“It’s always your terms, Master. I’ll do whatever you want.”

He’d thought about what he wanted. He’d thought about what she needed. “You must be punished.”

“Yes, Master.” Excitement lowered her voice to a breathy whisper.

“You will not scream and you will not struggle, slut.” The kick start of heat and desire swelled in him.

He could almost feel the quiver of her body as her voice shuddered across the airwaves. “No, Master, I won’t struggle.”

He would make her beg for release. He would spank her, then he’d put his mouth to her and make her come. He would force the climax out of her.

“What time shall I be there, Master?”

“We’re not going to my house. We’re going to do this in yours.” He heard her sharp intake of breath and felt the pause like a black hole that had suddenly opened up in front of him. “Or we’re not doing it at all.”

“Please don’t make me.” Her whisper had lost all the animation of her excitement.

She might not want it, but she needed it. He needed it. “It’s time. There’s no other way. I’ll be there at eight.”

“It has to be earlier,” she said quickly, ending abruptly as if suddenly realizing she was usurping his authority.

Good. All the more time with her. “Then I will see you at seven.”

“I don’t have a headboard or anything you can attach handcuffs to,” she told him.

“We won’t need them. Because you’re going to accept everything without fighting me.”

She hesitated, then finally said, “Yes, I’ll do everything.”

Not Yes, Master. He wondered at the difference and whether it boded ill or good. Not that it mattered. He’d already decided the way things would be done.

“You need to email me your address.” He didn’t know exactly where she lived. But now he would own that secret along with everything else.

“Yes.” She said it so softly, he almost mistook it for her breath.

He pondered a long moment after she hung up. Despite the dominance play between them, he gave her an extraordinary amount of control. He never called her; he always let her call him when she needed him. He never pressured, never pushed, always gave her freedom. That was the problem; he gave her too much freedom. It was time to take off the kid gloves. He would enter her home, he would punish her, he would make her come. Then he would hold her in his arms, and there would be no rushing out of the bed. He would stay until the morning.

Before he could give rein to fantasies of the evening ahead, he had work issues to manage. He punched in an extension number on his desk phone.

“Yeah, Luke?” Beeman’s answer came only seconds later.

“I need preliminary numbers for the board meeting on Wednesday.”

Beeman sighed. “Luke, you know that’s impossible.” No Yes, Master from him. As CFO, Beeman said everything was impossible, then it looked like he was a miracle worker when he came across with what Luke asked for.

“We’re talking prelim, Beeman. They know it’s subject to change.”

“I don’t have an answer from the auditors on that reserve question yet.”

“Put it in a footnote, worst case, best case.”

“And there’s something wrong with the currency conversions.”

They’d built a manufacturing plant over in Germany two years ago, and while the product shipped out of the German facility, the billing was done in the United States. It had given accounting nothing but headaches. The Germans didn’t like being told what to do. He understood the issues; they didn’t change the facts. All he said was, “Beeman.”

“Shit. All right. Prelims by Wednesday.”

“Tuesday night, Beeman. I will review them before the board meeting.” He never went into a meeting blind.

His CFO growled assent.

“Thank you, Beeman.” He was actually a good guy, did his job extremely well. A CEO was only as good as the people he had supporting him, and Luke had assembled an exemplary team.

His cell rang again. A phone, be it cell or landline, had become almost another part of his anatomy. His heart skipped a beat anticipating that it was Bree again.

But it wasn’t her number when he picked up the phone. “Hey,” he said.

“Dad?” His eldest, Keira. She was a sophomore at Cal Poly down in San Luis Obispo.

“Who else is going to answer my phone, sweetheart?”

“Your secretary.”

“She doesn’t answer my cell phone.”

Keira sighed and he could actually hear her roll her eyes. “I just called to tell you I broke up with Billie.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” he offered. Keira started dating Billie at the beginning of the fall quarter. Luke hadn’t met him.

“It’s a good thing.” But she punctuated her words with another sigh.

“I’m glad you’re handling it well.”

“He started pulling all this dominant crap.”

For a moment, Luke bristled. No one took advantage of his little girl, but one thing he’d taught both his daughters was to stick up for themselves. Keira went on. “He actually told me that he didn’t want me seeing Stephie anymore because she was a bad influence.”

Luke held his tongue.

“Does he think I’m lame enough to start smoking dope just because my friend does? Like I’m some weakling?”

Keira had been friends with Stephie since middle school. In high school, when Stephie fell in with a bad crowd and started smoking marijuana, Keira stuck by her, hoping to get her back on the straight and narrow. His daughter had always had a good head on her shoulders. She was strong, knew her own mind, and what she wanted. He truly believed that if it weren’t for Keira, Stephie would have started using hard drugs, gotten hooked. God only knows what her life would have been like now.

“I’m proud of you for sticking by your friends, sweetheart. There’re plenty of other fish in the sea.”

“God, Dad, that is such a cliché.”

He laughed. “I’m a walking cliché. When are you and Kyla coming home for a visit?” Of course, they’d only been back at school for a week since the winter break ended, but he missed them.

“We’re hoping in a couple of weeks. After we settle into the new quarter.”

“Okay, honey, let me know for sure. I’ll tell your mom.”

She blew him a kiss before she hung up.

He liked the short phone calls and text messages from both his girls. Keira was twenty, and Kyla a year younger, a freshman, also at Cal Poly; their sound-alike names had been Beth’s idea. But really, that’s all they’d gotten from their mother. They were far too much like him, both of them. That’s what Beth said to him, that she felt eclipsed around the three of them, like she wasn’t there, just a mere shadow.

He had a lot of regrets, one of them being that he hadn’t even noticed Beth slipping away until that day five years ago when she told him she’d die if she stayed with him. He’d believed he’d been doing everything for her, a faithful husband and a good provider, the big house, any material thing she could want. Something in him had died that day, too. He’d buried the pain if not the guilt, but he couldn’t stop being proud of how strong his daughters were. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Though he would always be there to beat the crap out of any guys who broke their hearts.

Of all the things he’d done in his life, that was the thing he was most proud of, raising daughters who didn’t need him. He’d been so intent on teaching his girls the lesson, though, he’d completely overlooked his wife’s needs until it was too late.

Yet for all the strength he’d instilled in his daughters and his wife’s grievances, he’d chosen a woman who craved his domination. It was a completely different situation. And hell yes, he was looking forward to the intimacies he’d force on Bree in her own home tonight.

Bree took a deep breath. “Calm down,” she whispered. Then she went into the bathroom for her cosmetics bag and toiletries and continued packing for the stay at her parents in Saratoga, half an hour and a lifetime away. She’d loaded blouses, slacks, and work blazers into her hanging carrier. Her suitcase lay open on the bed, half filled with panties, bras, socks, jeans, T-shirts, nightshirts, her unfinished needlepoint, and her three favorite DVDs, the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast, the twelve-part Jane Eyre with Timothy Dalton, and Pitch Black. Okay, it was a sci-fi horror flick, but there was something about the pilot’s redemption at the end that Bree had to watch over and over. Redemption was a theme in all her favorites. If things got totally crazy at her parents’, she could plug in one of those DVDs and melt into it as if she were taking a hallucinogen. Alice down the rabbit hole.

She hadn’t told Erin about the move to her parents. She wanted to go through the schedule with her mother over the weekend. Since her commute would be much shorter than it was from her condo in Newark—her parents’ house was only ten minutes from DKG—she could come in later and leave earlier. She could work from her parents’ as well, if she had to. It would be okay. She’d be fine.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d repeated that mantra to herself since talking with her mother this morning. But when she really thought about it, being in that house again, she felt so sick she couldn’t even eat.

God only knew how she would manage to see Luke. That’s why she needed tonight so badly, because it could be the last time for a long time.

Even if she was nervous now, she had to have the kick being with him gave her. He was like a drug; when she felt bad, he forced her to feel other things. He’d saved her from Derek. She’d been in over her head with Derek. She’d met him online, and things had seemed great for a few weeks. Then he began taking her to the clubs. He’d made her give hand jobs to other guys while he watched. It wasn’t so bad; she liked that it turned him on. Anything was okay as long as it turned him on. But things started to get out of control. He’d wanted her to give blow jobs, to fuck strangers, more than one. He even wanted to start charging for her services. That might all have been okay, except that he no longer made her feel special. The whole relationship became about making him look like a big man. She was just this thing he could order around and give away. He barely touched her; his eye was always wandering. When she balked, he’d said he’d have to beat her. Then suddenly, there was Luke. He took her away. He made her feel precious. For six months, he’d given her everything she needed. All she had to do was hit his speed dial on her phone.

Bree threw the last few things into her suitcase and zipped it. It wasn’t as if she’d be so far away she couldn’t drop by to pick up stuff when she needed. Plus she’d have to come by to water her plants. Hauling the bag off the bed onto the carpet, she stood for a moment. She couldn’t leave it down in the front hall; Luke was bound to ask. She didn’t want to explain. That was the thing about Luke, she wanted everything she did with him to be separate. There was her real life, and there was what she did with him. God, if anyone ever knew about her secret life, about the men, about all the things she’d done.

She rolled the suitcase over to the closet, shoved the remaining clothes aside and made space for it. Then she hung the carrier beside it. As an afterthought, she went to the bathroom, grabbed three condoms out of the package she kept under the sink, and shoved them into a pocket in her purse. She probably wouldn’t get a chance to see Luke after tonight, not for a while. But she’d still be prepared for anything.

Okay, the room was neat. She straightened the blue comforter, then, glancing around one last time, she backed out. Her condo was two floors; two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, kitchen, dining area, living room, and half bath downstairs. In the kitchen, she’d opened a bottle of merlot to let it breathe. She preferred white, but Luke liked red.

When the doorbell rang, her heart began racing again, half excitement, half fear that she’d revealed a big piece of her other life to him. Though the time she spent with him was more real to her than anything else. She didn’t think he truly understood that.

He was dressed all in black, from a turtleneck to jeans to tennis shoes, a cat burglar like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. His short hair was black, too, his dark raven looks in keeping with his last name. His eyes, though, were light brown, amber almost. She liked that he was only a couple of inches taller than her. He was powerfully built, with thick muscles uncommon to the usual executive type’s physique. If he’d been over six feet, his size would have been too overwhelming.

“Nice place,” he said. Flowerpots ringed her tiny front porch. The rain had stopped, and her wind chimes tinkled gently in the night wind. Of course there were also the noisy neighbors on one side, and the pack of children shrieking as they played out in the parking lot.

It had nowhere near the grandeur of his place in Atherton. But it was hers. And the bank’s. “Come in.” She held the door wide, thinking of the innocent giving the vampire permission to enter.

Except that she’d lost her innocence long ago.