“Stop.” Her eyes were half slits, her head leaned back as if she was on the beach, listening to the waves. “Go to the wall, Max. The one with the ocean.”

When he hesitated, those dark eyes opened fully. “This is your punishment, yes?” Her voice was a sultry purr. “Which means you follow your Mistress’ commands. She knows what kind of discipline you need.”

They were the type of words he didn’t expect to arouse him, make him harder, but they sure as hell did. Nodding, he moved to the wall. She watched him, that mysterious gaze following his every move.

“You won’t speak unless I give you permission to do so. Face the wall and grasp the handles that are closest to the full stretch of your arms.”

He could see the flicker of the video as he obeyed, his body becoming a part of the wave images. The handles were just above his shoulder height, and she’d accurately predicted his arm span. The set at the full reach of his arms had already been locked down in their tracks.

“Spread your legs shoulder width.” She’d moved closer. When she curved her hand over his tense shoulder, let her fingers glide down the center of his back, over his shirt, his nerve endings reacted to that touch like a drug. It helped him deal with the fact he had his back to the door, making him twitchy.

“That beep you heard when you entered happens whenever the door unlatches. There’s a five-second delay before it opens. Once it’s coded by the user, the only one who can come in without me unlocking it from the inside is a staff member with an override. Even with an override, there’s that beep and five-second delay. All right?”

He nodded, another concern dissipating. “Yes ma’am.”

She moved away from him, over to the cabinet on the adjacent wall. As she studied her options there, she pulled her hair over one shoulder, so his gaze was caught by what was drawn on her back. He’d seen enough of her body to know she had no tattoos, but this temporary wasn’t a cheap sticker. Her skin was the canvas for a monarch butterfly, wings stretched out and curved over her shoulder blades. The lower set of wings were pierced by a trident, the eagle with the bowed head along the base of it, across her lower back.

The butterfly was a fragile creature, but so beautiful its beauty had an indelible strength. And it had been pierced, captured, by a modified form of the SEAL trident symbol. Whether she’d intended the meaning or not, the idea of it swamped him, giving him courage and a willingness to handle whatever this was. As well as risk additional punishment by speaking without permission.

“I like your ink.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t know about the eagle, why his head is in that position. I liked that.”

The SEALs were the only armed services division whose symbol showed the eagle’s head bowed. It was done that way to honor the fallen. Seeing her honor it on her flesh made him want to put his lips there, follow the trident up her spine, kiss every inch of the butterfly’s wings. His neck was getting a crick, looking at her at the strained angle, but he didn’t care.

“The artist said he’d enrolled in SEAL training once, when he was much younger,” she continued. “He made it to the third week, and had a tremendous appreciation for SEALs. He also said, and I quote—‘those are some of the craziest motherfuckers in the world’.”

“We take that as a compliment.”

“Hmm. I figured as much.” Now her lips curved. “Look at the wall, not at me, Max.”

She’d pulled something from the bag but was keeping it concealed in her hand. As she returned to him, she touched his nape. She leaned against him, her breasts pressing against his back, and he felt silk against his cheek.

“I’m going to blindfold you, Max. You’ll be able to hear my voice, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do before I do it. You may wish I didn’t,” that seductive tease was in her voice again, “but I’m counting on that brave, alpha, all-guts-and-balls side of you to take your punishment like a man. Can you handle that? It’s just a day on the beach…and you know just how punishing that can be, don’t you?”

Even his missions hadn’t been as tough as certain parts of BUD/S training, so she was right about that. As she guided the blindfold over his eyes, she spoke again. “Tell me about Hell Week. What do you remember about it?”

“Everything hurt. There was nothing but cold.” God, every SEAL remembered that fucking, unbelievable cold. “But when you reached a certain point, your brain shut down. All you did was follow the instructors, trusting them and the guys around you to get you through. You weren’t going to quit. No…it wasn’t even that conscious. You passed exhaustion, left it way the hell behind. Everything was stretched past breaking…it was broken, and yet you were being remade too. You’d keep going as long as the instructor said you had to go, until you dropped and died.”

“You gave everything over into his keeping,” she said quietly. “The most difficult and yet most complete moment of your life. The mind no longer involved. Just the effort, the goal, the instructor’s commands. That was everything.”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t ever really thought of it that way, but he guessed that was true. She’d made the blindfold snug, using a Velcro strip in the back, something he could rip off if needed. Her nails slid across his back, and then her touch was gone, leaving only the rush of the waves. He couldn’t hear her footsteps.

“Janet.”

“I’m here.”

He didn’t know if he should call her Mistress, but her name was what came to his lips. Ironically, he realized he called her Mistress when he felt in control.

“I was getting these.” More cushiony fabric brushed his left hand, wrapped around his wrist. “These cuffs are going to hold your hands to the handles.” After she put another one on the right arm, a wider piece brushed his throat. “This is a collar. I’m going to put a short tether on it, attach it to a clip embedded in the wall. All of the connectors are plastic snap locks, which can be broken easily by a powerful man. But you won’t break them. That would displease me. You will restrain yourself, follow my commands. Do you understand, Max?”

He got his cue this time. “Yes, Mistress.” They could be broken. It didn’t make his gut tighten any less or make his throat less dry. Though the cuffs made him feel peculiar, they couldn’t hold a candle to his reaction to the collar. Maybe it was how she lingered over it, stroking his throat, tugging on the strap in a way that told him that putting it on him seriously aroused her. His cock, which had diminished some while evaluating the uncertainties of the situation, came back to life. When she rose up on her toes to hook the tether, keeping his face within a foot of the wall unless he pulled against the leash, her body pressed against the side of his.

“I like the outfit. You dressed up for me. Nice jeans, black shirt. You even shined your shoes.”

“Yes ma’am. My mother always told me to look my best for a lady.”

“Ssshh. No more talking unless I ask you a direct question. If I have to remind you again, I’ll gag you.”

Her tone was firm, calm. A reminder of consequences. She hadn’t snapped the cuffs to the handles yet, but he figured out why soon enough. She wanted to undress him first. She ran her hands down his back, like a police officer searching a suspect, only her touch was far more provocative, teasing, molding to his sides, his waist and hips, cupping his buttocks in the jeans, then slipping her fingers into the back pockets. She took out his wallet, his keys, fingers caressing his groin through the pointed reach of the front pocket. The waves continued to make their rushing noise. Some sort of air filter was adding to the hologram, because he could smell sea air.

Her hip bone was against the lower part of his buttock as she reached around him to tug his shirt out of his jeans. She worked open the buttons from bottom to top, palms sliding over his ridged abdomen, his chest, fingers tugging the curling hair there, then the shirt was fully open. When she slipped the buttons on the cuffs, her nails scraped his wrist pulse, then trailed down the opening of the sleeve as far as it would allow.

“Lift your hands from the handles and put them behind your back.”

As he complied, she slid the shirt off his shoulders, slow. When she got it to his elbows, she shifted her grip so she was pulling on the collar only and putting her other hand directly between his shoulders, palm against his heated flesh, nails scraping as she pulled the shirt free. Her fingers lingered on the tattoo on his rib cage. She seemed to like touching that one quite a bit.

He only had the one, representing a mission where he and his team had taken out three high-level insurgents. They’d also lost three men of their own that day; hence the three prongs of the trident for the three lost men, and the three skulls for the three enemies removed. He had it on a mission patch, but while he’d been in the SEALs he’d never marked his body, since tattoos could reveal his branch of service if he was captured. But when it was clear he would never return to the SEALs, he’d needed the connection. It had been the last mission he’d done.

Now he thought about what she had inked on her back. Maybe he’d put that design on the opposite side of his rib cage. A symbol of the mission he served now, the one he might want to serve for the rest of his life. Would she like that? It would be an ownership mark of sorts, wouldn’t it?

“Put your hands back on the handles.” She snapped the locks so he was held to those handles by the cuffs, his body kept close to the wall by them and the one-foot tether to the collar. Her fingers traced his belt. “I liked using your belt on you, that first night. Did you look at the marks on your ass the next day, in the mirror?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She cupped one buttock, squeezed it hard through the fabric, and his cock ached, imagining her hands on both of them, kneading hungrily as he thrust into her wet pussy, serving her pleasure.

“How did it make you feel?”