* * * * *

After he saw her out to the lobby, Jon turned her over to Max, the trusted head driver of the K&A limo fleet. Max had a variety of talents. He"d once been a Navy Seal, so understood Jon"s instructions completely. If Rachel got discomfited by having a driver at her disposal and tried to do her own driving, he would make sure, with tact but firm insistence, that wasn"t going to happen.

Jon realized his instincts had taken him further down Matt"s suggested track than he"d expected. He wished they didn"t have that damn meeting in New Orleans tomorrow morning. If they hadn"t been planning it for the past month, he would have played the friend card with Matt to the nth degree and gotten out of it. He could have chosen a more gentle strategy, been more romantic than Dominant, but his gut had told him wooing was the wrong tact with her, particularly when she"d shown up with that tremulous jut to her chin and deliberate brush-off of his instructions. But there was no doubt that he was backing all those unresolved feelings into a corner. Before too long, she"d lash out at him, a cornered, injured lioness.

After tomorrow, he"d ask Matt for a few days off.

He was only in his office a few moments before Peter came in, Lucas and Ben right behind him. Jon knew Matt had left for an early lunch with Savannah. They tried to catch a sandwich together to hear the Wednesday jazz-in-the-park series once a month.

Before they"d become a couple, it was one of the things Matt had worked into his schedule to get Savannah to stop living, eating and breathing her job. It had helped amp up her trust in him, so he"d had a more secure foothold to win her surrender, as Jon had pointed out earlier.

Jon was glad he was sitting behind his desk, because he was wound up pretty tight and didn"t need Ben making jabs at his obvious, unrelieved erection. For all that his measures were going to give her a pretty agitated yoga class, let alone a restless night, he didn"t anticipate sleeping at all. The mere memory of her responses had him jacked up even harder, and he fully intended to observe the same restriction he"d inflicted on her. Next time he came, it was going to be in her mouth or her lovely, needy pussy.

He should have known the K&A team didn"t need to see it to know. Ben raised a brow. “You should have let her ease some of your pain, brother. You look like you could go off if one of us whistled Dixie at your dick.”

“You"ve really got to get over your crush on him,” Lucas advised. “It"s embarrassing to the rest of us.”

“It"s those come-hither blue eyes and that pale vampire skin. Can"t resist.”

“Last month, it was me in my stretchy bike shorts. Come out of the closet and be done with it, man. You know there"s a reason you"re so into ass-fucking.”

“For sweet, soft asses that come with a pussy, thank you. None of you qualify.

Though your dick is so small I might…”

Peter was studying Jon"s face. He gave Ben a thwack upside his head and Lucas a shove. “Shut up,” he said. “Our boy"s not in the mood.” Jon drummed his fingers on the desk. “I feel like a fucking Viking raider pillaging a convent of novices barely out of puberty.”

“You"re on the right track,” Peter said quietly. “I saw her face, Jon. She needs what you"re offering.”

“But at this pace?” Jon templed his fingers and stared moodily at his desk. “I normally don"t come at it like this.”

“You"re fine.” Lucas sat down on his desk as Peter took the couch and Ben propped on the drafting table stool. “I"ve seen you go into a dungeon, pick out a woman who"s never even met you and by the end of the night, you"ve sent her to Nirvana and back.

You trust your instincts more than anyone I know. There"s only one reason you"re not doing it now.”

“And why"s that?” Jon flicked his glance at the CFO, envying his relaxed posture, foot propped against the desk panel, arms crossed over his chest.

“Matt told you earlier, same as he told me with Cass. She"s the one. The one who matters more than any woman you"ve ever had. It"s fucking with your radar, making you scared shitless you"re going to screw it up.”

When Jon shifted his attention to Ben, the only unattached male in the room, the lawyer shrugged, spread out his hands. “Happy as I am not to be among the ranks, I"m not going to argue with him. I"ve watched it happen to each one of you, and it"s too fucking the same every time. You go from being completely content to enjoy a woman for as long as it"s mutually beneficial, to zeroing in on one like a stag in rut.”

“Nice image.” Lucas beaned one of Jon"s stress balls at him. Ben caught it, but he didn"t turn his gaze from Jon. “It"s the real deal, boy-genius. And from the little I saw, she"s worth it.”

Jon rolled his eyes at the nickname Ben used to goad him. “I swear to God, if I ever get that gossip columnist over a spanking bench…what the hell was her made-up name? Celeste De Mille?”

“Don"t worry, took care of it. Remember? You lost money to me on it. She"s a little spitfire.” Ben grinned, threw the ball to Peter. “Not your type though. Best stick with Rachel.”

“I will.” Jon shifted his attention to Peter. “You want to weigh in on this?”

“Your girl was fucking irresistible,” Peter said bluntly. Sending the ball back to Ben, he added, with another wicked grin, “Gorgeous tits. If she"s as hardcore as you think, Dana would love to play with her.”

Jon straightened in his chair. “What"s Dana doing tomorrow?” Peter"s grin became a sexy, feral smile. “Whatever I tell her to do. After she checks her calendar, that is. And tells me what I can do with my high-handed attitude.”

“Pussy-whipped.” Ben rolled his eyes, fired the ball back at him. When Peter rose and instigated an impromptu game of office football, sending Lucas out for the pass, Jon leaned back in the chair. He still had that tight feeling in his gut, but they"d helped ease it considerably. Peter knew he wouldn"t ask if it wasn"t important. Dana would know that too, which meant if there was any way she could help tomorrow, she would.

At the deepest level of his mind, Jon knew they were right. About everything. The moment he"d learned that Rachel wasn"t married, something primitive yet undeniable had broken loose inside him. That was another trait each man in this room shared—

when he set his sights on something he couldn"t do without, failure was not an option.

Chapter Nine

He was the devil. A devil blessed with irresistible hands, a sorcerer"s voice and magical tools that took away her sanity. The evening class was beginner level, thank all the gods and goddesses, because if it had been advanced, she wouldn"t have survived it without making a complete fool of herself. She had no attention span.

No, that wasn"t correct. She was entirely focused—on what her body was feeling, on every movement of that serpentine chain along her spine, around her waist, trailing her hip bones, the friction of it between her buttocks. Sitting down tightened the chain along her back and pulled at the collar. Not in a way that blocked her air, but made her acutely aware of the petite padlock on her nape. She"d discovered there was another in the small of her back, where the chain that ran between her buttocks rejoined the one at her waist. Together, the two locks kept her bound in that harness.

She"d worn loose yoga clothes as he suggested, but tucked in her shirt so only the collar with the padlock showed. Since no one asked about it, it had apparently passed as some trendy Goth charm jewelry.

She really didn"t have any energy to spare toward that type of self-consciousness, anyway. Her clit pulsed and pounded inside that pliable metal piece, and she was acutely aware of the pressure of the clamps that held it in place and spread her pussy open enough to drive her to distraction.

Surprisingly though, the item that captivated her the most was the temporary collar. Her fingers kept coming back to it, trailing along the edge, remembering how it felt when he"d buckled it, then snapped that lock in place so she couldn"t remove it unless she chose a destructive method like a knife. She wouldn"t do that. He"d known her too well. Though she might resist a note left on her bathroom counter, she wasn"t capable of removing a Master"s collar. Not one he"d placed on her.

When she got home, taken there by a polite driver she"d been too distracted to really notice, except that he was handsome and physically intimidating, in a very female-reassuring way, she fixed herself a large mug of chamomile tea. She tried to read the book he"d told her to finish. It was a romantic suspense with a few mild sex scenes, hardly graphic, yet every brush of contact between the two protagonists registered on her own skin. No part of Jon"s device impeded any bodily functions or her natural range of movement, but there was no way to sit, lie down, stand or move that didn"t increase the agony of want.

When she finally fell asleep, it was way past midnight. She woke with her hands between her legs, pressing on that clitoral hood piece, massaging it, her body within a breath of climax. She snatched her hands away as her body rocked, her pussy spasming, still caught up in her dream. Jon thrusting into her with his hard, thick cock, his hands clamped onto her hips, her body arched up to him in total surrender, legs locked high on his back over those tight, pumping buttocks…

“No, no…” She tried to thrash free of the sheets, of any type of contact against her flesh, and ended up standing in the center of her bedroom, swaying as the blood rushed alarmingly from her head. Her freestanding full-length mirror was in front of her. She"d worn a nightgown to bed, a flannel one, as if wearing something totally sexless and thick could help. Unable to bear the cloth sticking to her sweaty body, she couldn"t get it off fast enough. She stripped it off, along with her cotton panties, kicked it all away from her, breath still coming fast and hard.

She was afraid to look at the mirror, but she couldn"t help herself. The image shocked and mesmerized at once. She saw an exotic, feral creature whose lips were parted and wet, eyes wide and pupils dark with lust. The slender chain clung to her damp flesh, falling between breasts tipped by large, erect nipples. Her thighs were wet from far more than perspiration, her continuous arousal now no longer stifled by the cotton panties and the liner she"d had to put there to keep her from embarrassing herself during the class.