He didn't make her wait too long. "Do you want to tell me what you're really doing here tonight?"

This was it. She could put her card on the table and see how he responded. "I wanted to ask you to train me."

Other than the twitch of his eyebrow, he didn't show signs of surprise. "What brought on this sudden interest?" His tone was gentle, and his question lacked judgment.

Not willing to divulge her true goal, she shrugged. "I think I've always been a little interested. Now I'm a little more interested."

He lifted the cardboard coaster and tapped the edge against the table as he thought. "What, exactly, are you interested in?"

She wanted to learn to be the kind of submissive who could make Keith happy. "You've trained submissives before."

"Are you interested in switching, or did you just want to learn the one role?"

There was no way in h.e.l.l Keith would ever switch. He had constructed his life to have careful control over every tiny detail. "Just subbing, for now."

She sipped her iced tea, belatedly realizing she hadn't noticed the return of the server. Nerves were to blame. This wasn't the easiest conversation in the world to have.

"You're looking for straight D/s, or did you want bondage too?"

"Yes." Heat seared her cheeks. How had she not choked on her drink yet? "And impact play."

He sat back. Those too-knowing eyes seemed to cut through her with laserlike precision. "I'm sorry, Trina. I can't do it. I'm not into casual play."

Disappointment sat heavy in her stomach, a thousand pebbles that didn't belong there. Before she could beg, he continued.

"Plus if I even thought about touching you, your brother and Rossetti would kill me. Dying would seriously damage my career aspirations." He laughed a little, but his attempt to lighten the mood fell flat.

She grabbed the handle of her purse. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you in an awkward position." Tears of humiliation blurred her vision. Dustin said something else, but she didn't stay to hear anything beyond his refusal.

This was why she never asked men out. Rejection sucked. She didn't know where men found the courage. Two strikes and she never wanted to see another man again. She totally preferred when they made the first move.

For the rest of the evening, scenes of her stupidity played in her head. Sound bites of Dustin's refusal mixed with Keith's, and even a punishing workout on the elliptical couldn't chase them away.

__________.

The next morning, she dragged her a.s.s into work and nearly cried on Aaron's shoulder when he handed her a caramel macchiato.

"It looks like you're having a c.r.a.ppy week too." He pulled a chair closer to her desk. Around them, the office buzzed with the ringing of phones and the bustle of people. Neither of them rated the privacy of an office yet, and the government didn't see fit to waste money on dividers.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Not my best." The details were too painful to say out loud, and she didn't know where Aaron stood on the issue of BDSM. He was the kind of friend with whom she talked about work and casual topics, never s.e.x or anything too personal.

"Good thing tomorrow is Friday." He glanced around before leaning closer. "Can we meet up for lunch? I'm due in court in an hour, and I have some more prep to do, so I can't really talk right now."

She squeezed his knee. "Don't worry about me. I'll be okay. I'm in court all day today too. We could meet at the usual place."

He grinned. "Ice cream and burgers. My favorite meal."

As it happened, she got stuck with a cranky judge and missed lunch. She texted an apology to Aaron and let the matter slip from her mind. If there was anyone in her life who wouldn't hold something like that against her, it was him. After all, the same judge had done the same thing to him before.

Her day ran late, as expected. She didn't make it home until nearly eight. The only thing she wanted more than to get out of her hose and heels was something loaded with carbs to eat. She shucked her clothes and slid into a pair of light sweats. Just because she was so tired, she decided to wash her face now instead of later. She scooped up her pile of discarded clothes and scrunched them into a ball. With practiced ease, she shot over her shoulder to the laundry basket.

The routine motion shouldn't have produced more than a quiet whoosh, so the crash startled her. The end-of-the-day lethargy fled, courtesy of the adrenaline from the shock. She whirled around to find that she'd missed the open basket completely. In fact, the basket wasn't even there. She'd hit a floor lamp that hadn't been there when she'd left for work that morning. The force of her throw had caught the long, skinny pole just right, and it now lay across her doorway with her clothes, still wadded, on top of it.

Thunderstruck, she stared at it for a long time before she recognized the lamp. It had been in her guest bedroom. The thing had a lime-green, metallic shade. It had been a housewarming gift, but it wasn't to her taste, so she'd relegated it to a room she didn't often visit. She couldn't remember who had given it to her, and she wondered why her mind barreled in that direction when it should be trying to figure out how it had come to be in her bedroom. And where was her laundry basket?

Without awareness, she moved backward until the far wall halted her progress. She tried to think, to figure out what she should do. Her brain stuttered and got nowhere. She needed to call someone. Thursday night was her parents' bowling league, so they were busy. Though Malcolm hadn't quite given up his apartment, he pretty much lived with Darcy in Ann Arbor, a full hour away. M.J., her other big brother, would be busy with his wife and kids, plus he'd never struck her as the protector type. He'd tell her to call the police, but she didn't want a bunch of strangers swarming around her home, especially if she was just going a little crazy from stress.

She swallowed her pride. Keith lived less than ten minutes away, and he wouldn't look at her like she was insane if it turned out to be nothing.

Using extreme caution, she crept to her kitchen, grabbed a huge knife and her cell phone, backed into a corner so n.o.body could come up behind her, and dialed his number.

He picked up immediately. "Hey, Kat."

"Keith, I...I think someone's been in my condo." A small pop drew her attention to the right. It could have been the coils on the refrigerator, but her nerves were too on edge for it not to scare the c.r.a.p out of her. Beyond that appliance was the hallway to her bedroom and the guest room. Had she left the door to the spare bedroom open or closed the last time she'd been in there? What if the intruder was waiting to attack? She dropped her volume and whispered. "Or they could still be here."

"Where are you?" His voice took on an urgency she'd rarely heard him use.

"In the kitchen. I have a knife."

"Stay in the corner where your counters come together so nothing is behind you. I'm in my car right now, and I'm on my way over. Talk to me, Kat. Tell my why you think someone is in your condo." He spoke a bit harshly, but she needed that to keep her from panicking.

"The lamp from my guest room is now in my bedroom, and I didn't put it there. I went to toss my clothes in the laundry basket and knocked it over. The laundry basket is gone. It...it just had whites in it. I was going to do my whites tonight." That had been her intention when she got up in the morning, but she would have let it slide because she was too tired and there were still several pairs of clean underwear in her drawer.

He blew out a breath. "Any chance your mom might have come over and done your laundry? Maybe she moved the lamp?"

While her mother had done things like that in the past, she hadn't tried to help out unasked in months. "Why would she move that lamp? She didn't like it either. We both thought the color was ugly."

"And here I thought you liked green." He was teasing, trying to set her mind at ease. Not only were they both MSU fans, his eyes were green.

"Not that shade. It doesn't go with anything."

Another noise distracted her. This time it didn't sound so much like the refrigerator. The air-conditioning kicked on, and the soft whirr of the fan filled the silence of her apartment.

"I'm at the door, Kat. It's locked. Come down and let me in."

Keeping the knife raised, she inched around the island counter dividing her kitchen from the dining area and hurried down the stairs. Too afraid to stop and check through the peephole, especially if the intruder was still in her condo, she twisted the dead bolt and opened the door.

Keith stood on her porch in the fading evening light. He wore a pair of camouflage cargo shorts and a washed-out blue cotton shirt. Everything about his attire was casual, which made the gun in his hand stand out even more. He adjusted her grip of the knife, changing it so that the blade pointed upward. "Always stab upward. Aim just under the sternum."

He thrust her back out of the way, closed and locked the front door, and headed up the stairs.

She followed closely. There was no way in h.e.l.l she was going to let him out of her sight.

He moved carefully and methodically through her rooms, checking any place large enough to hide a person, and all the windows. Nothing seemed out of place, but when they got to her bedroom, her heart stopped cold.

The lamp was gone. Her laundry basket was back in its spot next to the door, and her wadded-up work clothes were on top. She left Keith, rushing to the guest room to see if the lamp was back in that room. It mocked her from the far corner.

"I...I don't understand."

Keith gazed at her with an inscrutable expression. He checked the windows in the guest room, and then he returned to her bedroom and checked the slider that led to the small balcony. It wasn't locked. He looked back at her. "You left it open?"

She shrugged. The balcony overlooked a wooded area. The only thing back there was her neighbor's front door and patio. She sat out there on nice days and read or worked on her cases. But she had been too busy to use it recently. "I don't think so. I don't remember unlocking it."

He slid the bolt into place. "I'm going to go downstairs and talk to your neighbor. What's his name?"

"Her name. Mrs. Hill. I don't think she's home. She has bridge on Thursday nights with her girlfriends." Mrs. Hill was approaching eighty, and she had more of a social life than Katrina did.

She followed Keith back into the living room.

"Stay here." He threw the order over his shoulder as he descended the stairs. "I'll check the bas.e.m.e.nt."

In five minutes he returned. She could tell by the expression on his face that he'd found nothing. She sank down onto her sofa, dumbfounded, and set the knife she'd gripped so tightly on her coffee table. She felt stupid.

"I can talk to your other neighbors, see if anyone saw anything." He gave her a long look. "I want you to lock the door after me. Don't let anyone in until I get back."

Katrina shook her head. She was sincerely losing her mind. She had a few vacation days coming. Aaron would help cover her cases while she took some time off and got her mental house in order. "That's not necessary. I'm sorry I called you over here."

He knelt on the floor and took her hands between his. The soft affection shining from his eyes nearly undid her. "Kat, you don't need a reason to call me. I'm not upset with you."

Jerking her hands free, she jumped to her feet and moved away from him. "You think I made this up to get you over here? I'm not desperate. You're not the only Dom out there, you know. I know what I saw. I know what..." Talking to him was pointless. "Just go. I'll lock the doors and be more careful."

For a second he looked like he was going to say something. He opened and closed his mouth. He scratched at the stubble on his jaw. "I could stay. Or if you don't feel safe, you can pack a bag and stay at my house. I have plenty of room."

"No." No way in h.e.l.l she was going to take his pity. She would approach Jordan next. He was a little scruffier and younger than she liked, but he was a good man and an experienced Dom.

At last Keith nodded and headed for the stairs. "Follow me down. Lock the door after I leave."

__________.

Friday dawned stiflingly hot. The still air seemed to ripple with waves of heat. Michigan had a handful of days like this each year. Being outside, just for the walk from the parking garage to her air-conditioned office, made her clothes stick to her body in uncomfortable ways. That irritation joined with her lingering feelings of idiocy from last night. After Keith had left, she'd checked the apartment again. Everything was locked. She ate popcorn for dinner, had ice cream for dessert, and slept with the knife on her bedside table. She briefly considered getting a gun, but then she rejected that idea. What if she came home to find someone in her condo pointing her gun at her?

To make matters worse, she had a string of depositions today. The second person on her schedule was Keith. The third was Dustin. Perhaps she should have consulted her work schedule before humiliating herself with two men in one week.

Keith arrived on time, as always. His dark blue suit emphasized the emerald of his eyes, and she melted inside at how handsome he looked. In all her life she'd never seen a more attractive man. It wasn't from lack of searching. She'd even scoured online dating sites.

When he saw her, he smiled warmly, but she wasn't able to muster enough positive feeling to return the sentiment. She strived for polite, and she was relative certain she achieved her goal.

"Interview six is open." She headed in that direction, confident he would follow.

Keith watched her s.e.xy a.s.s sway slightly from side to side as she made her way down the hall. All week he'd been haunted by visions of her, what she'd look like naked, tied with that fine bottom in the air, her legs spread and red handprints all over her luscious flesh. She'd cry out for more and beg him to f.u.c.k her hard.

His d.i.c.k throbbed, and he chastised himself for the slipup. After so many years spent forcing himself not to think of her that way, one kiss had knocked away his control. One kiss and one request. "Train me." Her soft voice haunted his dreams.

Nothing would make him happier. But she'd ultimately grow tired of his need for constant and total control, and she would leave. Kat wasn't cut out for that kind of life. Even he questioned whether he could have a real relationship with someone who consented to letting him control every aspect of her life. He didn't need a therapist to tell him he had issues with authority and letting women get close to him emotionally.

No, she was better off not knowing how completely his head was f.u.c.ked up. He'd already hurt her. And last night... He didn't know what to make of it. Kat wasn't one to play those kinds of manipulative games.

He entered the little room and closed the door. A legal secretary sat at the long table, ready to record every word he uttered. It was better to keep things professional. Eventually their relationship would return to normal. She'd be back to teasing him and treating him like an older brother in no time.

She a.s.sumed her seat and regarded him with cool brown eyes. He recognized that she was upset, and it nearly killed him to know he had caused it. The urge to take her in his arms, to kiss her and hold her close, was proving more and more difficult to beat down. It would diminish his acute yearning, but it wouldn't solve the problem. He had yet to figure out how her behavior the night before played into anything.

It was possible someone had climbed onto her balcony and accessed the condo that way. In order not to make a ton of noise, the person would need an extension ladder, and those things were unwieldy. After she'd kicked him out, he'd looked for evidence outside, but he'd found nothing. The entire incident just didn't make sense.

In the hallway by the elevator an hour later, she greeted Dustin Brandt with the same lack of warmth. He watched the pair, his senses attuned to find the smallest tells. The stiffness of her posture. Her plastic smile. His overly solicitous manner. What had happened between them to make Kat so formal and Brandt so apologetic?

They disappeared down the hall and into room six. Keith had other business in the building. No reason he couldn't swing by later and touch base with his buddy.

And find out what else had happened to suck the joy from Kat. Malcolm's words echoed in his head. "Take risks...put yourself out there... You'll never know if you don't try..."

She'd said he wasn't the only Dom out there. Did that mean she was going to ask someone else to train her? Did she plan to ask Brandt, or had she already done it? Son of a b.i.t.c.h. He breathed to control his rage.

__________.

An hour later, the door to interview room six was still closed. It didn't open for ten excruciatingly long minutes. From down the hall, he watched Kat exit the room first. Dustin followed close on her heels. He grabbed her arm. From the way she responded, Keith figured he'd said her name too.

Kat might have turned back to face Dustin, but her gaze remained downcast. Dustin lifted her chin with one finger, an intimate, dominating gesture that set Keith's blood to boiling, and he spoke to her.

The expression on her face softened. Dustin's finger fell away, and a small smile lifted the corners of Kat's mouth. She nodded, and the pair embraced. When they parted, she turned and continued down the hall away from Keith.

Dustin came toward him, lost in thought.

Keith stood directly in his path and forced the man he'd thought was a friend to stop and focus on the moment.

"Rossetti. What are you doing back here?"

"I thought I'd take Kat out to lunch." Though their paths crossed frequently as part of their work duties, Keith had only asked Kat to eat with him a handful of times. His schedule wasn't usually so liquid.

Dustin frowned. "I think she has plans with b.u.t.termore."

Until that second, Keith hadn't formed an opinion about the lawyer. The a.s.sistant attorney seemed nice enough, and he knew the man was friends with Kat. Keith took a minute to remind himself that he couldn't go around punching her friends just because he objected to their gender.

Still, he threw a petulant statement at Dustin. "And you're okay with that?"

His buddy shrugged and smirked. That snarky kind of expression seemed to be at complete odds with Dustin's clean-cut appearance, but Keith wasn't fooled. He'd seen Dustin do lots of things that were counter to the boy-next-door image he projected. "I don't see why it's any of my business."

Keith inclined his head down the hall, though Kat was long gone. "I saw you top her a minute ago. How can you say it's none of your business?"

That smirk grew. "I wasn't topping her. I was talking to her about a private matter between the two of us. That doesn't give me the right to dictate who she has lunch with or any other thing she might decide to do. She's an adult, and she has a good head on her shoulders. She can make her own decisions."

"Touch her and I'll kill you." The threat was out before Keith could quell it, and he felt a little sick inside to realize he meant it. He'd kill any Dom who laid a finger on Kat.

Dustin had the sense to drop his smirk, and his entire demeanor changed. The hint of danger that hid so well beneath Brandt's exterior surfaced. He poked a finger at Keith's chest. "It sounds like she made the same request to you that she made to me. My advice? She's determined. If you don't step in and take care of her, somebody else will. I'm not saying it would be me. But she's an attractive woman. Eventually she's going to ask somebody who's outside your reach."

The warning made perfect sense. Somewhere deep down, he'd a.s.sumed she wouldn't have the courage to repeat that request to another person. He thought she'd made it because she knew he needed his lover's submission. He hadn't thought she actually craved the submissive experience. The idea of her on her knees, head bowed in subservience, in front of another man, made his vision swim in shades of red. It was one thing for her to have a happily-ever-after with a vanilla man. This was different. This meant they were as compatible as he'd fantasized, at least on some level. He'd never wanted to punch something so badly.

Dustin's firm grip on his arm brought him back to the present. He inhaled and exhaled, using one of the exercises he'd learned in combat training, and got his temper under control once again.

"Come on, buddy. You can't see her like this. She hasn't done anything wrong, and you're about ready to go all primal on her a.s.s. Let's. .h.i.t the gym. I'll practice kicking some sense into you under controlled circ.u.mstances."