“Whatever you read in that journal has nothing to do with you and me.”

Emotion tightens my throat and I do not look at him. I trace that tattoo, the bright red of the wings that flex as he grips his knee. “But it does,” I whisper.

“It doesn’t.”

Reading him the passage seems the only way for him to understand. I force my gaze from his arm to Rebecca’s writing. “Like the thorns on the roses he loves to give me, I welcomed the pain of the flogger biting into my back. It is the escape from all that I have lost, all that I have seen and done, and regret doing. He gives this to me. He is my drug. The pain is my drug. It ripples through me and I feel nothing but the bitter bite of leather and the sweet silk of the darkness and pleasure that follows.” My gaze lifts to Chris’s.

Tension crackles off him and he takes the journal from me and sets it on the nightstand. “If not for those journals bringing you to me, I’d curse the day you ever found them.” He slides his hands to my face and forces my gaze to his. “You aren’t Rebecca, and we don’t have, nor will we ever have, the kind of relationship she had with Mark.”

“Mark.”

“Yes, Mark.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he can’t just be happy with those who invite this lifestyle and welcome it. He has a thing for bringing in innocents who don’t belong in this world and training them as subs. He gets off on the power of it.”

In the back of my mind, there are questions about Mark, but there is only room now for where this takes me with Chris. “You’ve trained . . . subs?”

He scrubs his jaw and then runs his hands down his jean-clad legs. “Don’t do this to yourself or to us.”

“That’s a yes.” My voice is barely audible. And is that what he wants me to be? Am I confused about where we are going? Do I really have any idea at all where we are headed?

“It’s a no, Sara. I’m not Mark. Master and sub was too much commitment for me. I do not want to be responsible for someone’s well-being. Not beyond one session. I got my fix and then quickly moved on.”

His fix. I hate this choice of words. I barely know the man who uses them, who lived them. But it is Chris and it confuses me. “What does that even mean?”

His jaw clenches.

“I need to understand, Chris.”

His lashes lower, the lines of his face hardening. “There are rooms you go to,” he surprises me by explaining. “You can choose to be masked and I do. I don’t want faces and names.”

My mind goes crazy with what might happen in those rooms. “Never?”

“That was my style, Sara. No commitments.”

He didn’t say “never” and I press for more, for how his past affects us now. “And yet I’m here.”

“I told you. I’ve broken all my rules with you.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re you, Sara. There is no other answer.”

The part of me that is never confident, that is never completely convinced this talented and famous man can really want me, struggles with this answer, but yet, I feel this way about him. He has become my escape and my sanctuary. I think he is telling me he sees me the same way, but I know we are lying to ourselves and each other if we think nothing else matters. “You can’t just shut this all out, Chris. You can’t just meet me and be who you were before. I need to understand it and be a part of it.”

“No. You don’t.”

“But you took me to that club last night. You wanted me to understand.”

“I wanted you to understand where Mark would lead you and why I wasn’t going to let that happen. Rebecca didn’t belong in this world and you’ve read how it tormented her to be here.”

“You told me I don’t belong in this world, either,” I manage, choking on the words.

“You don’t.” His jaw clenches. “Which is why I tried to warn you away and why I tried to walk away.”

My stomach knots. “You still can.” I start to get up, suddenly needing an escape, and this time Chris can’t give it to me.

He shackles my wrists in his hands and pulls me to him, between his legs, on my knees. “That’s just it. I can’t and I don’t want to even try. And I don’t want you to, either.” His expression softens and he brushes his knuckles over my jaw. “You’re inside me now, baby. All the rest was how I stayed outside myself and I’ll be damned if I let it tear us apart.”

I soften instantly at his confession and my hand slides to his face. “It’s the unknown that scares me, Chris. It’s what you need, the pleasure inside the pain, that I can’t possibly understand, and that terrifies me. I need you to make me understand.”

“You do understand, Sara. More than you know. More than I wish you did.” His mouth closes down over mine, hot with demand, and I know he believes this conversation is over, that he means to end it with the wicked caress of his tongue against mine, the possessive splay of his hands on my body. But I refuse to be this powerless, to be silenced with the very passion that drives me to need to understand this man.

“No,” I gasp, and shove against him, breathless as I meet his gaze and demand, “Make me understand, Chris.” And on some level I know this is that unknown place I’ve craved to go with him, that place he hides from me, that place he wants to take me. This is where we have to go, where we’ve always been headed.

Five

“You want to understand?” he asks, his voice low, his eyes ripe with challenge.

“It’s not about want. It’s about need, Chris. I need to understand.”

He considers me, his expression impassive, but his pale green eyes shimmer and then burn. “Stand up and take off your clothes, Sara.”

After a moment of hesitation, I decide his command is as close to an agreement as I’m going to get. It’s enough. I stand up and walk to the bottom of the pedestal and Chris shifts to sit against the bed. In spite of this power play he is using on me, or perhaps because of it, there is something wickedly erotic about standing before this man and undressing. This brings my vulnerability back to the forefront. It is an act of trust, and my chest tightens at the implications of giving myself to him, of why he might need me to do this. I think . . . I think he needs to know that I’m not holding back, that he’s shown me his dark side, and I am still willingly his.

Yes. I am willingly his. Suddenly, I want him to know this more than ever.

With a lift of my arms, I peel away my T-shirt and toss it away. My hair catches on my mouth. I tug away the long, dark brown strands and Chris’s gaze settles on my mouth. My sex clenches because I know he is imagining my mouth on his body and I very much want my mouth on his body. But he is always in control, deciding what I do and don’t do. I vow right then that he won’t tonight. Now, yes, but not all night. At some point before he leaves for Los Angeles again, my mouth is going wherever it damn well pleases. I cannot be naked quickly enough. He will leave in the morning for a week. There is much unresolved between us. Too much.

I strip away my clothes in seconds, and I’m pretty sure the art of the seductive, slow striptease is really not my forte. I’ll work harder at it when I want to tease him and not me. I just need Chris right now. I need to be naked with him, all barriers gone. I need him to know that I want to understand him because he matters, because we matter. Because life made me believe that what is blossoming between us wasn’t possible, but maybe, just maybe, it is.

“Come here,” he commands urgently as I toss aside my panties, his voice gravelly, affected, and I revel in the impatience in him that matches mine. It is still hard for me to believe I affect him sometimes. He is so many things that I aspire to be: strong and powerful, confident and in charge of his life, his destiny. It moves me to know I make this man as hot as he makes me. It makes me stronger. He makes me stronger.

I go to him, letting him pull me to his lap, straddling him, his thick erection settling between my legs. I do not like that he is fully dressed, but I know this is about control to Chris. I know on some level I have taken it from him and he needs it back.

“Lace your fingers together behind your back,” he orders.

Adrenaline rushes through me instantly and my heart thunders in my chest. Yes. This is about control with Chris, but in his control he’s revealed far more than he knows. He has to have it and that says much about him. That I have some deep burn to let him have it says just as much about me, I know.

Watching his face, I search for a reaction I do not find as I slide my hands behind my back. His hands settle firmly on my upper arms, branding me with his touch, even as his gaze rakes over my breasts. The air crackles with a charge I feel in every inch of my body, before his eyes lift to mine and his voice is rougher now, tighter. “Lace your fingers together, baby.”

I do as he bids and the instant I comply, he lowers his mouth to linger above mine, his hands still holding my arms, his breath warm, teasing me with the kiss I burn for, but he withholds. I am breathless when his mouth brushes mine, and shocked when his teeth nip my bottom lip. I yelp with the sting and my fingers loosen behind me. Chris holds my arms in place, so I can’t reach for him, and his tongue snakes forward. He licks the wound before he delves deep into my mouth, stroking me into a compliant moan.

“Pain,” he explains moments later, his arms still wrapping my shoulders, “that becomes pleasure.” His eyes burn into mine. “Lace your fingers again.”

Shaking inside, I nod, afraid to speak, afraid I’ll somehow do something to shut this window he is opening for me. His hands caress a path up my arms and down my shoulders. His path travels downward, over my chest, and he fingers my nipples, sending a rush of sensation through my body with the delicate, sensual caresses that become rougher and rougher. He tugs the stiff peaks, and this time I squeeze my eyes shut against the bite of tension.

“Look at me,” he orders. “Let me see what you’re feeling.”

I force my lashes to lift and the amber glint in his green eyes is as wicked as his touch. It is not just what Chris does to me that is enticingly erotic, but how he commands and claims me with every action, every reaction.

He pinches my nipples, tugging roughly at the same time, sending conflicting sensations of pain and pleasure through my body and straight to my sex. I pant with the delicious roughness and arch against his hips, against the thickness of his erection straining against his zipper.

His lips press to my ear, nibbling on the delicate lobe. The gentleness of the touch is a startling contrast to the way he continues to pinch and tug my nipples, and I can hardly stand the way he is teasing me. I want to reach for him, to touch him, but I am afraid he will stop what he is doing and I cannot bear the idea. I want more, not less, and I am wet and achy and I think . . . oh . . . my sex clenches and I think—no—unbelievably I am almost certain I am going to come.

Seconds before I tumble, his hands leave my breasts and slide down my arms, holding my hands behind my back, and I know this is no accident. He has intentionally taken me to the edge and pulled me back. I am panting and I want to scream with the pain of needing release and having it denied.

He leans back, putting intolerable distance between our lips, our bodies that makes me want to scream. “Pain that’s about pleasure,” he repeats huskily, “and sometimes, baby, that pain is so intense that it becomes the pleasure.”

I understand. Right now, I understand oh so well. “And clearly you know how to make someone feel just that.” There is accusation in my voice. I can’t help it. He knows what he just did to me. He knows he took me to the edge but not over.

His shift in mood is instant, the game we’ve just played ending abruptly. He reaches behind me and unlaces my fingers, settling my hands on his shoulders. “Yeah, baby. I do. But I have never hurt anyone. And I won’t ever hurt you.”

Guilt over what I’ve made him feel slams into me. “I know that. I know, Chris.”

“You didn’t know that last night.” His voice is tight, strained, the torment I’ve caused him etched in his words, in the tight lines of his face.

“I was scared and confused.”

“And when you feel that way again?”

“I won’t.” I barely contain the urgency to tell him I love him, but I fear I will scare him and he will reject me, maybe reject us. “I won’t.”

He studies me a long moment, his expression impossible to read no matter how hard I search for a clue to what he is thinking. I’m still trying to read him when suddenly his mouth is on mine, and he is kissing me, tasting me, testing my words on his tongue. I cling to him, meet him stroke for stroke, trying to answer him, trying to show him that I am here. I am not going anywhere.