“No. I’m actually seeing someone new. She’s coming for dinner tonight, you can meet her.”

“New woman? Nice.”

“She’ll probably be spending the night.”

“Ah, hell.”

Daniel knew what Cole was thinking. Could only imagine how he felt. “I’m sorry. I invited her before you arrived.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be okay.” He stood up. “I’m going to go for a run. Clear my head.”

Daniel nodded. “Trail hasn’t changed.” The pond had always been a favorite spot of Cole’s to run when he visited and needed time and space to think. Daniel was under no misconception that one run would aid Cole in exorcising his personal demons, but maybe it would be a start.

* * *

The first thing Julie noticed about Cole was his eyes. They were a stunning bluish green, and though his mouth smiled, his eyes didn’t. She wondered what made him so sad and if his warm smile fooled most people.

“Julie,” he said, shaking her hand and speaking in a smooth British accent. “So good to meet you. Cole Johnson.”

“Cole Johnson,” she said. “Daniel didn’t give me your name. I love your writing. Especially your piece on the diamond mines.”

His eyes widened with shock and then he playfully pushed Daniel aside and took her arm. “Daniel vastly underestimated your many charms. Come sit beside me at dinner. We’ll talk.”

She laughed and threw a smile over her shoulder to Daniel.

He shook his head. “She’s much too smart for that game. There’s no way she’ll sit through three hours of ‘Cole Johnson, Man of Adventure and Intrigue.’”

“That’s okay,” Cole whispered, patting her arm. “I’ll condense it down to one. I’m a little low on intrigue lately anyway.”

Daniel served a hearty meal of steak and potatoes, and the wine and conversation flowed freely. Cole actually did keep her fairly entertained retelling some of his many exploits, and if the certain sadness lingering in his expression never quite went away, it seemed he tried not to let it cloud the conversation. Daniel added enough groans and snorts for her to understand that Cole was embellishing his tales rather well.

“Tell me, Julie,” Cole said when their plates were empty. “Are you new to the area?”

“Me, no. Why do you ask?”

“I visited last year. I didn’t see you. . . .” Cole looked over to Daniel, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel shake his head. “I just can’t imagine him never mentioning you.”

“We just met recently,” she said, not sure what the interaction between the two friends meant, but deciding to question Daniel about it later. Something seemed off.

“That explains it, then,” Cole said a little too easily.

Daniel cleared his throat. “Let’s go to the living room. It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Nah.” Cole stood up and stretched. “I’m still beat. I’m going to head on up to bed.”

Daniel and Julie wished him a good night, but because it was too early for bed and the house was too crowded for playroom activities, they curled up on a couch in the living room after cleaning up the kitchen. A movie was playing, but between small talk and wandering hands, neither of them paid much attention to it.

“What was that look between you and Cole at dinner?” Julie asked during a quiet moment.

“Saw that, did you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Cole assumed we’d met in the group. He thought you were new to the area since he went to a meeting when he was here last year and didn’t see you.”

“Cole went to a meeting?”

“He’s a Dominant. I didn’t think you’d want to discuss your sex life during dinner.”

She felt like she was on information overload. Learning Cole was a Dom and even imagining talking about sex with him threatened to crowd her brain. Something tickled on the edge of her mind, though, and she struggled to grasp on to it.

“He thinks you’d only go out with a submissive woman,” she finally said. “Why else would he assume we knew each other from the group?”

“I typically only date submissives, yes,” he said, but his words sounded calculated.

“So if I wasn’t . . .”

“You are, so it doesn’t matter, and if you weren’t, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

She snuggled deeper into his arms, overjoyed he would still want to be with her if she wasn’t interested in submission.

“You could look at the reverse, too,” he said. “You could have not dated me because I’m a Dominant.”

She turned around in his arms and kissed him. “What a mistake that would have been.”

He didn’t answer, but ran a finger along her jaw.

“Is something wrong with Cole?” she asked. “He looks sad.”

“His longtime girlfriend and submissive, Kate, recently left him.”

The pain Cole must be experiencing hit her hard. She wondered what had happened between them.

“Must have been horrible for him if he’s leaving the country,” she said.

“The bond between a Dominant and submissive is intense on many levels. Cole loved Kate. A part of him always will. But I don’t know the details of what happened. He hasn’t been able to talk about it yet. He just wanted a safe place to stay for a while, and we’ve been friends a long time.”

The sadness of the situation moved her to silence. Daniel tightened his hold on her and kissed the top of her head. They watched the rest of the movie without speaking.

* * *

Late the next morning she knelt in the playroom, trying to calm her mind. The cleaning crew had finished with the guesthouse earlier and they’d seen Cole settled. Julie had enjoyed spending time with him and was glad he’d be around for a few weeks before heading to India.

Daniel’s footsteps helped her refocus and she shifted, trying to perfect her position. She was naked, and on her knees, having carefully positioned herself as Daniel had instructed her.

“Good morning, kitten,” he said, the smile evident in his tone.

“Good morning, sir.”

“You look so beautiful, kneeling, and waiting for me.”

Before being with him, she’d never thought of kneeling as beautiful. Somehow when he said it, it made sense and she felt beautiful.

“Stand up for me, kitten. Let me see that body.”

She rose to her feet, acutely aware of him watching her. She felt powerful.

He ran a hand down her side. “I missed this last night. Had to make do with fantasy and dreams.”

With Cole in the house, when they went to bed, they’d only slept. Though she’d ached for Daniel’s touch, she’d not comprehended how much until he touched her intimately now. He brushed her nipple and she moaned.

“Yes, kitten. I’m going to touch you in all kinds of ways today and I want to hear all your noises.” He playfully slapped her butt. “Go hop up on the table. On your back.”

The leather of the table felt vaguely comforting. Soft and supple against her skin. Daniel looked almost predatory as he approached. He slipped something from his pocket and within seconds, black silk stole her sight.

“You’re going to be tied up and blindfolded at my mercy. What do you say if you want to stop?”

Her heart pounded and she was willing to bet he saw every beat. “Red, sir.”

His fingers traced her lips. “Very good. And if I need to slow down?”

“Yellow, sir.”

“You can also use ‘orange,’” he teasingly whispered in her ear as he blindfolded her, and she smiled.

She had expected to be tied with scratchy rope, so it was a surprise when a soft, thin coil circled her wrist.

“I’m using black rope today,” he said. “It contrasts so nicely with your skin.”

He continued speaking, low and deep, all the while working to bind her to the table. Any fear she had slipped away under his expert touch and smooth-as-sin voice. He told her how good she looked, how much she turned him on, and how he couldn’t wait to do all sorts of wicked things to her body.

Before she knew it, she was bound spread-eagle. His hands were absent just for a moment and she had a quick sensation of panic. She was all tied up and blindfolded. She sucked in a breath.

“Everything okay, kitten?” His hands were back, stroking her shoulders. Calming. Soothing.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here beside you. Understand?”

She did. “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” He was no longer touching her, but she could sense he was nearby. “Today’s all about sensation. I just want you to feel and experience. It works better when your sense of sight is deprived.”

Something lightly tickled the hollow of her throat, trailed downward between her breasts, circled them, and made its way back up.

“Can you guess what this is?” He flicked it against her nipple.

“Feather?”

He tickled the other. “Is that an answer or another question?”

“It’s a feather, sir.”

“Good girl. It is a feather.” He lightly trailed it down one arm and then the other, teasing her in places she’d never considered erogenous before. Her nerve endings came alive under his touch and subtle teasing. It didn’t seem possible to be so turned on by a feather.

“How about this?” he asked, and something soft and furry stroked her arm.

“Feels like fur, sir.” Warm and soft and comforting.

“It is fur. It’s also a flogger. A rabbit fur flogger.”

She tensed at the word “flogger,” but Daniel kept on with the fur strands, dragging them along and across her body until she was once more relaxed.

“A lot of people associate floggers with pain,” he said. “And there’s certainly a place for that. But with this type,” he murmured as the soft strands flicked her chest, “it’s more about sensation.”

Tied as she was, she could do no more than relax her body and allow Daniel to elicit responses she never knew were possible. Starting at her shoulders, the rabbit fur swiftly pelted against her skin with light breezy strokes. He left no portion of her body untouched by the flogger. It felt delicious when used on her breasts and her nipples hardened with desire.

Along her belly, it felt more ticklish. She almost giggled, but with the next stroke, several strands hit her between the legs and she moaned instead.

“Like that, kitten?” he asked, and when the flogger came again, more of its tails landed against her wetness.

Her hips jerked, desperate for friction, and her body ached, longing to be filled. “Yes, sir.”

“Would you like something harder?”

The fur struck her again, but it wasn’t enough, could never be enough. She needed more. “Please, sir.”

He spanked her there with three quick strokes and she moaned in pleasure.

“Please,” she said again because it hadn’t been enough.

“Poor kitten,” he said. “It’s not time yet. We have more toys to explore before you’re allowed to come. And when you do come, I’m going to be buried inside you.”

His footsteps sounded as he walked away from her. She tried to hear what he was doing, but it wasn’t until she heard the telltale clink that she had any idea why he had left. Once she did, her body tensed in anticipation.

“I think my kitten needs to cool down, she’s too hot.”

She shivered at the touch of ice to her shoulder and groaned as he trailed it along her collarbone. So cold when the rest of her felt so heated. The ice continued moving lower, but in the second before it reached her breast, his mouth was on her skin. Then the ice was in his mouth and her skin was enveloped in the most surreal combination of frozen heat.

She strained against her bonds with a whimpering moan of pleasure.

A chuckle was his only reply. He suckled her, and then he slipped a finger inside her. A cold finger.

Her hips jerked. “Fuck!”

His finger was so cold, it might as well have been ice. As he worked it in and out of her, his skin gradually grew warmer. The ice in his mouth melted, leaving tiny wet paths along her body. Her every nerve stood at attention.

Slowly, he ran his hands down her right leg and untied her ankle. He repeated the action for each limb. Taking the newly untied arm or leg and massaging it gently before placing it back on the table. Any other time, his attention would have relaxed her, but at that moment all it did was serve to entice her more.

He moved leisurely, his seductive touch teasing every bit of anticipation possible out of her. A soft towel was draped over her body and those same hands gently dried her off. With tiny swirls, he circled her breasts, pressing rougher and rougher while he worked his way lower and lower.