It startled a half-chuckle out of her, winning an answering glint from his gaze. Then he sobered. “Why are there no pictures of him, Rachel? There are no photographs in your home at all. Only paintings, most of them about tranquility, serenity.” His glance went to the picture on the wall, the governess yearning toward that clandestine kiss.

“Except for this, a window into your soul. You"ve made this your refuge, because every time you go out, reality is pretty hard for you, isn"t it?”

“You know, I"m beginning to understand why dating a clueless male isn"t such a bad thing.”

“Too late,” he commented. “The pictures?”

She molded her hand behind his on her breast, liking the dusting of hair on the knuckles, the long, strong fingers. So different from hers, the times she"d tried, futilely, to pleasure herself in this bed, imagining her far-too-feminine hands as a man"s. Her throat was clogged with memories, but she found the answer for him. “I couldn"t handle the questions. The, „oh who is this handsome young man?"” She looked left, toward the closet. “I keep the album tucked in between my sweaters. Most nights, I look at it before I go to bed.” She"d done it so often the slick page corners were permanently worn from her fingertips. “I keep it in there because when people see a photo album, they figure it"s okay to look, like it"s public property. I couldn"t bear someone visiting, picking it up on a whim and having to talk about it, answer questions…”

“You don"t have a lot of those either. Visitors.” As relentless as those blue eyes were, it was the press of his body on hers, the firmness of his groin against her pussy, everything that intimate connection could mean, that kept all of her soul spread open to him. She felt like nothing was hidden, yet in the dim light of her bedroom, she was also warm beneath him. Sheltered. The things she was in the privacy of this room, she could be with him. It was unsettling. She wasn"t sure she could deny him anything.

“Everyone likes you, Rachel,” he continued. “You could have a great many good friends, but you don"t. You give the impression that you lead separate personal and professional lives to keep people at a distance. But the most I"ve ever heard you mention is having drinks with the other PT people. Was that true, or a deception?”

“No, I do go occasionally. They drink, act silly. Talk about younger men at the club.

Like you. I join in.”

“To blend.” He touched her face as a new rivulet of tears started down her cheek.

“Oh Rachel. You"ve isolated yourself so much.”

“No. It was a choice, Jon.” She struggled for composure. “I do better when I don"t get close to people. Things don"t spill out that they can"t handle, that they don"t want to handle.”

He bent, closed his mouth over those tears. Her trembling hands gripped his biceps, his strength. Then he lifted his head an inch or two, giving her a curious look. “Do you have any childhood scars?”

It took her a moment to orient herself to the change in subject. “Um…I fell over a wooden bench at the ice skating rink when I was ten and cut my knee pretty badly. You can still see the discoloration there.”

“Left knee,” he said, without glancing down.

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I wondered about that.” Sliding down her body, but continuing to stay between her legs, he settled his hand on her upper abdomen, fingers spread out over that wide point beneath the spread of her ribs. It was the solar plexus chakra point.

When unbalanced, it was the one most likely to project fear, lack of confidence…the one that would allow the intellect too much sway. She knew enough about Jon to know his positioning of that hand was deliberate, the soothing stroke of it. Leaning down, he put his mouth on that childhood mark on her knee. She stared at his silhouette cast from the dim hallway light and wondered at him. “Scars anywhere else?” he asked, his mouth still on her.

“I"d love to think of about a hundred places, if you"re going to do that…” But her attempt at humor was swept away as he made his way up her thigh, his mouth cruising past her hip bone, and then pressed his lips with unerring instinct somewhere else.

Something trembled low in her stomach, and those tears threatened again. “Jon…”

“Stretch mark, right? So very faint…you have great muscle tone through here, but you can still see the impression. It must have been a hard labor.” He devastated her. But he didn"t leave it at that. When he came back up her body, lay back down upon her, she swallowed a surprised breath as he reached between them, opened his slacks. She caught her breath in the back of his throat as he fitted his quite obviously revitalized cock into her opening. She trembled again, harder, inside and out, hovering on this moment that was painful and everything she wanted at once.

His eyes held hers, seeing all of it. “Mine, Rachel,” he murmured, those blue eyes vibrant, fierce, at odds with his gentle tone of only a second before.

“Please…” The word whispered out of her lips. He shifted, sinking inside her, pushing through those muscles that had not had the pleasure of welcoming a man"s cock for so long. And never a man who held her heart and soul the way this one did.

His progress was slow but inexorable, seating him deep, filling her. When he was all the way in, she was overcome, her arms wrapping around his back. Holding him tightly, she pressed her face to his chest as he cupped the back of her head with both hands, whispering to her as she shook, as she worried that she might break right then.

He stayed so still inside of her, letting her feel that connection, the lock between their bodies. It took a long time for her to pull herself together, but he waited her out, waited until she spoke against his chest, her voice muffled.

“You… You didn"t show me any of your scars.”

He eased her head back to the mattress, pressed his mouth to her jaw, a touch of his tongue on the carotid pulse. Propping himself on one elbow again, he gave her a long look, then whispered a knuckle over her cheek, directing her gaze to a small mark on his forearm.

“I got this when I learned how to pop a wheelie on my bike. I was so excited I fell off it right afterward.” Rewarding her tentative smile, he lifted up, moving to his knees.

As he did, he held her hips, taking her with him so they remained joined as he shifted her ass onto his thighs and kept her on her back, body sloped down to the bed, head on the pillow. It pushed his cock up high inside her. His eyes flickered, registering the ripple of reaction over her skin, the arch of her back, the swallow that moved her throat.

“You know, when we"re young, and we fall or cut ourselves, we take pride in those marks, after they happen.” Though he had her impaled, that velvet voice was the most persistent restraint of all. He was opening his shirt, and now he pulled it to the side, showing her a longer scar that ran along his left side. Her fingers fluttered to settle on his bare skin, savoring the chance. “I was trying to create a Fortress of Solitude out of long window glass shards I took from a construction site bin. I tripped and fell into a pile of them.”

“Ouch.” Automatically, her fingers smoothed over the line, but he caught her wrist, brought her attention back up to him. Now he touched her face, traced the lines that fanned out from her eye.

“Every crease here is a smile, a tear, laughter. They"re layers over that nineteen-year-old girl who didn"t know then what it was to lose a child, or to have your husband hurt you so deeply.”

“I didn"t divorce him.” It was hard to push the words out. The truth was taking the air out of the room. But he stroked her throat, eased the lump there.

“I know you didn"t. He divorced you.”

“H-how do you know that?”

Increasing his grip on her hips now, he slid partway out, then came back in at the precarious angle. Her pussy quivered around him, her nipples tightening under his gaze. Though he was beautiful, tempting as a god like this, she wanted him completely naked, lying down upon her. She wanted to feel the muscles of his bare thighs pressing against the soft flesh inside of hers.

“A submissive of a certain nature will never leave the person she considers her Dom, even if he isn"t one. Or doesn"t deserve the title.” His mouth became a hard line now, his eyes delving back into her in that way that stripped her raw, yet sheltered her from the wind at the same time. “She refuses to give up on the relationship. She"ll kill herself, her soul, trying to please, to figure out what the answer is. She can"t walk away, demand something else. Certain submissives can, but you can"t.” She was turning into a wreck, a tangled mess of heartbreak and arousal, old emotions warring with the new. He leaned down, whispered into her hair, and she held onto his voice, the feel of his body joining with hers.

“I saw that nineteen-year-old the first time I met you. That"s why I call you a girl at times. I see that sweetness and hope and fragility, all of it beneath those life experiences that made you the strong woman you are.”

She"d never seen herself as strong. Not until now, looking into the eyes of a man who believed it. Who believed in her.

“You remember earlier, what you said to me about not needing promises or commitments?”

She nodded, a quick jerk. “It made you mad. I"m sorry, I just—”

“I"m talking now.” The tone was mild, but the look in his eyes wasn"t. She closed her mouth. “One of the reasons I wanted to get the spanking out of the way was because I was about to lose my temper. And that doesn"t happen too often. Lie still.” Though she couldn"t help a sound of anguish, he shushed her as he withdrew from her body. When he tucked himself back into his slacks, he gave her a brief glimpse of her juices glistening on the full length of his cock. He left the shirt open, though, and pulled her up. She was back in his lap, his feet on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed. Taking hold of her jaw, he caressed her throat, holding her attention.