Right? He could handle it. But that itself was too damn appealing, too fast.

She rested her temple against the piling, fingers digging in again. “What will it change?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

His hand slid around her front, cupping her hip bone. When his tone softened, she choked on a sob. “Why don’t we see, sweetheart? I know you’re scared about tomorrow night.

But I’m going to have a gift for you, something that will help you embrace your own pleasure without fear. I promise. So I don’t want you to worry about that, about anything.

Okay? Can you do that for your Master? Will you trust me that much?” I want to. Oh, how easy he made it sound, and yet she felt as if he’d put her on a roller coaster before she was ready to go to dizzying heights at such speeds. But there was an amazing, small part of her mind that didn’t want to cower, a burning light that made her summon up a scrap of courage, and speak. “You said something about a sip of your beer?”

He gave it to her with her hands still tied, so she had to lay her head in the cup of his palm, trust him to guide the fluid into her mouth. As she swallowed, he stroked her throat, then down over her sternum, teasing the tops of her breasts as if he saw no scar tissue at all. They didn’t behave as if they were anything less than they’d always been, nerves awakening under his hands, the curves swelling and nipples hardening further.

When he finally released her from the hook, he took her back to the bench, keeping her hands tied. As he sat down, holding her between his knees, she imagined how he looked there, in a pair of jeans fitting just right, maybe his arm stretched across the bench. She could sit down next to him, or on that knee, but her mind turned to what she’d almost done in the apartment, the way she’d gone to her knees. She’d been goaded by darker feelings then, but now . . .

She realized she was trailing one of the fingers of her bound hands along his knee, a two-or three-inch stretch, a nervous movement back and forth. “My slave appears to know what I like best with my evening beer.”

His voice was husky, and she swallowed at the sound of a loosened belt buckle hitting the bench, imagining the purr of a zipper. She envisioned his cock stretching up in all its hard, thick glory, him leaning back against the rail, sipping the beer as she serviced him with her mouth. That organ glistening with her saliva, her ass red with his punishment.

Her knees were already folding beneath her, without conscious direction. His hands were there, though, guiding her down, and he held her weight until he’d put a cushion on the boards for her knees. His touch lingered on her nape as both sets of her fingers crept up his inner thighs, accommodating her tied wrists.

She hadn’t had the opportunity to touch him much that first night, or even last night. Now he indulged her pace, letting her explore the texture of the light mat of hair on his muscled thighs, the smooth flesh of the insides, the encroaching heat of his groin as she drew closer to his testicles, working her way to what she knew awaited her.

When her hand closed greedily over the hot, hard base, she felt him suck in a breath, a gratifying one. Dominance and submission were all about power and control, a perfect state of trust and surrender. By taking away so many of her decisions right now, Peter was giving her the chance to fully evaluate the one decision that would be hers to make when three days were over.

Before her injury, she’d wanted that perfect state handed to her on a platter. Ironically, blindness and Peter’s arrival had shown her the devastating truth. It was a leap of faith.

Had she lost her ability to leap that far, though? How could she even know the right direction to leap when she couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear the sound of his heart calling to hers?

“Shh, sweetheart. Stop thinking.”

The reassurance and warning in his tone returned her attention to the weight of him in her hand. Heated, silken skin over steel, the musky, aroused aroma as she brought her mouth down, stretched her lips over the broad head, tasted the salt of him, fluid already gathered on the tip.

He stroked the shell of her ear that had the hearing aid. He didn’t dislodge it, the movement easy and familiar, not the exaggerated care that would have distracted her. It brought her back to thinking about what had changed since they’d last seen each other.

And yet, she liked it when his fingers convulsed abruptly as she went down, relaxing her throat to take him deep. Skills that didn’t rely on her sight and hearing were enhanced by this singular focus on taste and smell, his physical reaction. For the first time, she felt a tiny trickle of satisfaction with the thought. Something within her power to give.

While the idea of him drinking his beer excited her, this casual use of his slave, she also liked the idea of him being too aroused to do anything other than dig in for the ride, so she put all her effort into it.

His thighs trembled, and he thrust up. She scored him with her teeth, swirled her tongue over the base, found his heavy testicle sac and squeezed it, caressing the sensitive perineum. She knew how to slide a finger slow and easy up his backside and make him see stars, but for now she focused on this.

She did miss hearing him, the guttural whispers an aroused Master would make, the murmured command to suck his cock harder, faster. As if he knew that, the clutch of his hand and the thrust of his hips communicated that message, making her wetter. She wanted him between her legs, wanted to feel whole and real. She also craved the spurt of his seed into the back of her throat, his roar of release vibrating through her touch, breaking that muted sound barrier.

When he came, it was all that and more, his hand clenching on the back of her neck, his cock thrusting into her mouth so hard it was all she could do to keep in rhythm, drawing it out as seed flooded her throat and tongue. She heard his male groan of satisfaction, the animal sound of it thrilling her to her toes, her calves slick with her arousal. She didn’t slow down until he started twitching with the sensitivity. Licking him, teasing him with small kisses and nips, she savored his shudders. He caught her chin and pulled her up, lifted her in an amazing display of strength to straddle his lap. He kept her off his cock, despite her moan of protest. Instead, he cradled her face and cleaned his fluids from her lips with his T-shirt, wiping the moisture from her eyes, caused by the strain of powerful thrusts. Finding his abdomen beneath the raised cotton, she dug into his muscles with needy fingers.

“God, your cunt is so flushed and swollen. You want your Master to fuck you, don’t you?”

When she nodded, he claimed her lips, tasted himself and her at once. He gripped her ass, made her writhe against him, whimper as he prolonged the wet, sucking pleasure of his mouth. But then he drew back and held her, his hand on her throat where the collar was, a reminder. “Not right now, but soon. First, I’m giving you that bath.” She’d tried to protest, explain she did know how to shower herself, but that had won her a stinging swat on the bottom before he shepherded her into the garden tub. He’d given her a very thorough bath, embarrassing and arousing at once. Sliding his fingers into her pussy as well as her anus, he left her on the cusp of climax before he turned to rinsing her, stimulating her nipples with the sprayer.

God, she wanted him inside her, but the frustrating fact was that she wasn’t used to so much physical exertion, and he was far too intuitive. “It’s bedtime, sweetheart,” he said after he dried her gently, cupped her face. “There’ll be time for the rest.” He even carried her to his bedroom, a sign that she couldn’t conceal her utter lassitude. It had a quiet, tranquil feel to it, an aroma of wood and Peter. The bed’s cushiony quilt and abundance of pillows also bore his reassuring scent. He lay down with her, a consolation prize, and while she lay with her head on his chest, he described everything in the room in detail, from the overflowing bowl of change he had on the dresser, to his pictures, snapshots of his travels for his company and with the military, and the view of the bayou out the open screened window. He did so well she couldn’t help but see it all, imagine herself as part of it, him wrapped around her.

When he at last went quiet, probably to give her the chance to doze off, she remembered what he’d said out on the dock. Tell me everything going on in that head or heart of yours. Trust me with everything.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

She nodded, rubbing the firm pectorals beneath her cheek. Reaching up, she stroked the curve of one, found the bump of his nipple. “Were my tattoos ruined?” His hand drifted down her back, traced the eagle and flag. “No, sweetheart. Your promise to your grandmother is still there.”

She wondered why it didn’t surprise her that he understood the most important one to her.

“When I got it, she said only trashy women got tattoos. And she worried that it might be blasphemous. But I think she liked it. She put her palm on it, said a prayer for me. So I’ve always felt her hand there, too.”

“I’m sorry she died, Dana. She sounds like a wonderful woman. Do you think she would have liked me?”

She would have loved him. But for form’s sake, Dana sniffed. “She’d have said you need to be taken down a peg or two. But she would have tolerated you.” He chuckled, and the warmth of it slid through her, thickened her throat as she imagined him and Grams together, the banter they would have shared. How gently Peter would have treated her. She sought another subject before tears made her foolish. “Why did you decide to be a soldier? I bet you were an adrenaline junkie.”

“It was probably some of that,” he admitted. “But eventually I matured enough to realize how damn lucky I am to live here, to be given the blessings I have. So I pay it forward, hoping to give those choices to others. I know how that sounds these days. People make fun of it, think a guy like me is stupid.”

“I don’t,” she said, and he stilled, their hands intertwined. “I hate what happened to me, Peter. But I believed in what I was doing, despite some of the bullshit we deal with. I had a purpose.” But what was her purpose now?