“You"re wrong. I can"t… For me to handle this, to do this, I have to accept it as a temporary thing.” Then she could enjoy it awhile, and wouldn"t have to face all this unresolved pain she"d had to bury. “I don"t…it"s not that way. I respect and understand what you say, but that"s not what I want. And I"m sure it"s not what Jon wants. He couldn"t possibly.”

Suddenly, Rachel wanted Dana to go. She couldn"t bear to see the confidence the other woman had, so smug and sure that things would work out. She didn"t understand, didn"t know…

“Rachel.” Dana"s tone held the firmness of the minister she was training to be.

Rachel already knew Dana"s lack of sight gave her a unique ability to pick up distress, and her compassion now reflected that she could feel Rachel"s grief, welling up so deep and strong it couldn"t escape notice from a well-attuned heart. “Will you come back and sit?”

Rachel shook her head, wrapped her arms tighter around herself. Though Dana couldn"t see the gesture, of course the fact she didn"t move was an answer itself. The blind woman cocked her head, considering, her eyes appearing to focus on the wall above Rachel"s head.

“All of us can get trapped in our pain and loss,” she said quietly. “It"s worse if there"s no one there to help when it happens. We learn to cope, and we cope by building walls. So nothing terrifies us more than having those walls brought down. It becomes your skin, and nobody wants to be skinned and left raw and bleeding. We believe, to the depths of our soul, no one will protect us, give us warmth and healing.

We don"t think we deserve it.”

“I need you to go.” Rachel picked up the cane, brought it to Dana"s hand. “We"ll call Max. I"m sorry, but I need you to go.”

“First, let me say this.” Dana tapped Rachel"s chair, a quiet command to sit. With that preacher"s tone, Rachel found herself obeying, though she tugged the robe even closer around herself. For all that they were sightless, the dark eyes became more intent, more focused. “I do understand, Rachel. Not the exact nature of your pain, but the depth of it.”

She gestured to her eyes, the scarring that was still visible on her left arm. “After this happened, I walled myself up like I was in a grave.” The change of subject, the gravity of it, stilled Rachel the way the reassurances couldn"t. Though from her medical records she of course knew the kind of injuries Dana had sustained, the woman herself had never spoken directly of it, or the aftermath.

“I was in this silent hell, scarred, hideous,” Dana continued. “I hated bathing because I had to touch my face, my body. I lacked the will to take my own life, but I"d died, just the same.”

A faint, bittersweet smile touched her mauve lips. “In a few moments, like one of those hypnosis sessions, I"m going to snap my fingers and take us back to a different reality, the playful, sexy one that existed when I walked into your door. If you change your mind and want me to stay, we"ll start working on this dinner you"re supposed to make. I"ll talk to you while you"re taking your bath. We"ll gossip about celebrity hairstyles—you can describe them to me and I"ll laugh. We"ll talk about the state of the world, and what your favorite color is. In other words, we"ll be girls and talk about whatever fun, frivolous crap we want to talk about.” She shifted, her hand closing on Rachel"s again. “And that collar he"s put on you, all the delicious feelings that go with it, that are stirring up your body and making you want him so hard? They"ll come rushing back, and then you really will need me to leave, because the closer we get to dinner, the more everything in you will become attuned to wanting him, to wanting to be ready for your Master in the way he commanded. You feel it now, hearing me say it, right?” Rachel nodded, then voiced the word, reluctantly. “Yes.”

“Good. So I"m going to tell you one thing now, before we go back to girl talk or you decide to toss me out on my ass. Peter Winston reached through that darkness, blasted those walls, brought me back to life. He gave me back myself, the person I thought I"d lost, as well as something new, something I"d never thought possible. Give yourself a chance at that, Rachel. I know it"s terrifying. However, I can promise you this. When one of these men sets his sights upon you, as crazy as you think he"s making you, you"d be really crazy not to make that leap of faith. I promise.”

Chapter Ten

She did end up letting Dana stay. It was an interminable afternoon, but it would have been far worse without her there. As Dana predicted, once they started focusing on dinner and straightening up the house, which required a wide range of physical movement, Rachel"s focus returned to the stimulation of her body by Jon"s diabolical device. She"d never think of vacuuming the same way again.

Describe an eggplant in very purple, very sexual terms… Imagine rabbits fornicating, then substitute the faces of your least favorite high school teachers… She became very grateful for Dana and her quick wit, the firm press of her palm on her back, a reassurance rather than a provocation, helping her breathe and smile.

That help had continued while she bathed herself, a precarious idea in her state.

Dana had sat on her vanity stool, distracted her from the strong reaction of her body as Rachel soaped places that begged to be rubbed and stroked even more. Peter"s fiancée had quizzed her on the book Jon had insisted she read. Rachel managed coherent sentences more or less…and ended up laughing a lot.

At some point, hearing herself, she realized she sounded like an excited, much younger version of herself, keyed up and flustered by a date with the boy she most wanted to be with. That thought brought a yearning so sharp and deep it rippled outward from the heart and through every artery and vein, making her shake in the tub, one hard convulsion. She held Dana"s cool hand against her forehead, let Dana stroke her hair, reassure her. “It"s going to be okay. It"s going to be more wonderful than you can imagine.”

That was what was scaring her so much.

Several times during their preparations, she"d had to simply stop, her legs planted apart, body quivering as she tried to get the yearning to die back enough that she didn"t end up writhing on the floor like a person possessed by spirits, squeezing and touching herself everywhere she longed for Jon"s hands to be.

Of course all that stimulation was the delicate harness"s design and intent, and she couldn"t say she wasn"t glad for it, because it took her mind from the emotional debris and uneasiness that Dana"s fantastic theories had stirred. Besides that, she could hardly deny that she"d wanted this night, no matter what happened afterward. Jon had said it, a sorcerer who knew the right words to cast the irreversible spell. You’ve waited a long time to prove how devoted a slave you can be. Don’t deny yourself what you truly want.

Just one night to unleash this part of herself…or rather, hand that leash to a man she trusted. A man she accepted was a Master, even if she couldn"t dare the temptation of calling him her Master.

She"d always thought it was an overused metaphor, comparing sexual tension to a volcano about to blow, but as the clock ticked onerously toward seven, she understood why it had earned the status of a common cliché. Every movement of the minute hand took her desire a degree higher. When she was standing over the stove watching pasta boil, even the sheen of perspiration she experienced on her face and throat made the nerve endings tingle. The mist from the pot tickled the delicate pocket of her collarbones, the tips of her breasts.

At six-thirty, the food was ready, sitting in the oven to stay fresh and warm, the bread wrapped in foil. They"d put candles and flowers on the table, along with one place setting. The significance of that, witnessed by Dana"s quizzical fingers, underscored and made it all the more real. Her nerves had twisted into double knots that made her even more aware of every inch of her exposed skin, Dana"s casual brushes against her, the way her own thighs touched as she walked, stimulating her further.

However, by the time Max rapped at the door, something else was happening as well. Rachel was shimmering with anticipation and something she wanted to call happiness. She ignored the dour voice inside that suggested it was hysterical euphoria.

She still had her hair pinned back, but that had only been to keep it out of the food as they re-checked everything. As of a few moments ago, she"d stepped into those cherry red stilettos and put on the lipstick. Looking at herself in the mirror, with the collar and dainty silver chains running across her body, she felt like a sensuous descendant of Lilith. And that didn"t feel like a bad thing at all.

Still, propriety lurched back to the forefront when Dana took her hand, began to drag her toward the door. Rachel balked. “Dana, I"m not wearing the robe,” she hissed.

“Trust me.” When the woman reached the door, her hand outstretched to find it, she called through the panel. “Max, you need to close your eyes, okay? Promise you won"t open them.”

“I don"t even want to know.” His sigh was audible. “All right, they"re closed. But I will need to open them to get you down the stairs.”

“Don"t worry, I won"t let you fall. I"m specially trained to navigate in the dark.

You"ll have to trust me for a change.”

A snort. “Yeah, like that"s going to happen.”

Dana gave Rachel a wink, then turned the knob.

She was the corner apartment, at the end of a hallway and around a slight bend, so her door was nested in a sheltered arch, not immediately visible to her other neighbors.

Even so, panic did a quick skitter through her when Dana yanked the door open.

Max stood there, arms crossed over his broad chest. He"d apparently gone home after normal business hours, so instead of the suit, he was wearing a form-fitting T-shirt and jeans, his dark blond hair tousled over the high forehead. There was the beginning of a faint five o"clock shadow on his Superman square jaw.