets to link her hands over them. As he moved to the doorway, he remembered his clothes were still by the hot tub. He should have brought them in, because they were probably going to be damp from the humid air. He wondered if she was going to try to stop him. She didn’t. He went down the hallway, past the picture of the young dancer she’d called Nelle, and headed for the steps. Damn it.

Going out to the porch, he found his clothes, put them on. As he strapped his watch to his wrist, his mind was rotating. He knew what he wanted, needed. In time, maybe she’d offer that, but he’d forced her hand just now, looking for more of a response. He wasn’t sure if it was the right play, but that was the deal. Certain things couldn’t be a game for him at all, honest or not. Even so, an ache was growing in his chest, suggesting he was about to close a door that he’d be a fool to shut.

Earlier, she’d trimmed the rose he gave her, put it in a glass on her kitchen table. It made him hurt, seeing that single rose, the swirl of dark-blood and vanilla colors.

He fished out his keys, held them. Shaking his head, he put them back in his pocket, pivoted and headed back into the house. Things were silent. He passed the couch where they’d had their hot toddies, dozed. The blanket he’d draped over her was still rumpled from where it had folded around her. He took the stairs two at a time, paused where he’d kissed her. During that embrace, he’d thought about her generosity, a thought he knew was at odds with his behavior now.

Now he went up the rest of the stairs, moved down the hall to the bedroom doorway. She’d moved. She was sitting in a chair by the window, her knees pulled up to her chest and feet curved over the seat edge. She’d donned a robe. Her head rested against the cushion, her fingertips tracing designs on the glass. The window overlooked the driveway and his truck, so she’d been waiting to watch him drive away. She hadn’t intended to come after him. He wasn’t sure how to react to that, but then she spoke.

“I’ve never been involved with anyone outside a club, Max. Not since my twenties.” When she turned her gaze to him, he realized she looked tired. She also didn’t look apologetic, but then he wouldn’t have expected that. She lifted her chin. “That’s all I can give you right now.”

There was a chair across from the one where she sat, and he took it, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, making a steeple of his fingers as he studied her. She’d left her hair down, and it curved around her face, the dark, hard-to-read eyes.

“The picture in the hallway,” he said. “The girl you called Nelle. That girl is you.”

Chapter Ten

Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. He saw the flicker of shock in her gaze, quickly masked, telling him she’d learned to conceal any reactions related to that, but then anger replaced it.

“If you think to leverage my emotions by striking at a vulnerable spot, you can go to hell.”

“No. Damn it, no.”

She’d brought her legs down and stood, obviously intending to exit the chair and probably the room. He caught her wrist, holding her in place. “The only reason I brought it up, the only reason, is what you just said. I see things about you, Janet. I notice things. Things I have absolutely no right to know, so if you don’t want to share them, that’s fine. I just wanted to prove that you can trust me. That if this is all new to you, you don’t have to worry about that. We’ll stumble along together, but wherever I can, I’ll make sure the footing is sure for you.”

She gave his hand a pointed glance, telling him she wanted him to let go. Since she’d said he was her first relationship outside a club, he expected it wouldn’t surprise her that he wasn’t always going to be an obedient lapdog. He tugged her closer, putting his hands on her hips, looking up at her. “Let me do something?”

She gave him a wary look but nodded. He eased her on to his lap, cradling her in his arms as he settled back in the wing-backed chair. She allowed it, though she was stiff. “I wanted to know I was different,” he said. “That I wasn’t a series of snapshots you delete when you’re done looking at them. This feels different to me, and if it’s not different for you, I needed to know that sooner than later, to minimize the damage to us both.”