How could she see anything behind his sunglasses? "What kind of look?"

"The kind of look your fans have at the ticket booth when they find out your show is sold out."

Disappointment? Indifference? He shook his head.

"Fear and aggression."

Jesus, she was perceptive. "I don't like public places and crowds."

"Ah. Crowds with hands." She gnawed the corner of her thumbnail. "How do you deal with concerts and public interviews and red carpet stuff?"

"I avoid them when I can."

Stillness settled over her. She stared at her hand in his, her eyes weighted with thought. "When you walked into my shop three years ago, you didn't have security to protect you. How'd you maneuver the crowds then?"

Very carefully. His mouth crooked up. "No one knew or cared who I was then."

She nodded. "When you came to me that night, you brought me a hopeful vision. Want to hear it?" She looked at him beneath her lashes.

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear to see her face. "Very much."

"This might sound silly, but I envisioned you on stage in a crowded arena proudly baring your tattoo. The tattoo I hoped you'd grow to appreciate. The one I hope to finish."

A collision of emotions accumulated in his throat.

"I lost so much the night I met you, but I hung onto that image. It got me through some of the tough parts, you know?"

"Jesus, Charlee." He cupped her jaw and lifted her forehead to rest against his.

"Someday soon, I want to see you singing at the center of the stage instead of from its darkest corner."

Could he do that for her?

"With your shirt off."

He bit down on his tongue to stay the refusal.

"What about the live shows? How do you deal with it? Even if you aren't visible, you're there, singing and playing in front of thousands."

Admit it and fix it. She deserved nothing less. "I use blow, Charlee."

She removed her forehead from his and replaced it with her lips. "Getting lit on stage is not cool." Another kiss to his brow and she leaned back to meet his eyes. "I guess we both have our fucked up self-therapies, huh?"

A shudder gripped him. This woman survived slavery and untold abuse and rape. "How did you escape hell with no mental or physical damage?"

She let out a mirthless laugh and released his hand to mime swinging a baseball bat. "Ol' Roy was proficient at caning. He knew how to hit without scarring." She dropped her hands and a cold deadness hollowed her eyes, her voice. "And he brought in a plastic surgeon to erase wounding cuts when he slipped." She touched a spot under her thigh and leaned forward to drag a finger over one butt cheek.

The muscles in his face and neck became painfully tense. Calm the fuck down. She was speaking openly about it. He needed to openly listen.

"And these-" She tapped her front teeth "-are porcelain crowns."

A red fog clouded his vision and he clenched his hands.

"There are scars you haven't seen...from the vaginal and rectal tearing."

His fist slammed into the seat in front of him, again and again.

"Jay, stop." She twisted her head toward the door where Colson stood, facing the lot and ignoring Jay's rage like a good bodyguard.

He couldn't hit hard enough, couldn't obliterate her words or the images ripping out his heart.

"Stop, stop, stop." Her voice chanted through him.

He reared back for another hit and glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye. She curled against the door with her eyes closed. Oh, Charlee.

He shoved his hands beneath her thighs and back and dragged her into his lap.

Her arms hugged her belly and her face lowered to his neck. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't, Charlee. He did."

She burrowed her shoulder into the curve of his and pressed her lips to his throat. "My instinct is to bury it all, but I know how damaging that is." She leaned back, narrowed her eyes at him. "So I've disciplined myself to keep it exposed...with Nathan anyway, since I can't talk about it with anyone else. I guess I just unloaded on you."

He wanted to be her confidant, not hero-fucking-Nathan. The urge to demand that from her tensed his muscles and tangled in his throat. "Does it help? To keep it on the surface?"

"Sometimes."

He envied her. She was incredible. If he freed his shadows from their hiding places in his mind, they would devour him.

"I have other...therapies."

"Tell me."

A deep breath. "Are you familiar with the fetish communities?"

Fetish? Like leather crops and ball gags? He wasn't aware of wearing a meaningful expression, but it incited her to lean away and look out the window.

"Shouldn't Nathan be radioing in by now?" She chewed on a nail and tapped her boot. Her eyes fixated on a car parked across the way, but they were unfocused, lost in her head.

He gathered her closer in his arms, cradling her small frame with his thighs. It was an impregnable feeling, like hugging his Martin hollow body guitar, only this sensation was fuller, warmer, and to his surprise, more complete. She was meant to be there. "Their perimeter preparations take thirty to forty minutes. They usually arrive ahead of me to do it." He raised her chin with his knuckle. "Tell me about the fetish thing."

She glanced at the dents in the seatback in front of them. "Promise me you'll let me finish what I have to say before you react."

A swell of adrenaline surged through his veins. Fuck, this was going to piss him off. "I promise."

She reached up, careful not to let her fingers brush his face, and removed his sunglasses. "And no more fists. Got it?"

He nodded, unsure.

"I hire professional-"

Knuckles rapped on the window and the door opened. Tony ducked her head in. "We're ready."

A shout seethed in his throat. He drew it into his lungs with a deep inhale and leveled his voice. "Wait outside."

"Yes, Mr. Mayard." She shut the door.

Charlee bent forward to move off his lap, and he stopped her with an arm across her waist. "We're not done."

A frown wrinkled the sweet little spot below her lips. "We should-"

"They'll wait. You hire professional..."

She slumped against him with a sigh. "Dominants." She raised her eyes, holding his captive. "I pay experienced BDSM players for sessions in private and rented dungeons."

His heart rammed against his ribs. Let me finish what I have to say before you react.

He had a damn good idea what dungeons were, but he wanted to be very clear what they meant to her. "What happens in your sessions?"

"I pre-negotiate the boundaries each time."

His face heated and his breathing sped up. "And those are?"

"It would be easier to list the limits, but if you're not familiar with the lifestyle..." Her smile quivered then fell when he didn't return it. "My typical scene includes shackles, crops, paddles, whips, ch...chains, clamps, and oral and vaginal intercourse."

Every word stabbed his heart anew, slicing away piece by bleeding piece. "You let these...men have sex with you?" The question tore from his burning chest.

She held his gaze. "They're simulated rape scenes." Her voice was so soft he tilted his head to hear her, wishing he hadn't.

His composure was slipping, his volume elevating. "Why would you do that?"

She closed her eyes and pressed her face in his neck. "To reenact the things Roy did to me. I set up the scene and have control of it every step of the way. I know I'm damaged, Jay. I get that, but-"

"Charlee."

"Let me finish." Her jaw hardened against his shoulder. "Those scenes help me restructure my feelings about what happened. They allow me to be in charge of the things he did, the punishments...the rapes. I always end the scene before the Dom does." She let out a breath, warming his throat. "I use my safe word like a weapon."

It was a harsh and penetrating moment of comprehension. How many times had he relived his first trip back to his land in the Canadian Boundary Waters, when he burned down the old shed and the cruel shadows within? Contracting a cabin to be built in its place, one with sunny rooms and walls of windows, had given him a sense of control over his memories. Someday, he'd have the strength of will and mind to live there.

Hired bondage was Charlee's cabin. In a fucked up way, her methods made sense, but the risks were glaring. "How do you trust these people? I can't believe Nathan would-"

Her head shot up, her eyes like blue flames. "He doesn't like it, but he's supportive. He investigates every person I hire. And after three years and a dozen cities, I've accumulated a very reliable portfolio of references."

Images of calloused kinky men beating and fucking her corroded his ability to identify with her solution. She had options. She had him. "I get it, Charlee. I do. And I want you to trust me."

A startled look softened her jaw.

"Hang on. I know for that to happen, I need to prove to both of us that I trust you." He removed his arms from her waist and stretched them along the back of the seat. Maybe he was delaying exiting the car. Maybe he was out of his mind, but he wanted her wrapped around him in a way he'd never allowed anyone before. "Straddle me."

Chapter Thirty-Two.

Silence. So dense it weighted the air in Charlee's lungs. Straddle him?

Jay's palm slid up her spine, raising bumps there, and returned to the back of the seat. A pulse of reckless want built up between them. Looking at his beautiful face, feeling that momentary comfort of his hand along her back, it was a glimmer of promise that left her burning for more.

Roy had stolen so much from her, but her desire to touch and be touched was still embedded deep within her. She hungered for physical closeness, in friendship or otherwise. "This will be a much more intimate position."

His brown eyes clung to her like slow-moving molasses. "Exactly."

Good lord, his sexiness issued from the purr of his voice, the dimple in his cheek, the lazy way his Adam's apple nodded in his throat, and his vulnerability with touching. Hell, even wearing the stupid wig, he was tempting. She closed her eyes to break the trance.

"What are you thinking?" Warm exhales steamed against her lips.

She opened her eyes and found him watching her from inches away, stealing her breath. "Your security team is waiting for us."

A flex rippled through his arms. He didn't spare a glance at Colson and Tony, their backs to the SUV, keeping a vigil on the empty parking lot.

"We're safe and in no hurry." He bit his bottom lip, staring at hers. "Whenever you're ready. My arms will stay here." He patted the headrests on either side of him. "To prove to myself I don't need to restrain you from touching me."

The discussion about moving her to L.A. waited for them at the hotel. If she was going to consider his offer, they should feel comfortable enough to trust each other in this small thing.

Besides, he was so inviting, sitting there, chewing his lip, she wanted to close the distance just to lick where his teeth were.

She tossed his sunglasses on the seat and slid off his lap. He wasn't a big man, but his presence was formidable, exuding potency and overwhelming the space around him. He moved his legs closer together and kept his arms outstretched, watching her, waiting.

Slowly, she placed a knee on the seat beside his hip and reached overhead, bracing her palms on the roof.

Curiosity nudged her. She wanted to pursue this connection with him, had to know where it would take her. She swung her other leg over his and hugged his narrow lap with her knees. A foot of emptiness separated their groins. Almost there.

He was motionless beneath her with his head tilted back and his eyes on hers.

The strength of his gaze tingled her cheeks and prodded her to close the distance. Would he trust her if she put her hands behind her back where he couldn't see them? Could she trust herself to leave them there?

"Closer, Charlee." He stretched his neck and opened his mouth for hers.

She pressed her hands to the roof and dipped her head. The gap was too great for a full kiss. His tongue stretched and the tip teased hers, coaxing a quiver in her inner thigh. The touches slid into licks and their tongues tangled through wet greedy pants. They arched toward one another, and her hands on the roof became fingertips, slipping.

He nipped at her bottom lip and missed. "You taste so fucking good. Come here." He bucked his hips, but the space between them prevented contact.