Translation: Get some breathing space before your brain cells explode?

Violet blessed Tyler's intuition and took his hand to let him help her to trembling legs.

Tyler glanced over her shoulder and Violet saw the two men's eyes lock, Mac daring the repercussions to briefly make the contact before he shifted his gaze, a grudging acknowledgement of the rules of the house.

"I'll take good care of her," Tyler promised, surprising Violet.

Mac made a bare movement of his head, but it was impossible to tell if it was acknowledgement or warning. Violet frowned. "Behave," she said. "Play nicely while I'm gone."

Lifting his lashes, he gave her a slow, easy grin that didn't dilute the intent passion in his eyes. Despite the wavering line of the blue water, she could see that he was ramrod stiff, with a circumference that made her catch her lip in her teeth to stifle a groan of desire.

"Hurry back, sugar."

She nodded, let a thought roll around in her mind, shifted her glance to Kiera and Tamara. "Keep him occupied."

All the way to the door, and through the glass as she stepped into the gardens, she felt his attention on her, his sudden apprehension. She didn't speak to Tyler until they made the first turn on the winding path, taking them out of sight of the pool occupants.

"Am I totally screwing up?" she demanded.

"Well, if you - "

"Oh, God, Tyler," she began to pace around a small clearing that provided a bench and a wishing fountain next to a bed of the exotic orchids he spent so much time cultivating. "I feel like he's ripping me apart from the inside. He's so damn stubborn.

I've never met a sub like him. He wants to be a sub, but I have to fight him for every inch of control, and he's always testing me. Is he fucking with my head?"

"You're - "

"No, he's not," she said firmly. "I can feel he's not. He's just afraid. No one's ever pushed him hard enough, made him trust enough to really let go to a Mistress, and he's pushing back. But do I have the ability to do it? I'm so over my head here."

"Violet. " Tyler used a tone she rarely heard except when he was dealing with a rebellious sub or a primadonna actress. It brought her up short. He smiled at her look of shock. "Sorry, love, but you were going like a locomotive there. You love him." She set her jaw, fought panic. "I've known him three days, Tyler. You don't love someone in three days."

"Of course you can fall in love in three days. Don't be stupid. After that it's just a matter of how hard you're willing to work to stay in love, to see if it becomes a forever, kids-and-mini-van type of thing." Tyler approached her, put his hands on her shoulders. "You're doing everything right. Do you hear what I'm saying? You're being tough, but you're showing your emotions, showing you care. The paddling was inspired. You showed you can be as mean as he can be, when it's warranted. That you expect him not just to act as a submissive, but to be one. Yes, it likely would take Mistresses of Kiera and Tamara's ilk to break him physically, but that isn't what D/s is about. Not for you. You've seen what's deep inside him, something no one else can see, and you know what it's going to take to get him to embrace it, better than he does himself."

" 'I don't go down easy'," she recalled his words. "He said that, when we first met."

"Well, he went down on you easy enough," Tyler gave her a mischievous wink, forcing a smile out of her. "Violet, you wouldn't want someone who did. I think you better find out more about your boy's vanilla life, because I have a feeling your relationship is already exploding outside the confines of the dungeons." She thought of the picnic, the drive, and knew he was right.

"He's killing me," she said, and he put his arms around her so she could put her forehead to his chest, close her eyes, breathe deeply. "He was bleeding, for Chrissake."

"Bleeding for you. A blood bond. Come on." He tipped up her chin, gave it a little squeeze. "Let me tell you about my new orchids that you just about trampled during your little tantrum. I'm going to have to move these inside soon. They were shipped here specially..."

* * * * *

By the time they walked back together, Violet was feeling more centered, more in control of her emotions, and therefore ready to take command of Mac again.

The pool area was empty, and Stacey, the other Zone help Tyler had hired for the weekend, was cleaning up wine glasses and cups. "Mistress Lisbeth took her slave to their bedroom 'for awhile', but said they'll be back for late night cocktails," she said, with a slight smile. "Mistresses T&K took Mac, Mark, Collin and Leila down to Master Tyler's playroom."

Violet felt a small twinge of alarm. "Did you give the twins leave to play with Leila?" She asked as they went through the house and down the staircase to Tyler's personal well-equipped dungeon.

"They've played with her before. They know her limits, and she'd tell them if they breached them. I've told her what my restrictions on her playing with others are, so she knows where the lines are, for me as well as her. Mac?"

"He says, 'Whatever will please my Mistress'." Violet rolled her eyes. "But he's an expert at using that charm of his to keep his ass out of trouble. I guess I shouldn't worry so much about him."

"Hmm." Tyler gave her an uncertain look. "I'm not sure even Lucifer's charm would have an effect on T&K."

Violet schooled her face to an impassive mask right before Tyler opened the door to the playroom, and she was glad she had taken a moment to do so.

Mac's feet were spread apart, ankles manacled and locked to bolts in the floor, his arms stretched so high over his head that his impressively massive rib cage tilted upward, his arm muscles straining. Surprisingly, the twins had also forced a ball gag into his mouth and buckled it tight around his head. Mark knelt at his feet, sucking Mac's cock with pure male intuition of how rough and strong the working of his mouth and the grip of his hand needed to be.

Leila knelt against the spanking bench, her breasts shelved attractively on the burgundy upholstered surface. She was faced in the direction where she could watch and be roused by Mac and Mark's tableau. Collin had been ordered to kneel to the side of the bench, his cheek lying just in front of Leila's breasts to suckle her nipples without interfering with the stimulating view. His arms were tied behind his back, and a chain ran from the locked cuffs, fastening him to the ring in his scrotum. Tamara and Kiera obviously preferred their sub immobilized much of the time.

Kiera glanced over at Violet and Tyler from where she lazed on the day lounger, massaging her sister's bare feet. Two pairs of spike heels were on the floor, giving Violet an odd impression of two women after a long day of work, kicking off their shoes and watching the best that cable had to offer.

"Well, I guess Mac wins this round," Tamara smiled. "I told him that if he could keep from coming until you arrived, I wouldn't put this enormous strap-on I have up his ass. It's a shame, because I was looking forward to trying out some of Kiera's wondrous oill on him." She lifted a vial from the table, shook it. "Coat a dildo with this, or better, shoot it in, and he won't be able to keep himself from coming. He'll spend a three-day load and won't be able to stop screaming for more." She lifted a brow. "It's great for humbling an overly proud sub, like yours. And he stays hard as a rock throughout, so you can get an endless variety of enjoyments from his suffering. What do you say, Vi? You want Kiera to go ahead and do him while you watch?" Violet studied Mac's face. The muscles of his neck were contorted with the effort to hold back. Mark was paying him back in spades for the earlier threat, putting all his effort into relentlessly working him. Mac was huge, and she felt her pussy respond to the sight.

"Why the ball gag?"

"Oh, that." Tamara cocked her head at Mac, met his furious gaze. "He has a problem with the rule about not making eye contact, as you can see. And he got somewhat worked up, a bit rude in fact, when I decided to let Mark go down on that nice piece of meat of his. Didn't say no, though." Violet shifted her glance to Mac, and this time he averted his glance with a sullen expression. Oh, he was worked up all right. She sauntered across the room, keeping her face an unreadable mask, and stopped just behind Mark. Ran a casual hand over his hair while she faced Mac. "Keep going," she murmured.

Mac hissed around the gag and Violet took a finger, wiped away the small area of saliva that had escaped the corner of his mouth, brought it to her own lips.

"What do you say, Mac? Are you thirsty?"

He gave a sharp shake of his head, but his eyes were asking for something else.

"No," she said softly. "I think the gag is a good idea. Because it means you have to listen, instead of thinking about how to con me. This is about what pleases me, Mackenzie. It pleases me to see you come, in whatever manner I desire. Does it please you to have another man sucking your cock?"

He shook his head violently, bucked to try to dislodge Mark. The other man just chuckled, held on and kept going.

"I didn't think so. But your cock doesn't care, does it?" It wants you. It was in his countenance as strongly as a scream in her mind.

"I know it does. I like seeing your cock hard for me. It understands what you don't, that everything that's done to it is by my command, so it responds to every stimulus as if it's in my pussy. That's why it's hard now. For me. Because I asked Tamara and Kiera to keep it that way."

She pivoted on her heel, giving him her profile. "Mistress Tamara, I would like that strap-on, please, and I would like it coated with your sister's oil." She turned her head, met his eyes. "I'll do the honors. He's mine, and only I will fuck him. Ever." She turned back, put a hand on Mark's shoulder, squeezed. Understanding, he released Mac, backed off, so Violet could stand before her captive, letting his erection's wet tip touch her thighs.

"Bring your head down to me," she said.

Mac bent his neck and she unbuckled the gag, sliding it carefully from his mouth and handing it to Mark to take away.

"Mistress, please don't." The emotion in his silver eyes suggested he was struggling between wanting to coerce her through anger, and beg her out of sheer desperation. His lust was roused by her Dominance, but his expression told her he was apprehensive of the act itself, the ultimate act for a submissive male in thrall to a Mistress. An act she knew had never been forced upon him.

She ran her palm up his chest, played with the right taut nipple, scraping it with her nails, and felt his wetness graze the skin on her thigh, just beneath the crotch of the swimsuit. She brought herself up full against him, let him experience every curve. "Are you thirsty?"

He caught her lips in a kiss. "Only for you," he said, a panicked note to his voice she was sure he wished was not there. "I'm yours, Mistress. Yours to do with as you wish."

While he had seemed to regain his composure after dinner, regrouping enough to give her pleasure at the poolside, she had known it was all show. Dinner had stripped the veneer of his whole act. Frightened of how his body was reacting, of how helpless this whole weekend was making him feel, she suspected the foundation was starting to crumble, and dared to hope the message was getting through. That he was starting to turn to her for shelter from his emotional fears.

"Are you mine to do with as I wish?" She wanted to hear it again.

"Yes, Mistress."

She nipped the base of his throat, the ridge of his collar bone. "So if I want to slide a cock deep, deep into your beautiful ass, make you come the way Kiera described, then that would please you."

"If...if it pleases you. Yes." A tremor ran through his torso and she ran soothing hands down his arms.

"Tell me what's in your heart."

"You. Just you. I'll do anything you want me to do. Just...please. Just with you.

Mistress," he added.

She pulled her head back, looked into his eyes. "Just with me. That's a boundary of yours, isn't it, Mackenzie? Tell me."

He pressed his forehead against hers, squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes," he muttered.

"Just with you, Mistress. Please."

Violet touched her temple to his cheek briefly, then withdrew. Kiera was preparing the strap-on for her, a hard rubber cock about eight inches long. As Violet watched Mark roll a condom over Mac's engorged organ, Kiera and Tamara fitted her with the device, tightened the holding straps between her legs so the cock sprang proud and erect before her, like an impressive man's organ in truth. Mac's eyes never left it, or her.

From the quivering in his body, she could surmise he was anxious. Afraid as well, but willing to endure both to please her. Well, she was hoping to make it worth the suffering to him.

Kiera knelt and lubricated her further, as if she were doing it to a man, with lingering, stroking detail. Mac, Mark, all the men in the room watched those clever caramel-colored fingers slide up and back on the shaft. Tamara put her back to Mac, blocking his view, and lowered her voice so only Violet could hear her.

"This here holds a reserve of oil." She tapped a small, almost imperceptible button on the joining mechanism at the base of the strap on. "When he's close, press here, and you'll jet into him like a man. That sets off the real firecracker show." She showed her teeth in a quick, feral smile. "The outside, the lubrication, just warms him up, makes him start to feel the loss of control that's coming." She glanced over her shoulder, sent Mac a sultry smile, then turned back to Violet.

"You've never seen anything like it, Vi," she whispered. "It burns like hell at first, but then, just when you think it's going to be excruciating, it does something to them."

"It won't hurt him, will it?"

"Only the burning, and believe me, it simply rouses the nerves to pain, like a spanking, and that's what makes the next reaction so intense. We always do the lubricant first, because you can tell in a few strokes if there will be a bad reaction and can pull out." She gestured with her head. "We keep a jug of distilled water with a pump behind Tyler's bar if we have to do a fast enema. Regardless, you'll want to do one on him later, clean out the oil." She shot Violet a wicked grin. "He's choice, Violet.

Kiera and I would love to sink our teeth into him and eat him in small, tasty bites." They weren't the only ones. Violet turned, now prepared, and walked toward Mac.

Walking with a strap-on was an experience she always enjoyed. Moving with slow, sensual steps enhanced the sensation against her own pussy, and made the hard rubber cock move in a more lifelike manner with her body's movements. It made her feel powerful, eager to make Mac all hers by sliding those eight lubricated inches in his ass, consummate the bond between Mistress and male slave in a way that could not be denied.

Someone had set a short stool just behind him, and she thanked whoever it was for their foresight, her mind too muddled with lust to have calculated that the difference in their heights would require it for her to comfortably accommodate herself in him. The rigid line of his shoulders grew more so as she stepped up on it, her heeled sandals tapping on the wood surface.

Leila cried out. Across the room, Tyler stood behind her, had begun to smack her buttocks with a belt, leaving red stripes on her pert ass. The girl shuddered, stimulated already by the tableau going on before her as well as Collin, still suckling on her tight full breasts, now squeezed and distended in a parallel bar restraint to make them more sensitive. The head of Collin's cock was so engorged it was nearly purple in its harness.

Kiera was choosing a cane from the wall that Violet was sure she would employ to increase the fervency of Collin's efforts. Tamara perched on the couch, enjoying a full view of all groupings.

The dungeon had been laid out for this, so each Dom could see what the other was doing, use it to further drive the arousal of their slaves. Though Mac could not see Violet, he could obviously feel her coming, and he was positioned squarely across from Leila, giving him a panoramic view of her sensual distress.

It was dizzying, overwhelming, a synergy that was explosive and hot, just as it had been at the pool, this many people immersed in a symphony of sexual pleasure.

Violet was going to make sure that Mac would be the crescendo for them all.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned forward to put her parted lips against his ear. "This is going to be a hard ride, Mackenzie," she whispered. "Everything that happens to you here is my will, for your pleasure and my own. I'm going to fuck you hard, and there's going to be nothing left for you to hold onto except me. I'm tearing everything away. From this moment forward, you'll always know who your Mistress is, who holds the bit in your teeth."

"Give it your best shot, sugar," he said, that spasmodic quiver rippling through his tense muscles. He was scared, she could tell. Scared that she was right.

She knew she was.

Violet put one hand to his waist, the other under his arm. He was too broad to reach all the way across his chest, so she laid her palm over his heart, her fingertips on his sternum. Guiding the tip of the large cock in between his buttocks, she seated it against his anus with gentle, probing fingers.

As she did so, she pulled her body in closer to him, and the dildo eased in, meeting that initial resistance of the powerful sphincter muscle. Violet stopped, pressing light kisses to the base of his neck, short nibbles along the ridge of his shoulders, letting the oill Tamara had generously applied seep in, loosen up the passageway.

"Violet - " Her name came out of his throat in a harsh whisper.

"Sshhh..." She bit his neck gently, tightened her stomach muscles and eased slowly, inexorably inside him, taking her time, waiting a second after each forward movement.

He drew in deep breaths, trying to calm down enough to accommodate her, and she stroked his chest, teased his nipple with her fingertips.

"Open up, baby," she urged. "Let me in."

As the muscle released, she slid deep within, all the way, feeling the tightness of his ass, her body flush against the back of his, her upper thighs pressing against his buttocks, absorbing their jerk of reaction.

She tightened her arm around his chest and waist so she held firm to him. Her hand dropped, cupped his testicles, fondled the base of his sheathed cock as he groaned. She withdrew a small amount, went back in. Then did it again, just tiny, incremental movements to stroke the hypersensitive gland deep inside and to coat his passage with Kiera's special oil.

She was familiar with heated oils, expected a similar response to it as she'd seen subs demonstrate before. Her first indication something was different came from Mac's reaction. His breath sucked in deep, his body freezing in motion, as she continued to thrust and pull out.

"God...Mistress - " His voice was strangled. "Jesus..." She felt the power of the repercussion roll through him, shudder up his thigh muscles, through his buttocks. As she reached down and gripped his cock, she found it had become hot iron in her hand, impossibly hard. He made a guttural sound of pleasure at her lightest touch.

"No." When he turned his gaze, tried to see her, she saw the pure panic of a swimmer a hundred yards out in a riptide, realizing that he was about to be swept out and beyond help. Completely at the mercy of the elements, though in this case the overwhelming current was his own body's response.

"I'm here," she said firmly. "You're mine, Mackenzie, and there's nothing you can do but let go. I'm here."

His lip lifted in a snarl of pure rage and lust hopelessly mixed together, and the shudder became a convulsion. Abruptly she was riding a bronc in truth. She was glad Tamara had manacled his feet to the floor, because he began to buck, his body thrusting into the air wildly, furiously, hard rasping moans coming from his throat. The orgasm did not just shoot through his cock, but seized his whole body, bringing him to a violent pinnacle. His buttocks clenched down hard on her penetration, only the lubrication allowing her to slide in and out of that tight grasp, stroking him as his groans became a roar, his fingers digging into the chains above his head, his whole body straining forward in a half crescent that should have been physically impossible.

"Amazing," Tamara murmured. "I've never seen one come that fast from it." Violet registered the comment, made her decision. It was a ruthless one. As he jerked, she released the reserve, shooting it into his ass, rocking forward on her toes, pumping into him like a man in truth, hard, strong thrusts, demanding surrender.

She held on as his movements became even more erratic. Stroking in, stroking out.

"Violet... Mistress...Please...Son of a bitch...Shit..." He screamed her name, begging her, but she was relentless, because she could feel his walls crumbling before his body's reaction, like concrete giving way before a battering ram. An explosion of shields she knew he'd thought to be impenetrable, falling away in a confused disarray.

He lost all composure, became just a rutting beast who wanted to fuck her, fuck her ass now if she'd let him go. He snarled, informed her that he was going to plunge his cock in her pussy, ram into her until there was nothing but him, nothing but the two of them.

He wanted to suck her tits, bite them, just suck on them, just serve her, pleasure her until her come gushed into his mouth, over and over...

Much of it was incoherent, and Violet's pussy trembled with every wild promise or threat. The cock was equipped with a clitoral stimulator at the top that pressed against the crotch of the swimsuit with every thrust, but she thought his words alone brought the orgasm roaring through her blood. As her own body's instincts took over, she fucked him even more pitilessly, greedily, wanting the sensation of the stimulator striking against her spasming clit with every powerful plunge. She cried out, the orgasm passing through her, washing everything away that did not matter, leaving clarity. His low-toned, viciously spat desires became something else. A rasping, hitching sound, a labored gasping that gripped her heart, pulled it right out of her chest and into his bound hands forever.

He had continued to come throughout her orgasm. When his body finally started to jerk less convulsively, she estimated nearly five minutes had passed since he first started to come. Now his body was doing what she could only liken to a dry heave, only with a much more pleasant purpose, humping the air, unable to control his response as long as she was thrusting the cock in and out of his ass. So she kept doing it, at a slow, tortuous pace, fascinated. He was making soft sobs, and she stroked his chest, his furred belly, the impressive quivering muscles, murmuring soothing words to him, even as she kept going.

The dry orgasms lasted fifteen minutes. Each time she thought he was settling down, he would arch, cry out, and again he would furiously fuck the air another several minutes. She was soaked in sweat and wanted it to go on forever, wanted to see him gripped helpless in the throes of the pleasure she had provided him.

"Time to pull out love," Tamara whispered in her ear. "I know you don't want to, but after this long, he'll be left with some terrible hemorrhoids if you keep it in him." Violet slowly eased out, her hands slipping away, and Mac gasped at the sensation of the withdrawal. Tamara helped her remove the strap-on. "I've never seen anything like this," the twin admitted quietly. "It was...God, my knees are weak." Violet caught her shoulder for support herself when the clitoral stimulator gave her one more stroke as it was pulled away, but like the orgasm itself, she thought her lack of strength had more to do with watching Mac's response than any direct physical stimulation to her own.

"It can continue like this for a good half hour more," Kiera told her. "For him, maybe longer. It's best to leave him chained through a couple more, to make sure they're getting less intense. I know you want to release him, but until the intensity lessons, he won't have any control, and he can hurt you without meaning to, the big bruiser. Besides which, we can all enjoy the show." She raised a brow. "And you might like to enjoy the benefit of a hard cock that won't go down for awhile." When Violet came around to face him, Mac looked away, his shame plain. She bent, dragged the stool to his front, stepped back on it so they were eye level and took his face in her hands. She began to kiss each tear away, tasting it, taking it into herself, and by the time she was done, the weight of his head was resting in her hands. When his body abruptly tensed again, his eyes widening, she brought her hand down, gripped him. He rocked forward and his face contorted in the throes of an orgasm without seed.

She felt the velvet steel of him thrust through her fingers, watched the muscles of his body strain, the manacles creak against his strength, enhanced by the power of the stimulant.

"Please, Mistress," he pleaded a moment later, in a broken voice. "Let me loose."

"We have to wait," she said softly. "For just a few minutes more. Besides, you're so beautiful to watch, Mackenzie. Don't you realize it?" She made him turn his head to look, as much to distract him from his helpless state as to make him understand. "Kiera was going to cane Collin, but she couldn't. She and Tamara have done nothing but watch you. They're mesmerized.

"And look there. You see Tyler, fucking Leila on the spanking bench while Collin sucks on her nipples? Her pussy is dripping. I can smell it, and I know you can, big male animal that you are. She started coming the moment Tyler put his cock into her, and she's about to come again. He's kept her facing you the whole time. Watching you while he moves in and out of her, so slow, she's about to lose her mind." She knew what she was doing, wasn't finished drawing out his response, hammering the lesson home. She felt her words have the desired effect and her lips curved in victory.

"Violet...Mistress..." The desperation had a hopeless quality, his body shaking violently. Good. He was realizing and perhaps accepting that none of his responses were under his control anymore. Exactly how she wanted him.

"See how she can't control herself, how she is completely a creature of sense, totally enslaved to Tyler's will? Like you." She guided Mackenzie's face back to them when the convulsive movements of his body made him drop his chin. "Look at Tyler's delight in her total submission, his rapt attention to her. Everyone is absorbed by the two of you, Mackenzie. Don't you understand? There is nothing that pleases a Master or Mistress more than that moment when we achieve this for our slave, a sphere of total devotion, all their senses focused on and meshed with their Master's desires, so that even a whispered word from me is like the stroke of a hand over your cock, or the thrust of it into my wet pussy." She slid her thighs over his hard heat, and the wetness of the crotch of her swimsuit pressed against the top of his cock. "You're mine, Mackenzie. Say it and mean it."

"I'm yours, Mistress. All yours." His voice was hoarse, his eyes fierce and wild.

Violet caught his lips in a kiss, digging her nails into the back of his neck, channeling her reaction into the drawing of his blood.

She'd helped work subs in this room before, as Kiera and Tamara had done for her, but this was the first time she'd felt this all-encompassing centering on a person she perceived as belonging to her. Interacting with him this way while they both drew from the energy of the others in the room brought to the moment an almost spiritual power that made every movement against his body dreamlike.

"I won't let you go." He rested his brow against hers, and the tears he could not stop were on her own cheeks. "Ever. Not ever." You bet your ass. Just you try it, Mackenzie.

* * * * *

To his horror, on the heels of that admission, another climactic wave hit him. There was no rise or approach. Just as before, it exploded from his lower belly, swept his whole body, seizing his cock with the alarming sensation of coming without any bodily fluids to show for it.

Sanity snapped. He fought the manacles like a wolf in a leghold trap. It was irrational, a fight or flight response. He'd never run from anything in his life, so fight it was, though he didn't know what he was fighting so hard. The metal bit into him and he didn't care, he would rip the flesh from his bones to reclaim what had gone beyond his reach.

"Stop, stop. Mac, stop!" Her hands were on his face, his neck, holding him, soothing him, making him look at her. "Calm down. Take a deep breath. Take another. Listen to me. Calm down."

There was command in her voice, which caught his attention, but it was the fear that brought him back to himself. Fear for him. Blood was running down his arm. He made himself stop, his chest heaving like a bellows, sure the whites of his eyes were showing like a rabid animal's. But he kept his eyes on her, used her as his focus, made himself shut out everything around them.

His deep breaths turned into shudders, and she brought his head down to touch her forehead once more, a meditative posture he discovered had a calming, soothing effect. She stroked his hair, once, twice, over and over.

"Ssshh..." To his horror, he realized his face was wet.

"I'm not crying." Again.

"Okay. I know. It's fine. Mackenzie, I need you to think about something."

"I don't seem to be doing anything at the moment." It came out thick, his chest weighted down by far more than the light touch of her hands.

"Always the charmer," she reproved gently. "Hush a moment, and listen. You remember how you couldn't answer me, when I asked why you thought you were submissive?"

"Yes."

"You couldn't charm your way out of that. You didn't know. " She touched her thumbs to his lips, her beautiful blue eyes very close to his face, so that he felt he had fallen into them, that swirling Caribbean color, touched by a dying sun and turned into violet. His Violet.

"I believe that you don't know, any more than I know why being your Mistress is so important to me. You need to accept that, that there isn't any explanation. Then you can let go of the reins. You have to give up control to me, Mackenzie, for no other reason than I command you to do so, and you want to do it. You're afraid, you're angry, it doesn't matter. You just have to do it. I'm here to catch you. All right?"

He stared into her eyes, only inches away from his, and fought past his fear to obey, to hear what she was saying.

When he was seven, he had stood at the top of the steepest hill in the neighborhood, alone, clutching his skateboard, scared to death but knowing he was going to do it. Just like he had known a handful of months ago that he was going to follow a man who craved only death into a dark hole and only one of them was going to come out alive.

At this moment, he saw the truth.

In every terrifying moment of his life, she had been there. He had sensed her presence waiting, just beyond that next challenge, knowing he was following a path he didn't always understand but knew he must walk. Her voice, her touch, had been there.

Calling him. For the hope of her, the dream of her, he had come to this moment.

Starting in undercover work and then becoming a homicide detective, he had worked as a cop for twenty years. He'd been at it long enough to have paid the price of his reputation, his soul immersed in situations so deep and darkly violent there was no way to stay untainted by them. They had been locked inside, and somewhere along the way his heart had become a dungeon, a place he no longer knew how to open to invite in the full gift of a woman's love. Or offer the same from himself.

But he didn't have to figure out how to open up that dungeon, because she had already found a way in. She stood with his darkness and violence, unafraid, the light of her soul a flashlight that could guide him through that labyrinth and keep him from losing his way. All the fears he had, of never having a complete relationship with a woman because he could not offer all he was to her, the light and the dark, dissolved in her arms.

She was wrong. He did know why his heart was submissive to her. And just like that seven-year-old child, and the forty-three year old cop, the soul of the man stood before her and knew what he was going to do, despite being more afraid than he'd ever been before.

"Mistress?"

"Yes, Mackenzie."

"I'm....very, very thirsty."

He closed his eyes as her arms wound around his shoulders, her cheek and hair touching his skin. Her breath left her in a long, soft expulsion, and he wished he could hold her.

He was terrified of his vulnerability to her, but she was right about that part. He would just have to be afraid, and give everything to her anyway, because she'd left him no choice.

She was his Mistress.