His heart flipped over. Sure, if she had joined him for coffee, Noah would've survived, but he told himself she was thinking of the three years she might've had with Jay.

"Roy's assistant delivered this." She shoved a finger under the seal and tore it open. Chest heaving, she unfolded the letter and held it under the dome light at an angle the three of them could read silently.

Miss Charlee Grosky 27124 Los Hermosos Way Los Angeles, CA 90027 Dear Miss Grosky, Oxford Security is pleased to offer you a position as Resident Artist for our organization. We are excited about the talent you would bring to our company.

Should you accept the offer, you will be working in the San Francisco penthouse, where our security teams reside. You will report directly to the CEO of Oxford Industries. Your initial task will be to sketch a portrait for one of our high-ranking security officers. The commissioned work will be presented to the officer's niece as a gift for her nineteenth birthday.

You will be classified as an executive-level employee. Your initial compensation package includes full medical and dental coverage, and fringe benefits. In addition, Oxford Security will loan you an amount equal to all of your expenses incurred by The Burn. Should you remain with Oxford Security at least three years, the loan will be forgiven in its entirety.

We look forward to your arrival at our company and are confident your skills will play a key role in the morale of our personnel. Please sign this letter and return it to me at your earliest convenience as a written acceptance of the offer. Let me know if you have any questions or if I can do anything to make your arrival easier.

Sincerely, Alan Patera Executive Assistant to Roy Oxford Oxford Industries Jay's stomach turned and bucked. "What the almighty fuck? He's offering you a job?"

"The threat is here." She traced a trembling finger over the paragraph about the nineteen-year-old niece and looked at Nathan, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I'm not seeing it. What am I missing?"

Nathan leaned close and slid the letter from her hand. His eyes flickered over the words as his free hand gripped hers.

Jay wasn't sure which felt worse, his jealousy or his exclusion from their history together. He knew their shared torment was what connected the two of them in the most intimate of ways. He stuffed that to the back of his mind and focused on the letter.

She was right. Roy wouldn't offer her a job. He'd blackmail her. "Nathan, how well did you know the high-ranking officers? Who has nieces this age?" He flicked a finger at the letter.

"I don't know." Nathan rubbed his brow, his tone low and deadly. "We didn't discuss our personal lives."

Then why would Roy mention anything about an employee's family if Charlee and Nathan didn't know them? "What about the undercover guy? Do you know-"

"Fuck." Nathan pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiped the screen, and held it to his ear. "Mr. Munt...Yes. Sorry to call so late. I need to know if your contact has a nineteen-year-old niece...That's right. If he does, he's been compromised...I'd rather discuss it over a more secure line...Understood." He returned the phone to his pocket and met Jay's eyes. "He doesn't know the spotter's identity. He hired him through a private company. Personal details best kept personal for obvious reasons. He'll find out and call me back."

Jay reread the letter in Nathan's outstretched hand. "What about the expenses incurred by The Burn? What is he threatening with this?"

"He's saying that if I return to him willingly for three years, he'll forgive you by leaving your band alone."

The buzz of Nathan's phone cracked the tension, and everyone seemed to hold their breath as Nathan answered it.

"Mr. Munt." Silence. "Keep me updated." He lowered the phone, lips taut, jaw squared. "The spotter isn't answering his phone, but this isn't unusual given his position at the penthouse. Munt put a call into the private company that employs him to get a warning to his family. He'll call back."

She frowned. "See what Crane and the rest of your guys can make of the letter." Laying her head back, she touched Jay's knee, lingered there for a moment, and returned her hand to her lap.

Was she testing his trigger? Touching him for comfort? Did it matter? Her caress left behind a tingle that swept through his bloodstream and invigorated him with purpose. He had a lot of self-improvement to do.

Chapter Sixty-Five.

The SUV passed through the gate of the band's estate and parked in the garage. Jay glued himself to Charlee's side and stumbled when she veered in the opposite direction of the interior door.

He wanted to reach out and grab her, but opted for patience. "Where are you going?"

As the guards moved inside, the click of her heels followed her to the back wall where the utility boxes and carpentry tools lined shelves and cabinets. She rooted through the drawers until she found a palm sander.

"Charlee, talk to me."

She handed him the sander and a sheet of sandpaper and moved to the workbench.

He turned it in his hands, unease trickling through him. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You'll see." She opened a metal box. "Oh! This is perfect."

A bundle of rubber-insulated wire flew toward him.

He caught it, surprised by the heavy weight. "Electrical cable?" Did she plan to hook his dick to a generator and fry it off?

She scanned the garage, chewing on a nail, lifting up and down on the balls of her feet. Given the horrible events of the night, she seemed a little too excited about whatever was going through that gorgeous head of hers.

Realization sucked the blood from his face. She wasn't looking for tools to torture him with. They were for her. A sickening amount of panic gripped his gut. "You want me to hurt you." His certainty was thick and strangled.

She yanked something from a bin of gardening tools, turned toward him, and held out a bamboo plant pole. "Yes."

They stared at one another with that menacing pole raised between them. She didn't tell him he owed her this. It flared from her stony unblinking eyes.

His heart pummeled against his ribs. She didn't want to scream at him or kick his ass. She didn't want to walk out and never see him again. She wanted him to man the fuck up and be her Dom.

Big breath. Another. He nodded. A jerky movement. "Okay."

She lowered the pole. "Okay?"

"I'll give you whatever you need." He held out the sander and cable. "But electric shock, Charlee? I'll fucking kill you."

She let out a soft huff and shook her head slowly, lips twitching. "Percussion play. Electric shock won't be necessary."

"Percussion?" The image of her strapped over Rio's drum kit inappropriately tumbled into his head.

She breezed past him in the direction of the interior door, twirling the garden pole like a baton. "Impact. Flogs. Whips. Percussion."

Jesus. "Charlee. Wait. Just...stop a second and talk to me."

Her hand was on the doorknob, but she didn't turn it. Nor did she turn to face him.

"Look at me."

Her chin moved, perched on her shoulder and she glared at him. It was a defiant glare, coloring her cheeks and brightening her eyes. And fuck him, but it looked good on her.

"This is what you want?" He raised the devices that guaranteed nightmares in his near future.

Her stubborn chin tipped up and down.

"I know how this works. Limits are set on both sides, right?"

The muscles in her cheeks flexed.

He set the sander on the nearest cabinet. "Power tools are one of my limits." He held up the sheet of sandpaper to show her he still had it.

She looked at the sandpaper, at the sander, back at the sandpaper. "You better know how to use that."

He nodded. He didn't have a fucking clue.

Chapter Sixty-Six.

Charlee sent Jay to his room with an emasculative point of her finger. Apparently, she didn't appreciate him groaning over her shoulder as she dug through the kitchen drawers.

Tooth picks, chopsticks and saran wrap? He would've given her points for creativity, but she'd already maxed out her quota in the garage. He tried not to imagine what room she might've been rummaging through at the moment.

She behaved as if she held the power over what was about to happen. A perception he would soon rectify.

In his closet, he shed everything but the leather pants, leaving the top button. Rolling back his shoulders, he lengthened his neck and spine and cycled through several deep breaths. Bringing to mind everything he'd learned in his BDSM research on the Internet, he gave himself a pep talk.

He could do this. He would do anything for Charlee. He definitely could...Holy motherfuck. He couldn't wuss out now. For the next however many hours, the right mindset would be the key to unlocking her.

Control. Roy abused her with it in a slave role she never agreed to. Consensual control in the bedroom was another matter. To administer the pain she desired, Jay needed to take her in hand. And no more cringing at percussion tools like a bitchboy.

He lifted the thickest leather belt from his rack, folded it, and whacked his thigh. His quadriceps jerked through the sting. Might not compare to the crack of an electrical cable, but he needed to start off with something a little more...conventional.

Striding through the bedroom, he opened the desk drawer and collected four metal finger picks for an old banjo he sometimes messed around with. He slid one on the tip of his index finger and scratched it down his arm. A smile pulled at his lips.

He grabbed the three black bags by the door and dumped the contents on the bed. The exclusive sex shop owner had been overly helpful that morning. Her flirting was as ineffective as her perfume, but she was a well-known masochist in L.A. and her advice lifted some of the veil from Charlee's sexual mystique.

Not only did it lift it, her explanations made sense of it, normalized it. Charlee was no different than so many others. Pain simply unlocked the core of her desire.

Which brought him back to the importance of mindset. The focus was her pleasure. He could probably just beat the ever-loving shit out of her, and she'd find release through her twisted conditioning. He'd rather massage away the taint Roy left on her primal core by giving her pain through devotion and respect.

The fact that Jay would have this privilege was ludicrous after the shit he put her through that night. All the more reason he needed to assume the role and prove to her he could be the man who was valuable enough to dominate and worship her.

From the pile of purchases, he separated a butt plug, lube, nipple clamps and a Hitachi wand. The rest went back in the bags and into the closet.

The door to the bedroom clicked open behind him, and his heart thumped wildly. Go time.

He pivoted toward her, slowly and methodically, relaxing his shoulders, issuing his breath from his diaphragm, and holding his head high. "Go to the bathroom and clean your pussy. You have five minutes."

Eyes wide as saucers, she lowered her arms and clutched her loot to her stomach. One of Rio's drumsticks, a bucket of ice, an ice pick, a cheese grater, and some root thing that looked like she'd just dug up from the backyard filled her hands.

Holding his neck straight and relaxing his eyelids, he waited.

She didn't waste words asking him if he was sure. Maybe she saw the certainty in his eyes.

She scampered toward the bed and dropped her findings next to the sandpaper, cable, and bamboo pole. A glimpse at the things he'd collected made her lips flicker up. Then she scurried to the bathroom.

He let out a breath. Washing her cunt wasn't necessary. He liked knowing traces of his come were between her legs, even if his behavior would forever mar that memory. But he needed to set the tone and give her something to do while he prepared.

In short order, the household pervertables were lined up on the desk, and his rope was tied to the bedframe. He wrapped the sandpaper around the end of the belt strap and used the ice pick to punch holes in the scratchy paper where the belt holes lay beneath. With guitar string from his desk, he knitted the paper to the belt through the holes and secured it together.

The water tap shut off followed by soft footfalls. She appeared in the archway of the bathroom, and he settled into a tremble that tightened his body. He breathed through it and let it ripple away.

Gloriously naked, she stood with her head down and her hands at her sides. Flawless white skin, outrageous dips in her waist, the flare of her hips, and the auburn tuft between her legs.

Good night, she was formed perfectly. His knees wobbled. He locked them and used his most commanding voice. "Raise your head."

She did, instantly, but it took longer for her eyes to follow. Her gaze inspected the floor in front of him, tarried over the space beside his hip. Finally, she met his eyes.

"Don't ever lower your eyes. Hold your head high, Charlee. We clear?"

"Yes, Sir."

Was that what she wanted? To address him as some superior asshole while they played? He wasn't a sexed-up Sir or Master, and he most definitely wasn't Roy. But he'd read up on all the lingo and knew the designation was part of the atmosphere.

Her eyes dropped and flew back up. Good girl.

"One more thing. What's your safe word?" He knew what it was, needed her to say it so they were both clear.

"Huntress. Not that it matters." An angry fire lit up her eyes.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Seeing how you ignored it last time, not sure why we're even discussing it."

Last time...last time....When did he ignore-His equilibrium abandoned him, and he grabbed the edge of the desk. "Oh no, oh God. Please tell me I-"

"Didn't shoot your doped-up come inside me after I used my safe word?"

His stomach dropped, and he scrambled for the right words. He couldn't find any, because they didn't exist.

"Forget it." She pushed back her shoulders and thrust out her tits. Facing the world's biggest douche-bag while nude would've made a common person cringe. Not this amazing woman.