She wiggled free from his grasp and touched a finger to his dimple, his chin, and his lips. He held himself immobile, not breathing, waiting.

A glassy sheen slid over her hypnotic eyes and a tear escaped, glancing off her cheek. "Am I...are we safe here? If Roy orchestrated our separation, could he have followed me here?"

Yes. Roy was probably waiting for the right moment, trying to avoid a scene like the one at her apartment in New York. "There are twenty bodyguards surrounding this building. We're as safe here as we are on the bus."

A smile trembled on her lips and fell away. "I'm sorry I doubted you." She pulled her hand back and curled it against her belly.

He cupped her face and rested his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry I ever gave you a reason to doubt me."

She nodded, released a tattered breath, and threw her arms around his neck.

Spinning on the edge of giddiness, he kissed her face and her lips and dreamed of all the ways he wanted to make her glow. Her flesh warmed under his palms as he ran his hands down her spine and over the taut globes of her ass. "Just like heaven."

"You look like you've been through hell." She mussed his hair with one hand, the other clinging to his waist. "Have you eaten?"

He stretched his fingers around the back of her thigh and curled them between her legs. "I want to eat you."

"Put her on the bed and you can." Conrad appeared behind her, the rope wound over his shoulder. "That is, if you plan on sticking around for the remainder of the scene."

Chapter Eighty-Seven.

"What do you mean, the remainder of the scene?" Jay swung his head, scanning the room for Charlee's clothes. Where did she leave them?

She uncurled from his embrace and lowered to her knees, head bowed. His mind scrambled to make excuses for the change, even as he knew what the pose meant.

Conrad watched him from beneath dark brows. "The look on your face tells me you've never witnessed a scene before."

Did internet videos count? He'd also perused fetish sites while she slept, trying to glean safe techniques to use on her. "We've...played."

"How's that working for you? Both of you?" Conrad hung the rope on a hook on the wall. "Are you comfortable in your role?"

No. Not if his role meant hurting her. Jay bent, brushed the hair from her face. "Charlee, is this what you want?"

Hands folded behind her stick-straight back, she stared at the floor beneath her spread knees.

"Address me. Not her." Conrad walked to a tall cabinet. "This is my dungeon. My scene. She entered this room because that is what she wants."

Jay's dignity insisted she choose between him and Conrad right that goddamned minute, but he knew it would've been an ignorant thing to force on her. He was there to learn from the man, not battle him in a dick-measuring contest.

Rifling through a drawer, Conrad pulled out a form and handed it to him. "Half of my clientele are couples. Often, I'm helping one learn how to dominate or submit to the other. Sign this waiver, and we'll proceed."

Her subservient posture rooted Jay in realization. It wasn't just the fear that got her off. It was the submission to it. His visceral response was to drag her far away from this lifestyle, but his devotion and attachment to her had him reaching for a pen and signing the form.

Conrad returned the paper to the cabinet. "You didn't read it."

"Doesn't matter." Resolve pulsed deep in his chest.

"If I break your famous fingers, you can't sue me for ruining your career." Not a wrinkle of a grin on Conrad's face.

Great. Said fingers curled into his palms.

Conrad lowered his gaze to Charlee. "In this room, who is your Master?"

"You are, Sir."

Jay's spine snapped straight.

"Who is your other Master?" Conrad moved to the wall and retrieved a whip.

"Jay." The twitch in her cheek matched the smile in her voice. "Sir."

"Master Jay is your Master, and I am his Master."

Jay was certain the macho-egotist stated that for his benefit, but he put his own ego aside and bit back his Go eat a dick retort.

"Remove your clothes." Conrad leveled his gaze on him. "Place them on the chair by the door."

Her head shot up, crimson locks tangling in her blinking eyes. "Sir? He-"

"I've got this, Charlee." Jay toed off his sneakers, removed his socks, and shoved down his pants sans briefs. His cock pointed to the floor, dispirited by the chafing conversation. "The shirt is staying on."

Turning his back on Conrad's scowl, he placed his jeans beside hers on the chair and sorted through the questions storming his thoughts. "She can come without pain if she's anticipating it. If I stop hurting her, she'll stop anticipating it. Can I get her there without ever hurting her?"

"You sure you're hurting her?" Conrad unraveled the whip.

Reflections of a sandpaper belt, bamboo pole, clamps, and spankings flickered through his mind, ushered by a throb in his head. "Yeah."

He padded to her side and wondered if she was entertaining a private chuckle about his attire. He tugged on the collar of the t-shirt, the only thing he wore, and smiled. Yep. She was definitely laughing at him.

"The hurt she experiences is relative." Conrad aimed the whip at the empty side of the room and snapped it through the air.

The crack shot Jay's shoulders to his ears. Beside him, Charlee didn't flinch.

"I spoke at length with her Dom in New York. She's a masochist." Seriousness smoothed Conrad's expression. "This means she processes pain differently than we do. She feeds from it, eroticizes it." He closed the distance and stared down at her. "She may not have an ache for it every time, but if she's struggling with something, if she's having a bad day, she'll need it. If you're open with each other, she'll tell you when and how severe to make the discipline."

Were they open? Jay considered the days following the San Francisco murders and the grief she carried over the death of the nineteen-year-old girl. She'd erected a wall and refused pain during sex. Dammit, he should've prodded and recognized what she'd needed.

"BDSM is a trade of power. Many are driven to the lifestyle because of unhealthy power dynamics in past relationships." Conrad thinned his lips and scrutinized the top of Charlee's head. "Submitting to a Dom in a safe and consensual environment can help her prevent bad dynamics in her current relationships. It trains her how to control her responses to power, and she can find a great deal of freedom and triumph in that."

He had to give the guy credit. Conrad illustrated a logical perspective on kinksters. In fact, shit was a whole lot clearer. Since the power in BDSM play was consensual, it made it superior to the systems of power experienced in everyday life. Anyone working a job under the rules of a boss was forced into a position of nonconsensual power. Hell, the regime at Windsor Records dictated how he smiled and what songs to write. Discriminations on social castes, gender, sexual preferences, and race were other forms of power. All nonconsensual.

Jay placed a hand on her head, sifting fingers through her satiny hair. Abuse and rape, the most potent case of nonconsensual power, was why she was there. Time to find out if he could give her the control she sought, in an authentic dungeon, under the watchful eyes of a professional.

No pressure. He steadied his breath, relaxed his limbs, and sat on the edge of the low mattress. "Charlee. Come here. On your knees."

She crawled the distance to Jay, her eyes locked on his rising cock. As if her stare had cast a hardening spell, he swelled to full length.

He skimmed a finger over her bottom lip. "What's your safe word?"

"Huntress."

"Suck me." Imparting those words pumped determination through his veins and a throb to his groin.

Kneeling between his legs and flattening her back, she circled her lips around him, flicking her tongue and sliding up and down in a slow rhythm. A tremor raced over his thighs and his breath caught. Fuck. Focus. He met Conrad's eyes.

Conrad shook out the whip, and the tail skated across the wood floor. "First lesson, Jay Mayard, is understanding the difference between good hurt and bad hurt."

Jay lay back on the mattress and gathered her hands on his chest, restraining them there. He understood bad hurt, knew it deeply, but he would listen and watch intently. He needed to give her the required pain without harming her. When Conrad finished his verbal instruction on how not to use a whip, he reared back his arm.

Crack.

Her gasp swathed his dick. He tilted his head and glimpsed a pink line blooming on the rise of her ass. The hurt she experiences is relative.

Crack...crack.

Her mouth glided over and under him, her breath steady, eyes closed. Fucking hell, she was magnificent. The cracks of the whip continued a steady pace as did the suction of her lips. A dozen or so strikes later and his orgasm was simmering, too fast, too soon.

"Straddle me." Jay sat forward, coughing to clear the thickness in his voice.

She unfolded in a smooth rise and stood before him, gaze resting on his. Pushing her hands through his hair, she climbed onto his lap. Her face dipped, closer, closer, and he arched his neck to meet her lips.

She parted her mouth and rolled her tongue with his. It wasn't one of her blistering, fuck-me kisses that stole his breath and tightened his balls. Instead, her lips moved over his with apology and gratitude, so yielding and peaceful, his throat tightened and the backs of his eyes ached.

When the kiss ended, he pulled her to his chest and they sat in silence, bodies molded together, neither of them making a move to loosen the embrace. Call him a man, but it was a treasured closeness, with his erection trapped between their bellies, her swollen nipples rubbing through his shirt.

After a few shared breaths, he gripped her waist and raised her, working his fingers inside her. So fucking wet. He replaced his hand with the head of his cock and entered her, gazes fused in a helpless lock. Slowly, effortlessly, he slid her down to the hilt and her groan rivaled his.

Arms hooked around her hips and ass, he held her immobile. "Master Conrad, can you strike her back in this position?"

"Yes." Conrad tagged a short rope from the wall. "If her hands are bound with yours behind you."

With a few practiced knots, Conrad shackled her wrists with Jay's and secured them at the middle of his back.

Jay sucked in a breath as Conrad's hands moved over his wrists. No shed. No oven. Nothing but Charlee's muscles sheathing his dick and the energy shifting between their joined bodies. He shuddered. The urge to thrust sent his molars crashing together. He was a pussy-clench away from ejaculating. "Hold still."

She closed her eyes and twisted her hands against his back until their fingers half-laced together. Her face glowed in the natural light of the room.

"I love your eyelashes." He smothered them with kisses. "So red. Why didn't I notice that when you were blonde in St. Louis?"

"Mascara." Her lips twitched, and her eyes remained closed.

Whack.

Her eyes flew open, and she rose up on his cock. The tiny movement teased electric shocks down his legs. Over her shoulder, Conrad reared back a leather flogger.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

Jay moaned with her as her cunt contracted. He thrust again and again, bucking and grinding, their fingers clenching together and their mouths colliding. With each hit of the flogger, he moved faster, harder. Her breath sharpened, and her tongue slashed urgently with his.

"Jay. Jaaaaay." Her head fell back, and her body shuddered.

The quake of her release stroked him into a mindless world of sensations, tearing his climax from him in violent waves. "Unnngh, fuck. Oh, fuck. I'm coming."

Floating down with noisy gasps for air, he dropped his head on her shoulder and savored the sweet aroma of her skin.

She squeezed his fingers and pressed her lips to his ear. "Huntress."

He felt her message deep inside him. She'd gained what she sought without abusing her safe word. His happiness demanded he kiss her. So he did, thoroughly.

Conrad knelt behind him and unlaced the rope. "We're scheduled for another hour. I can show you some things to take on the road."

"Thanks, yeah, let's do it." Jay didn't try to mute his post-coital grin. "But don't expect me to remember your name in the morning."

Charlee's laugh burst through him, split open his heart, and filled it with light.

Chapter Eighty-Eight.

Charlee huddled against Jay in the crowded corridor of Conrad's apartment building. Eight or nine bodyguards cocooned them, blocking her ability to see the front door and the street beyond. She caught Nathan's vigilant gaze where he stood beside her and offered him a smile.

He returned it. "The buses have been making laps around the city for the last hour, waiting for you to emerge. They'll be here any second."

Her cheeks heated. She'd been so wrapped up in Jay, so eager to watch him take charge in the dungeon, she hadn't considered the dozens of people waiting for them.

Jay raised her chin with a knuckle. "Don't worry about them. They have a fucktillion ways to entertain themselves. Rockstars, remember?"

"What about your schedule?"

"What schedule? We don't have a tour manager anymore."