The alternative was too outlandish to contemplate. If he"d given her an orgasm and cleaned the apartment, he wasn"t a mere mortal. The man was a god.

She tottered to her bathroom. Also too amazing to face was the fact that what they"d done last night was technically only foreplay. If he truly had fucked her, she would have needed a crash cart. It made her lips twist in a wry smile, though that same feeling twisted something tight around her heart. Daylight and reality. It was coming. She could feel it like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, ready to trample her under their thundering hooves.

Rachel, stop it. Savor it for a few moments, will you?

In her bathroom mirror she saw the usual features. A forty-something woman whose face was creased with sleep, crow"s feet etched at the corners of her eyes, worry lines visible at her brow. But today she saw other things as well. Lips that seemed fuller, bruised by kissing. A look of dazed wonder in her eyes. Her long blonde hair tousled around her face in what she dared to call sexy dishevelment. She was clearly delusional, but the kaleidoscope of images from last night were rotating through her mind, shivering over her mostly exposed skin.

Glancing down, she saw her water glass by the sink contained a casual arrangement of lavender wildflowers and Black-eyed Susans. They grew in the back lot of the apartment building. Paperclipped to a sealed envelope leaning against the glass was a note.

You’re braver than you believe you are, Rachel. Follow the instructions in the envelope.

The note had the Kensington & Associates letterhead, the address and phone number in bold script at the top. Jon"s handwriting was precise print, reflecting the compressed, dense energy of the man who"d written it.

She stared at herself in the mirror again, the way her breasts were provocatively exposed in the open shirt, how the tails of it caressed her thighs. She thought of that fabric tucked into his trousers, having the oblivious pleasure of molding over his muscular buttocks, the tails folded in near his cock, the curve of his testicles.

Picking up the envelope, she opened it. The words made her sink down on the commode top, her breath shortening, stomach doing a flip-flop.

I wish I could be there with you this morning, but I had an early meeting at the office, and I wanted you to sleep as long as you needed. But you’re not alone, sweet girl. My mind is even now on you, and what you must look like, still wearing my shirt, your body well-used by your Master.

She swallowed, a quick spasm in her fingers rippling the paper.

Now that you’re up, eat the breakfast I left for you. Take a bath, not a shower. Use those bath beads you’ve probably had forever and don’t use because you don’t take time for a bath. Shave your pussy smooth. Wear my shirt belted over the short black skirt in the rear section of your closet and the red heels that are pushed behind the other shoes. No panties or bra. Leave your hair down. In the back of your vanity drawer is a lipstick called Wet Cherry that almost matches the shoes. Wear it. I’ll be imagining that color marking my cock when you get down on your knees in my office and relieve the hard-on I’ve had since seeing you come all over my hand last night.

No preliminaries. No dancing around it. He was taking control. How many times had she fantasized about it? A Master taking over her life, orchestrating her every movement for her pleasure and his own. But her reality had become something so far from that, this was a fairy tale, and a tremendously dangerous one. What did she know about him, except he"d been able to bring her to climax for the first time in years? What did he expect from her?

All things a rational, reasonable woman would ask. But the fear came from another part of her, the part he understood far too well. Her gaze dropped to the postscript.

You’re already trying to compartmentalize, box me up as a momentary fluke, something best left as a one-night fantasy. I wouldn’t advise that. Trust me, Rachel. I know how to care for you.

It was a cryptic comment, one that could have many meanings. But it didn"t matter.

Even if he meant it the way she envisioned or desired, he couldn"t take care of her like that. It was too late. She lay the letter aside, but this time she didn"t look back into the mirror, feeling too exposed. She couldn"t do this.

If she was a different kind of person, maybe she could convince herself to throw caution to the wind, let herself have this. Earlier in the week, she"d re-checked the article about K&A"s “boy genius” and found out his age. He was thirteen years her junior, any older woman"s fantasy. All that stamina and beauty, his feet a decade away from the first threshold of middle age and its painful truths. For him, it was merely intense games. He was a Dom likely used to taking on a submissive for certain periods of time, no commitment. If she let it stop right here, she could say she"d experienced a taste of what she"d always wanted to experience, and that was more than she"d ever anticipated getting. If she walked away now, her heart would be no more battered than before.

Whereas if she let herself have the protracted fantasy, it would destroy her.

The midnight chime had rung for her. This Cinderella had hot flashes and a limited budget. A monthly gym membership and a weakness for sappy movies and dark chocolate. She"d learned to live within the confines of that safe orbit of things that defined her world. So that was it. But he"d given her a gift, and she at least owed it to him to tell him that, face-to-face.

Her two days of self-pity and hiding were up. It had ended with a glorious fireworks show, but it was time to face Day Three and its harsh reality, and get on with her life.

* * * * *

Jon studied the slow-moving Mississippi River from the window of the K&A Baton Rouge office. Jon had liked New Orleans" dark mystery, its unique culture, but since they"d moved to the Baton Rouge location, he"d found he liked the tranquility of this view. The Mississippi"s deep, eternal flow was an echo of what he felt flowed in everyone. A sense of truth, of the way life was supposed to go.

Which was why people got so fucked up when they were tossed out of that flow, left on the banks to gasp and dry up, lost to themselves. He ran a hand over his neck, clenched the fingers then loosened them, trying to shake out tension. Trying to get rid of the troubled knot in his lower belly.

Married. For over a year, he"d thought she was married. He should have known something was off, since he"d kept coming back to her class as if she were a damn siren.

But he"d never thought to look under the surface, respecting that unbreakable code that another man"s woman was off limits. He"d ached for her, for the pain and loneliness that came off her in waves. That he could have tried to assuage months ago.

It wasn"t ego, though he wouldn"t deny some of that had been involved last night.

She pulled things from him. Those expressive hazel eyes, her baby doll lashes framing a mixture of gray, gold and green color as fascinating as a forest"s depths. The way her white-blonde hair fell around her face in that wispy, vulnerable way. Her killer ripe hourglass body and how she was so earnest and serious. She needed to smile more.

From the first time he attended her class, he"d found he could make her smile, and the hopeful light to it, a candle in a soul shrouded in darkness, had haunted his dreams.

Now his blood burned with the knowledge he could make her do far more than smile.

Knowing she"d thrown him off like that had riled the Master in him. So much for his purported calm. Eastern warriors of ancient times had written that a man should accept the warlike as well as the peaceful elements of his nature. They should be allowed to flow through him unfettered, so that he could take the best aspects of both of them.

Instead, he"d unleashed his Master side like a rabid dog. He"d been goaded, challenged and he"d jumped in with both feet last night. Then he"d left her that note this morning. It was too much, too soon, and he damn well knew it. She"d spent God knew how many years burying it in herself. Just because he could see the gleam of that treasure clear as sunlight didn"t mean that she could. And as Leland had clearly pointed out, there was too much he didn"t know about why that treasure had been buried.

K&A had considerable resources to protect what was theirs. Jon had assigned Shelley, one of their trusted security personnel, to discreetly watch Rachel"s place in his absence, and she"d follow his troubled submissive if she left on any errands. While Rachel slept, he"d also planted the tiny cameras he"d brought in his case last night.

Shelley was monitoring the feed from them as well. Yeah, it might be way the hell over the line, but he didn"t really give a damn. He"d seen the scar on Rachel"s neck from that close gunshot. It had been faint, but the impression was still there. It had branded itself on his mind.

He might have uncovered the treasure inside her, but there were too many demons guarding it. He wasn"t going to make the same mistake he"d made at the yoga studio, leaving her vulnerable to them. Shelley was only supposed to call him if something started happening that caused her concern for Rachel"s safety, and only she had access to what was coming through those planted cameras. He didn"t want to learn about Rachel through an invasion of her privacy. He wanted to unfold the truth of her face-to-face, savoring every bit of it, the good and the bad, learning her soul so that he could wrap his own around it, bring them together as he was sure they were meant to be.

“And then Ben thought we"d hire a stripper to do a lap dance on Nelson"s limp dick to prove he actually doesn"t have balls.”

Jon blinked, turned from the window. “What?”

Matt Kensington arched a brow. The CEO of Kensington & Associates was on Jon"s office couch. As he referenced the open laptop next to him, he had a long arm stretched along the top cushions, the sole of one polished shoe braced under the coffee table. Matt preferred the sofa for their office meetings, as it accommodated his tall, powerful frame better, the legacy of a Texas oilman father who"d once been a professional football player. While his patriarch had given him the strong, determined features and broad shoulders, Matt"s beautiful Italian mother showed in the aristocratic sculpting of cheekbones, the dark hair he wore cropped short and the intense, deep brown eyes focused on Jon now. “Trying out astral projection?” he asked.