God and Goddess, she"d known she couldn"t handle this. She couldn"t make any more stupid choices based on cravings she couldn"t afford to have. She"d taught herself that the only thing she could do to protect herself was act opposite from the way she desperately wanted to act. It was her only chance of staying out of trouble, no matter that every part of her felt she was doing the wrong thing. But when she couldn"t trust herself, that was the whole point, right?

So though it was exponentially more difficult, she looked straight at him and spoke.

As she did, her fingers closed into tight, cold balls and her voice shook. “I came to thank you for last night,” she said. “And t-to bring you the name of another yoga instructor.

You"re…at a more advanced level than I offer…can offer.” She sounded harsh and abrasive, even to herself, but his expression didn"t change.

She had to imagine her practical heels embedded into the floor to keep herself still.

Jon glanced to his left. “Lucas, can we continue this later this afternoon?” Her stomach gave a precipitous lurch. Now she thought about jumping out of her shoes and running. She hadn"t even noticed the other man. Thank God she hadn"t said anything less circumspect. But then she latched onto the name.

Lucas. He’s spent a great deal of time studying the way to pleasure a woman with his mouth. He’d thrust his tongue deep into your pussy, do things that would make you mindless…

“Sure.” The masculine voice was as confident and commanding as Jon"s, though not as velvet-toned. It still was capable of running a shiver up her spine. Now that she"d been proven right at least three times, she couldn"t deny her ability to detect a Master from a straightforward alpha male. She could modify The Weather Girls" one-hit wonder. It’s raining Doms… She was a safari tourist, come to glimpse a lion, and had instead walked into a full, ravenous pride of them.

The anxious humor didn"t help her as much as she"d hoped. Having seen the photos, she nevertheless wasn"t surprised they didn"t minimize his impact on her senses. Lucas Adler moved with the grace and controlled power of an athlete, and the sculpted lines of his handsome face could have graced an Egyptian prince in a previous life.

Though she tried not to look, she couldn"t help focusing on his mouth. She"d worn a trim bolero jacket over her blouse, and she was glad for it. His direct, steady glance, combined with the memory of Jon"s words, the idea that he might let Lucas put his clever mouth on her, had her nipples drawing tight. She shifted her attention back to Jon before she made a fool of herself by lowering her eyes in automatic deference before both of them. The speculative look, the hint of a feral, humorless smile on Jon"s sensual lips, told her he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone.

Lucas was headed toward the door, where she was standing. She should step out of the way, but she couldn"t move. Literally couldn"t, because panic had frozen her in place. A brush of Lucas" jacket was followed by the touch of his strong hand on her lower back, gently but firmly moving her farther into the office so that he could not only get past her but close the door after him.

She was alone with Jon, and an acre of glass windows overlooking the river.

He was still looking at her, but instead of meeting his gaze again, she moved to those windows. Ten feet of carpet and weighted silence lay between them, but in reality, there was so much more than that. Just like that, all the false constructs she"d used to get herself here, the anger and rationalizations, all the games she played with herself, were beyond her grasp. There was only the sad truth. Too much truth to give to him.

“You shouldn"t have done that this morning,” she said. “It means nothing. Can mean nothing.”

He didn"t say anything. No interruption, no argument. She didn"t know if that made her feel desolate beyond measure or apprehensive. She didn"t want to feel anything. She should turn around and leave. She"d delivered her message. But of course she kept talking.

“When my husband left me, he said, „The way to your heart is through your…cunt."” She swallowed, hating how ugly that word sounded now. It had been much different when Jon said it last night. “And he said he couldn"t read the road signs anymore.”

Jon shifted. His proximity was a heat against her back, like the sun coming in on her front, but she crossed her arms over herself. A reflex, a sign she didn"t want to be touched, even though he hadn"t moved toward her, hadn"t closed that distance. She kept her back straight, chin up, eyes on the moving water, the skyline. “I was so hurt and angry, I lashed out, something I rarely did in our marriage. I told him he couldn"t read them because he wasn"t brave enough. He said no. It was because he wasn"t interested. Not anymore.”

She drew a shaky breath, remembering the lancing pain of that final strike. “People are cruel when they"re hurting, and somewhere inside him was the man I married, who didn"t really mean those words. But it doesn"t mean it wasn"t true. It wasn"t in his nature. I could have lived with that, even been happy, if we were friends, or he loved me for whoever I was, even though he couldn"t understand it. When true love exists in a relationship, it can overcome pretty much anything. Isn"t that what we tell ourselves?

It"s what we have to believe to stay sane.”

She gave a faint smile, though it hurt her face. “But whether it was girlish fantasy or not, the reality was that I mistook selfish, lazy and overbearing for protective and alpha.

And what I was looking for…I couldn"t even define it in the first years of my married life. As the world became so sophisticated, I understood it more, but it was already too late, even then. I just didn"t know it.” She shook her head, looked down at her hands.

“Nowadays women are strong, outspoken. They bristle with outrage at the idea of a man looking at them as a possession. Those kind of women would consider me a freak…weak, stupid. Maybe mentally unbalanced.”

The chuckle she attempted now came out sounding like a strangled sob. “They"d call me a coward too, but it wasn"t fear that kept me from leaving him, telling him off.

All I wanted was to take care of him, and be loved for it. Even if I couldn"t have anything more, I could have accepted that. The submission is…it"s far more than sex. I know you know that. I see it in your eyes.”

Her voice quavered again, and she had to pause, compose herself. She was a mature, single woman. She would get through this. But the truth was it destroyed her, knowing she"d finally found someone in the world who understood, and not just intellectually. His Dominance was as innate to his blood as her submission was to hers.

Though it was too late for anything else, there had to be comfort in that validation, right? “Sometimes I tried to pretend he was the man I needed him to be. I had this picture of him in my head, and everything he did, I interpreted it as something else. If I tried harder, if I just loved him enough, it would be okay… The worse he treated me, the harder I tried. Until even he was so disgusted with me, he left.” She pressed her lips together. “They say life is a journey, and you should savor every moment. I was always a submissive, initially with no words to describe it, or a husband who could understand it. The frustration and confusion of it nearly drove me mad. There was a time…I didn"t want…I couldn"t see any reason to go on.”

She couldn"t stop at that marker, because if she did, she would truly fall to pieces.

She put her mental weight against that door, before she could hear the report of the gun, see the flash of fire, feel the wet blood on her neck… Or think about the most important reason for it, the straw that had brought her to that terrible moment. She didn"t want to share that now, not here. Couldn"t do it.

“That was when I started taking yoga.” Sensing somehow that he"d shifted closer to her, she blurted it out, pressing her palms against the glass to steady herself.

“Something about it…it told me I could find peace there. I immersed myself in it, became an instructor. It helped me find the balance I needed.” She turned then, faced him, and it was so hard, for so many reasons, to meet that steady gaze. “I can"t have what you"re offering, Jon. You"re too young, too late and I"m too fragile. It took me too long to pull myself back off the cliff edge and…” Her voice trembled once more. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself, spoke the desolate truth to that black space. “I won"t survive going there again.”

“I"m not offering anything.”

He moved then, closing the space between them. She wanted to shrink back against the glass, but managed to keep herself still. He had such a smooth way of moving, gathering an energy around him that would always turn a woman"s head. Her gaze latched onto the tie. His tie tack was a Japanese kanji symbol, one she recognized, because it was on a tapestry in her yoga studio. Perseverance.

Her palms tingled, wanting to reach out, touch it, flatten against his chest, feel his heat and heartbeat. When he laid his hands on her tense shoulders, she had another brief spurt of panic, but before she could wrench away, he"d pushed her against that panel of glass. It had absorbed a considerable amount of the sun"s heat, such that it burned through the fabric of her bolero and the thin blouse beneath.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“No.” The resolve beneath the deceptive mildness was terrifying to her. Gentle, thoughtful Jon, so interested in the philosophy and spirituality behind yoga, yet he also understood the strength of it as well. A mountain could be placid, but it didn"t make it less immovable, less capable of demonstrations of utter power. However, while he could easily overcome her physically, he didn"t need that. His voice and manner alone arrested her.

“What I left you this morning wasn"t an offer, a suggestion or a proposal, Rachel. It was a command. I"m not going to give you a choice. Not right now. Because you"ve been given far too many. That isn"t what you need, is it?” The ache low in her belly was becoming that spinning wheel she knew too well, a wheel with blades that were going to cut her insides to pieces. “Please…don"t.”