Or have you forgotten your body is your Mistress’s toy?” He found his hands moving to the button of his jeans, working it open and jerking the zipper down in the same motion.

“Take the jeans and underwear off. I want that fine ass bare against the seat.” It wasn’t self-consciousness that gave him a brief hesitation. There was no one out here and he could always snatch up his clothes if needed. Having performed as a submissive countless times before, Nathan didn’t balk at modesty. He was concerned about the fact that his cock was so rigid with lust he might spew at the touch of his own hand. Regardless, he obeyed. The burn of the hot upholstery on his ass helped distract him. He took some small satisfaction in the flare of appreciation in her gaze as he revealed himself to her. She did feel something, which meant she could be made to feel more. Tossing his boots in the back, he left his clothes in a heap at his feet. Strategy vanished as she closed her hand over him, a firm, commanding grip tugging on him.

“Over here.”

Her fingers caressed him in sensual torture as he gingerly slid his leg over the center console, avoiding the gearshift. When he placed his now bare foot in the narrow space beside her heel where she pressed down on the gas, his arm stretched around the back of her seat. With his fingers gripped in the cushioning, he could feel her whipping hair caress his fingertips, resting only an inch or so away from her shoulder. It was an awkward position for a tall man, but he didn’t care as she laid her forearm on his bare thigh and took hold of him again as if his cock were a manual stick in truth, fondling him as he braced his other leg in the passenger side. Keeping his ass firmly pressed back against the opening between the two seats, he hoped he wouldn’t lose control and jerk forward, knocking the car out of gear. They had climbed to ninety-five, the landscape a blur, the wind a roar she’d had to raise her voice over to issue the command. The whip of the wind on his bare lower body intertwined with her touch to twist the hard spear of want piercing his lower belly. It gave him a peculiar sense of sensual freedom, the desire to lay his head back, close his eyes and feel the wind rush over him as her touch took him soaring.

However, because the position put him above her, he had a throat-clogging view of her breasts in the corset, the full crescent shape of the globes of flesh molded by the fabric. The vibration of the Mercedes made them quiver. If he strained his eyes, the rise and fall of her breath almost gave him the hint of her nipples. He was straining, in more ways than one.

She took control of his reaction as if his cock were in fact connected to the transmission of the car, engine revving for her, eager to be put into drive. Her thumb caressed his broad head, collecting his pre-cum on the end of one of those glossy nails.

He had to look away or he’d explode. In contrast, she drove with the same calm demeanor, her hand touching his dick as casually and maddeningly as if she were merely entertaining herself with the feel of an inanimate gearshift beneath her palm, something for her free hand to do as she drove one-handed.

In that outfit, he couldn’t tell if her nipples were getting hard or her pussy wet, while his body was reacting almost violently to her indifferent use of him. He knew it was a Mistress’s right to use a slave in such a cavalier fashion, but it infuriated him, her impassive behavior.

Patience. He wanted to roar it to his subconscious, but it was more like a hoarse plea for attention. His fingers dug into the side of the seat as that thumb rocked back and forth over him, tracing the helmet shape of the head, curving under to follow the flare at the base and then… Oh, God, now she was on that vein on the underside that was throbbing, begging for some kind of consistent stroke or rhythm. He wanted to pump into her hand, jerk himself off viciously, but he couldn’t move without disrupting the vehicle. The automatic gearshift was a mere inch from his balls, almost pressing into them. Her nails were touching the top of it as she caressed him.

Plus, she hadn’t given him permission to move. Jonathan Powell had always been the perfect sub, everything a Mistress could ask him to be. That was key. He had to remember that now, be what she expected him to be so he could get the upper hand. It would have been easier if he’d had time to fuck some willing hooker, take that shower and put his veneer into place, but he’d learned to think on his feet in prison. This was no different. He just needed to get it together, get past his hormones.

“Ah, here we are.” She slowed the car, turned off the highway. Startled, he realized he had zoned out on his surroundings to the point that he had missed the change in the landscape.

He’d found the empty terrain of desert and scrub curious when he’d come out of the prison, for he hadn’t remembered it that way. Now his confusion increased as it yielded to an oasis. A mirage like something out of Arabian Nights. As they wound down the road, sand and desolation became palm trees, lush green grass and some kind of man-made lagoon, so clear that it mirrored the blue sky above.

There were women here. He blinked as he saw a long-legged, tawny-skinned creature with hair past her buttocks ambling with the sway of a pendulum by the water’s edge. A leopard twined around her calves, bumping her hand to make her stroke the spotted head.

Naked. The woman was completely naked and… As she turned, he thought the sun showed her dusky skin marked with a faint pattern like the leopard. Even more startling, when her lips curved, tiny sharp canines glittered just over her full bottom lip.

Two other women lounged on the green grass of the banks. One was asleep. The other, a blonde, was stroking the napping one’s red hair and braiding it into tiny tails, just the tip ends so the mass of it remained loose and thick on her pale shoulders.

Shoulders seemingly unaffected by the bright sunlight. Another trio of women played some type of game under the palm trees. His eyes widened. The game apparently involved the playful teasing of a cobra. The snake rose up to take a scrap of meat from one woman’s fingers as she crooned to it, while the other women played with its coils.

It paid no attention to them in favor of the treat.

“Did I… I’m dreaming.”

“You may have nodded off for a little while,” Dona agreed. He realized then his boots and jeans were back on, though he wasn’t wearing the scratchy prison underwear anymore. He was back in his seat, though he didn’t remember moving or arranging his clothes. No more than he remembered taking his shirt off, though now her hand was on his shoulder, caressing his bare skin. She’d had hold of his cock, he’d been on the edge of explosion and he’d nodded off? What the hell…

She parked the car on a patch of green under one of the palms. Reaching over again, she ran her hand down his chest and caressed the indentation of his navel, her other fingers playing over his sectioned stomach. “So how many times did your fine ass and pretty face get you raped before you learned how to use these muscles?”

“It doesn’t matter. Once you teach them it won’t happen without someone dying or walking away maimed, the past doesn’t matter.”

“So why didn’t you charm or manipulate them like you try to do your Mistresses?

Why did you fight them, every time?”

He was too confounded by the change in landscape to get his mind around how she would know all of that. He knew the answer to the question, though. Because no one was taking what he wasn’t willing to give. Even if it was just a response to a question.

So he just shrugged.

“What is this place?”

“This is one of my favorite playgrounds. Come. Get out and leave the shirt. This is where we’ll get you cleaned up.”

When he got out, he looked back at the dusty road, the ribbon of highway now farther in the distance than he remembered the drive to the oasis being. A deserted highway on which there’d not been a single car other than hers. The Mercedes was the only vehicle here as well, despite the presence of the other women. “Is this far from the prison?”

“Very far. Or not far at all, depending on your perspective.” When she walked across the grass, he was forced to follow if he wanted to continue the dialogue. He was amazed at how easily she walked in those high heels. With a sauntering stride, her ass twitching left and right in a way designed to make him not really give a damn about the unlikely nature of their surroundings or the lack of logic to them. He’d sworn to make no more mistakes like the one that had landed him in prison, though. Self-preservation had to be his first priority in any situation. “Dona. Where are we?” She stopped but kept her back to him. The breeze fluttered through her hair as she turned her head, just enough for him to see her profile, the red lips, dark eyes and lashes lowered over them behind the sunglasses.

“This is part of my home. One small part of it.” The wind died. Clouds closed in on the sun so abruptly it was as if a curtain had been drawn over it by human hands, a curtain that couldn’t shut out an ominous rumble like thunder.

“It is my home.” She repeated it, almost a snarl. Fascinated, he saw her fingers close into clenched fists at her sides, her chin thrust up in defiance.

A blink and abruptly the sun was out again, the curtain drawn away as if it had never been there. The six women, who had gone still at that rumble, resumed their movement and idle play. The wind gusted through the palm fronds then settled back to a mild breeze, as if someone had sighed.

Giving a slight nod, apparently satisfied, Dona looked back at him. “I told you to come with me. Why are you way back there? Have you forgotten how to obey a Mistress as well?”

This was all tipping the bizarre meter, enough to make him think he’d be better off heading back to the highway and hitching to the seedy hotel he’d intended for his first night. But maybe the heat had gotten to him. He’d stood out in front of the prison for a while, hadn’t he? If this was just a part of her home, Dona had to be loaded. Mega wealthy. Why should he be afraid of her? In prison, he’d gotten used to anticipating the less subtle reactions of men. It was time to sharpen the instincts that he’d once kept honed to surgical precision to pick up on a woman’s deepest needs and fears. She’d just demonstrated that there was something that could get under her skin. He needed to push aside the lingering self-doubt caused by the nearly fatal mistake he’d made with his last Mistress. He’d learned since then. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes, miss the cues he’d missed with her.