The house was silent, all the guests occupied outside and Sarah’s kitchen on the opposite end of the house. It was just the two of them.

Marguerite watched him move to the dresser. He’d been so quiet since they left the party, but then words didn’t feel necessary. Flame illuminated him when he lit a trio of candles that were there, along with an arrangement of fresh flowers, a stack of scripts and a belt he’d apparently discarded earlier in favor of the one he was currently wearing.

“The picture of your wife is gone.” The small wooden box with the rings was as well.

“Not gone. Just moved. I had Robert hang it along the stairs with the other family pictures.” He turned, began to remove the wedding ring.

“No,” she spoke softly. “Don’t.”

He stopped, a rare look of surprise crossing his face.

“It reminds me who you are.”

He put the pieces back together, by himself. And most people couldn’t have done that…

About eighteen months after she went back to Europe, he went after her… He never divorced her, you see.

Sarah’s words echoed in her head, reminded her of the type of man he was. She met his gaze across the room. “I meant what I wrote on that note. If I’m here, it’s because I want all of you. You’ve told me you want me, light and dark. Give me the same trust.” Something painful passed through his expression, his fingers still over the ring. She stepped forward, one step, two steps. Kneeling before him, she took his hands, separated them to press her lips to that ring finger and rub her cheek against his knuckles. When he drew in an unsteady breath, she made a new discovery. The loyalty and devotion of a submissive could be even stronger than the power of a Master.

“Why did you move the picture?”

“I loved her, will always love her, but this room is yours and mine now. I wanted you to know that when you stepped into it.”

“When? Not if?” She tried to sound challenging, but her heart was pounding too hard. It increased as he drew her to her feet, took a scarf from a drawer.

“When. Not if. Another day and I would have come for you. And I think you know that.”

She put up a hand, uncertainty returning, and halted the scarf’s upward advance.

“What are you doing?”

“Blindfolding you. Making love to you the way I wish. Trust me, angel. For once I want you to try to relinquish all control to me. Try to trust me as your subs trust you.

To give them pleasure, to keep them safe.”

She lowered her hand as he tied the scarf around her head, taking away shapes and shadows, leaving only darkness.

“That’s an illusion. I can’t protect them.”

“I’ve heard about your vengeful streak. I disagree.” His lips brushed her forehead.

When he moved away, he held on to her hand until the last possible moment.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m right here. I’m just turning on some music.”

The rumble of the doors of the heavy armoire, the click of equipment, a remote. The quiet trundle of a CD player opening, closing.

He came back as the first strains of “Unchained Melody”, the version done by the Righteous Brothers, poured into the quiet darkness of her mind. His hands stroked through her hair, spreading it out on her shoulders. It soothed, made some of her anxiety recede.

“Every time you see me, you take down my hair. I was thinking of cutting it all off.” His hands curled in, tugged. “You’d kill me, angel. You don’t know what your hair does to me when it falls down your body like this. All I can think of is Lady Godiva riding through the village on a palfrey, clothed only in her beautiful hair.” Then his hands moved from her shoulders under her arms. He hooked his thumbs into either side of the sleeveless cream dress, taking it down, baring her breasts, folding it down to her waist. He left it there and cupped her breasts, one in each hand as her hands quivered at her sides, not interfering with his pleasure, their pleasure. Touching the curves, he moved his hands over them slowly, taking his time such that she knew he was watching every change in her body. Not just the tightening of the areola and nipple, but the elevation in her breath, the pulse of her throat, the ripple of gooseflesh in one place, a flush in the other. He kept fondling one breast, but captured one of her hands, lifted it to his mouth, nibbled her fingers. One by one he kissed them, then made his way down her palm to trace her wrist pulse with his tongue as she shivered.

As the poignant, powerful notes of the song continued, she felt them unfold within her like the chapters of her life, mapping her in and out, everything she was there for him to see. It made her tremble in a way she couldn’t stop. Halting his sensual nibbling, he dropped to one knee to rub his cheek against her midriff, slide his hands around to her thighs and the base of her buttocks to give her a reassuring squeeze. Her body moved restlessly as the side of his head, his soft hair, brushed the undersides of her breasts with his movements.

“It’s okay, angel. I know what this song can do to the soul. It pulls out the magic, makes it easier to give everything to each other. I don’t want you to be afraid.” She stiffened, her hands curling into fists. “You haven’t played this song… You’re not doing something you’ve done with someone else.”

“Marguerite.”

Tyler rose, cupping her face in his hands. “No. There’s just us in this room. Now and forever.” He paused, seeking the right words. He’d never wanted to possess a woman more, to experience the sweet, aching victory of her surrender to him, the willing gift of her faith and trust. And he knew that meant he had to give her the same.

“This… No woman has ever been in this room with me other than my wife. I’ve lain here in the dark listening to that song, alone after her death. That’s how I know.” She raised her hands, closing them over his. His throat closed up at the softer set of her mouth, her sign of forgiveness.

“I’m taking off my clothes,” he said. Reluctantly he took his hands away and unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it, unfastened his trousers. He stilled as her fingers found his shoulder and touched it like the brush of an angel’s wings in truth, following the line to his neck, then down over the wide plane of his chest. His body rippled with response as she made her way over his pectorals, his nipples, the gathering of soft hair across them. Moving to stand closer to him, she lowered her touch to his trousers. Moved around and under his hands as he withdrew them, letting her take down the zipper of the garment. Her fingers went inside, stroking the surface of the cotton boxers as if she were stroking an animal’s soft pelt.

“I thought it wasn’t fair for you not to let me see you. But this is even better.” Though she was the one blindfolded, surrendering to him, he found himself held motionless by her irresistible whisper, her intimate touch. He wondered now why she even bothered with restraints at The Zone; if he’d been Brendan, he would have simply lain there and let her burn him alive for the chance of a touch like this.

“I’m going to worship every inch of you,” he promised, wondering if she understood that he meant forever, not just tonight. Catching her wrists before her hands could circle him and undo him completely, he set her from him to remove the rest of his clothes. When he moved back to her, the tip of his erection slid against her thigh, the point of her hip. Her tongue touched her lips, nervous anticipation.

Passion rose in him, even harder and more demanding than it had been in the garden when he’d known all the demons in hell and the heavenly hosts could not have prevented him from penetrating her. Nothing but her refusal and she hadn’t refused.

Had accepted him. Perhaps could even accept his darkness.

He couldn’t face that. Tonight was not about that. This was all about her. Taking his belt from the dresser, he looped it around her wrists, behind her back. He knotted the strap through the railings of the footboard so she stood before him blindfolded, her arms restrained.

“Tyler…” It was a soft breath. Dropping to one knee again, he made her spread her legs so he could enjoy the nectar of what lay there.

She moaned, already wet and swollen. His hands came up and anchored her hips more forcefully, his teeth scraping, tongue delving deep, wanting more, wanting her to scream until he’d hear the hoarseness in her voice tomorrow. See in the stiffness of her walk that he’d given her pleasure past the ability of her body to absorb it. He dug his fingers in, wanting to see the bruises that passionate lovemaking could create, the stamp of his presence on her, for they both knew that pain held power and release beyond imagining. His desire for her raged into the dark area of violence as well as the light of ultimate salvation. He wanted her to feel both.

Marguerite felt every touch in a way she knew no other man could emulate. The few touches she’d allowed subs couldn’t compare to this and she didn’t have to have a legion of past lovers to know it. In her soul she knew this was it, the person who called to her heart, the type of person she’d heard other women talk about, dream about, rarely find. And he had reached out to her, seen it and felt it first. Been persistent enough for both of them.

Having him take her over this way brought a sense of tranquility she couldn’t begin to understand, a desire to serve him and worry about nothing else. She wondered if this was what her subs were feeling when she made them reach that elevated state past the point of choice and anxiety. This floating, spiraling…joy.

His mouth left her cunt, whispered down her thigh and across it, up the shallow valley between hipbone and stomach, his fingers touching her navel, touching her waist. Learning her. Registering every tiny mole, plane or curve with mouth and fingers. Every touch was like fanned flame on her skin without her sense of sight. Her thighs remained open to accommodate him so she smelled her scent, felt it wet on her thighs as the petals of flesh still vibrated from the movements of his mouth there.

“Tyler.” That soft word again. A plea. A statement. An affirmation.

He straightened, framed her breasts in his hands and began to suckle her, his lower body pressed against her. She moved, feeling the pressure of the footboard against her bound hands, pressed against her buttocks. His tongue played with the nipple of her left breast, drew it in, tugged. He bit down on it more sharply, making her jump, arch into the pain. She wanted him to bite her everywhere, leave his marks on her, even where the belt dug into her straining wrists. She had a sudden, greedy need for him to overpower her. Take her, obliterating everything else. She wanted him to push her past the point where shadows could reach her, to where there was only mindless pleasure, release, fulfillment. Where love was the only thing she felt.