“Yes,” I whisper, closing my eyes. He knows that’s exactly what I need, and the fact that he’s finally back rips through me like a storm. I’m wildly turned on, and desperately relieved. My body is on fire. My breasts feel heavy, my nipples tight. And I’m so damn wet.

He slides his hands down my arms until he reaches my wrists, and then he yanks my arms up. I gasp, my eyes flying open, and I melt a little bit more at the open passion and heat I see on his face. He uses one end of the sash to bind my wrists together, and then ties the opposite end to the dress-height closet pole, so that I’m forced to stand upright, my arms above my head.

I’m wearing casual work clothes—a simple silk tank top paired with a pencil skirt, and he teases his fingertip down from my wrist to the shoulder strap of the tank, then traces the outline of the V-neck against my skin. “Do you like this shirt?” he asks, but before I can answer he’s grabbed either side of the V and pulled it apart like a jacket. The fragile material rips open to expose my bra. The sound is sharp and dangerous—and wonderfully enticing.

“I’ll buy you another,” he says as he tugs down my bra, freeing my breasts, then squeezes one nipple so hard I cry out.

“Tell me why,” he demands, still pinching my nipple. He bends forward to whisper in my ear. “Tell me why you thought about cutting. Tell me why you need the pain.”

“Because—” I can’t get the words out past the sensations that are flooding me. Pain. Pleasure. Heat. Desire.

A hot cord seems to connect my breast to my cunt to my wrists to my lips to every cell in my body. I’m so turned on that even the whisper of a breath over my clit would send me over the edge—but I don’t want that. Not yet. I want to stay here, balanced on a knife edge, teetering in that netherland between pain and pleasure, desire and satisfaction.

Damien knows that—dammit, he’s always known that. And thank God he’s back and finally—finally—taking me there.

“Tell me,” he presses. “Why do you need the pain?”

“To turn it around,” I say, forcing the words out. “To draw it in and turn it around and battle it down. To know that I can win.” I meet his eyes. “To control it,” I say, “and turn something hard into something exceptional.”

“Pain into pleasure,” he murmurs, pinching my nipple even tighter. “Is that what I give you? Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I say. “God, yes.”

“Good girl.” He releases my nipple, and I cry out from the cold, sharp rush of blood that returns, the sensation like a hot wire extending from my breast to my core.

“And what do I need, baby?” he asks as he turn me around so that I’m facing the hanging clothes. “Why does having you here make me hard? Why does seeing you bound and your ass red from my palm make me want to fuck you until you scream my name?”

“Control,” I whisper, and hear his sharp sigh of agreement. “Because even if the world is crashing down around us and it feels like there’s nothing you can control, you can still control me. Please,” I beg, because his words have taken me that much further. “Please.”

He pulls my skirt up, then yanks my panties down around my ankles. I step out of them, and he strokes my rear. I close my eyes, imagining the sting of his palm. Craving it. So much sweeter than the blade, and yet still giving me something to cling to so that I can pull myself out of the mire.

“I will always give you what you need,” he says, punctuating the final word with his palm on my ass. I cry out, imagining the red flush on my skin, and then close my eyes as he rubs his palm over the tender flesh. “Whatever and however you need it,” he says, then spanks me again, this time sliding his fingers between my legs after the impact, then moaning when he finds me wet and open and ready.

“You like that.” It’s not a question, and I’m glad he knows the answer because I’m too gone to answer. I hear his zipper and then the soft swish of material as he sheds his clothes. I expect the press of his cock against me, but instead I feel his fingers tracing my perineum, and making me tremble with anticipation.

He spanks me again and again. Four times, five, until I can’t take it anymore. Not the pain—it’s shifted into something warm and compelling—but the desperate throbbing. The need to feel him inside me. And I beg for him to please, please fuck me.

“Anything you need,” he says, this time with a tease in his voice. He turns me around, and with my wrists still bound, he lifts me so that my legs are around him as he enters me, and he’s holding my ass in one hand and keeping me steady with his other palm against my back.

I’m completely open, totally vulnerable, and he’s entirely in control. He takes me hard and fast, thrusting so deep inside me I feel as though I’ll split in two. And when a violent orgasm rips through me, I tremble in his arms, my core clenching tight around him, drawing him in until he explodes inside me, and then holds me close, suspended in the air even as my senses come back to earth.

When we can move, he has me slide my legs down, then unties the sash. We collapse to the floor and curl up together. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs. “I never meant to pull away. I never meant for there to be distance. I only wanted you to have the chance to heal.”

“How could I without you?”

“How could we if not together?” he says, and that is enough apology for me.

When we finally emerge from the closet, Damien takes my hand. “Get dressed,” he says. “There’s something we need to do.”

I’m not sure what he has in mind, but I pull on jeans and a T-shirt and follow him out to the third-floor sitting area. He looks around the room, finally picking up the pot of daisies that Jamie and Ryan had sent. “Come on,” he says, leading me to the stairs.

I follow him outside, and we go to the edge of the house where there’s a small flower garden. Someone left a spade on the bench, and since I know the staff well enough to know none of them would leave a tool lying around, I’m certain that Damien put it there earlier.

I look up at him curiously. “What are we—”

“We’re planting the flowers,” he says. “In her memory.”

My eyes burn, but I don’t cry. Instead I nod, a little overwhelmed and a lot melancholy. Then I bend to my knees and take the spade he offers me. I dig a hole, and he puts the flowers inside, then pats the earth back down around it.