“Josh.” His voice was low.

Josh lifted his head, took in the situation at a glance. Rolling, he rose to his feet and nodded his head, a courtesy to both before he turned and left them. Marguerite blessed his intuitive and discreet withdrawal, for Tyler was advancing across the clearing swiftly.

She was ready for him, had come for this, even if she couldn’t say the words. She wanted to be his. All his. Whether it could go any further than tonight, whether her fragile psyche could handle more than this, she didn’t know, but she’d wanted it clear that she’d come to him at least this once. She’d met his terms. She had to put herself in his hands, have faith in every moment after that fateful decision. Not because she no longer feared such a decision so deeply she was shaking in places that did not show, but because she couldn’t imagine any other action.

He stopped with less than a foot between them. “I want you so much I can’t be gentle, angel. Not even close.”

Her pulse was high in her throat. At his words, the rate increased. “I didn’t ask you to be.”

One large hand climbed up her bare thigh which was stretched out as a counterbalance to the position in which she’d been leaning over the pond. The other went to her waist, brought her to her feet, even as the other hand continued its upward advance under the clinging fabric of the skirt to her bare ass beneath. Taking a firm hold, he pressed her hard against him as he brought his lips onto hers. He was making a noise in her mouth, actual growling as he held her tighter, closer, letting her feel every inch of his need for her. She’d never experienced this. Never felt such raw hunger emanating from a man who wanted her, a man with Tyler’s finesse who seemed to know her deep inside herself, whose touch could demand and reassure at once.

“I’m going to take you to my room and make love to you,” he rasped against her lips, biting them. “The way I’ve imagined doing it for the past couple of weeks. But first I’m going to fuck you, right here, right now.”

He hooked his foot around her ankle, took them both down to the carpet of grass, catching their weight on his forearm. The thud of their impact was jarring, thrilling in its force, but not painful.

“Put your arms over your head.” It wasn’t a request, his tone making it easy for her to simply obey, her body trembling, her thighs opened by the press of his thighs between them. He raised his body only to unfasten his trousers and push them far enough down his hips to accomplish his objective. Thrusting his arm under her waist, his large hand palming her bottom to lift her higher, he drove into her. Her pussy was so wet he sank in deeper, faster and harder than he’d expected, causing her to cry out and arch, pain mixed with unbearable pleasure.

“God, I’ve gone crazy without you,” he muttered. Shoving the dress up to her waist, over her breasts, he bared them to his avid gaze, holding the crumpled fabric against her throat and keeping her pinned as he loomed above her. His hips thrust, his cock stroking tissues that were on fire, that were even now rippling with orgasmic response.

“I won’t let you stop coming tonight.” And he made it sound like the threat it was.

“Until I’ve done every single thing I’ve thought about doing to you and with you these two interminable weeks.”

She moved restlessly against him, her eyes so wide and clear, so full of him he thought he might be seeing his own soul. He hoped she was seeing the same in his. But even that was a garbled thought, for what he needed and wanted in this moment had more to do with things that went beyond words. And she understood his need. His beast roared at the recognition that she kept her hands above her head at his command, because that was the way he’d commanded it and because that was what the desire in her eyes said she wanted as well.

Master. She’d called him Master.

He pulled her legs up higher around his hips. She hooked them at the small of his back, that supple, flexible body undulating beneath him, reminding him of beautiful yoga asanas, of Shakti and Shiva coming together to find peace and balance, passion and joy, everything that made life worth living. The sword that could be raised as a defense against every kind of evil. In this terrible world, there was this gift, this sanctuary. This proof of Divinity.

Gripping her buttocks in both hands, he rose to his knees and lifted her so he was still driving in hard and steady, watching her breasts spill onto her sternum, wobbling with the force of gravity. The nipples were dark mauve hard points, her cunt slick where he was plunging in, again and again, moving her on the grass. When he thrust two of his fingers deep into her backside she screamed, a full-throated cry he was sure could be heard by his guests, by the stars. He felt a surge of primal pleasure in it, a conqueror’s fierce satisfaction, a man’s humble gratitude.

“Come, Marguerite.” His voice was hoarse. “Come for me, angel. Let me hear you.

Let them know who you belong to.”

As her body rolled against him like storm waves, she moaned, then cried out again, a long sound of release. He kept thrusting hard, feeling her flesh clamp down on him, unrelenting, telling him she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her. He was inside her, not just her soaked pussy, but in all the complex turbulent and dark mazes that were Marguerite. He wanted to be there forever, wanted to keep her safe and unafraid, give her pleasure and happiness. He could no more consider letting her go now than he would consider severing a vital limb and letting himself bleed out.

She would likely panic and withdraw, run from him again, but he knew the way in now. She’d let him into the deepest room in her heart. He was going to win her as often as he needed to do so, even if it was a quest that took forever, that had to be begun every day. Until death do they part.

Hell. For eternity. No way was she going to get out of this with a flimsy excuse like mortal lifespan.

When they both came down, he lowered himself onto her, breathing hard. Curling his body over hers, his arms around her head, he laced his fingers in her limp ones, nuzzling her cheeks, feeling her legs slide down to hold him in a lower embrace, though he stayed firmly seated in her. He kissed one perfect ear, the tiny hairs at her temple, blew on her eyelashes until she squeezed her eyes closed like a disgruntled cat and made him smile when she pushed against his grip.

“Now that we’ve taken care of that,” he said. “I’m going to make love to you. Slow, soft, long. All night.”

She looked up at him. “Carry me. I like it when you carry me.” Her body trembled beneath him.

“Ask me.”

“Please.” The words came out without hesitation or thought. “Would you carry me?”

“Anything you ask for, angel.” Though he wondered if he could get her all the way to the bedroom without laying her down three times in between and taking her all over again. “No. It’s my right to do it.” He stayed her hands, pulled the dress back down over her breasts, down the slope of her abdomen, over her hips, his fingers stroking her damp and still quivering flesh. Reluctantly he withdrew his touch to rearrange his own clothing. But the separation was only for a moment. “Put your arms around my neck,” he commanded her quietly.

When he lifted her, he left her shoes tumbled against each other at the base of the statue. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate offering to the deity devoted to love and sensuality.

Chapter Eight

When he got to the threshold of his bedroom, Tyler paused. Breathing in, breathing out. Like the woman he was bringing here, he knew the power of a Mastery, the complete surrender of a submissive to the Master or Mistress. When the message was,

“All I am, I offer to you, I give to you. I’m yours.” She’d said this was what she wanted and he was never going to take the gift for granted. He was going to give her the world if she let him. Every beautiful thing he gave her to blot out an ugly piece of her past would tear a hole out of his until they could cast their nightmares like ashes into the Gulf and lay the past to rest. He hadn’t realized the key to his own emptiness until she’d had the incredible bravery—so much bravery there was no way to describe it—to open up her soul and shed light on the answer he’d been unable to find until her whispered words had provided it.

He’d never entered a life-threatening situation without a full arsenal of weapons.

Marguerite had let her father torture her night after night with nothing to defend her except her fierce love for her twin, the protection of his life the one thing that kept her focused.

Some wounds could only be healed by the touch of a soul mate, two broken pieces coming together to become a whole being again, so simple the jaded world would call it a cliché. The angels would call it one of God’s miracles, offered off the tips of His fingers like diamond raindrops, driving and cleaning away all that didn’t matter.

That love was worth any torment, every disappointment. It couldn’t be explained or described. It simply was, in the same way Marguerite wanted him as her Master, not even understanding what that meant. Just knowing as he’d known all along that she belonged to him. The beautiful, indomitable Mistress Marguerite.

He had perhaps not even comprehended it himself at the beginning, that she could be both. Both aspects were who she was, the sculpted result of her past, the decisions of her present. But there was a newly acknowledged part of her soul. A part that, if she held on to her courage and he didn’t let her down, could become the cradle to hold all of her amazing diversity. Protect it, cherish it and let the beauty of her many different flowers become a bouquet of possibilities they could share.

His rational mind knew all that, could analyze it forever while his soul merely rolled its eyes and pushed him toward the path it had always known was the right one.

Claiming her fully, making her dark and light his now and forever so there would be no path she had to walk alone ever again. It was what she’d said she wanted in that one word she’d whispered in his ear. The Master in him wasn’t waiting to hear it twice.

Putting her down, he guided her in and closed the door. He stopped her at the foot of the bed, the only light coming from the dim strip of hallway light under the door.