I'm alive.

A large hand lifted into her vision, entwined its fingers with her own, and she felt Mac's broad chest pressed into her shoulder blades.

And I'm not alone.

In that quiet moment she saw what she was and could be to him - Mistress, lover, woman. What she already might be to him. Everything. A humbling, terrifying and exhilarating thought all at once.

"Okay?" he murmured, his voice like a soothing stroke over every raw nerve, drawing a curtain over the things she could not bear to face right now, that her consciousness would have to accept a small piece at a time. A bullet firing, a man's face turning into meat, the stop of a heartbeat.

"Let it go for tonight, sugar." His hand whispered down over her back, the curve of her waist, her hip, his fingertips smoothing over her skin like raindrops sliding down, the touch of something natural, expected, known. Something that sustained life. Hope.

"Do you know what I thought when he lifted the gun, and I knew it was going to fire?" She kept her eyes on the movement of the waters through the marsh grass, stirred from the movement of some creature who dwelled there, she expected.

She could have chosen not to tell him, knew it probably was not wise to tell him, but in the loneliest hour of the night, there was only truth, and a trust that she could tell him anything.

"What, baby?"

Her lips curved at the endearment, one a Mistress didn't often get to hear. Her alpha male.

"I thought, 'What if I never see Mac again?'"

She looked up at him then and found him leaning over her, those silver eyes so close and alive, silver filled with moonlight. "That was the last thought I had before that gun fired."

His arms closed around her and he lifted her up against his chest, enclosing her in his heat and strength. Warmth. Life. He was pure, pulsing life. She kept her arms tucked into her body, letting him hold her completely, surround her, her forehead and lips pressed to his chest.

"Make love to me, Mackenzie," she whispered. "Please. Nothing but you and me."

He eased her back, looked into her face. He didn't ask if she was sure, but he gave her that moment. She reached up, touched his jaw.

The kiss took her under, into a warm, languid world of pleasant dreams and slow thoughts that drifted into waters that turned her, spun her in a dizzying eddy of light and sensation. She opened her mouth and tasted him, the moist heat of responsive flesh, and his arms increased their hold upon her, so she felt the beat of his heart and the arousing stir of his cock against her hip and stomach.

He eased her to her back, his silhouette over her, and the moonlight gave her another glimpse of his expression, intent, devoted to her, worshipping her, cozening her, desiring her. He could have held back, let her only see the gentleness, but as if he knew instinctively what she needed, he revealed that flare of male desire, the impatient lust to take, and her blood stirred, suddenly eager for his passion, the brutal strength of a taking.

She brought his head down to her breast and then took her hands beneath the covers to find the hem of the T-shirt she wore, get it out of the way. Before she could, he had bracketed her breasts in his larger hands, stretching the soft fabric tight over the taut points, and brought his mouth down on one to torture her through the cloth. Dampen it with his mouth, lick and suckle her through the rub and caress of the cotton.

"Mac." Her voice was a breath of sound in the quiet bedroom. His knee pressed between her thighs, and she spread open for him, cradling him, gasping as he seated his cock against her sensitive clit and pubic bone. She was naked beneath the shirt. And he had come to bed naked, making himself available to her in any way she needed him.

He didn't crush her, but he used his weight to advantage, keeping her helplessly pinned as he nursed her breasts, one then the other, then back to the first. She didn't know how he'd act as an equal partner in the bedroom, had wondered if he'd rush it like most men to get the pussy he craved, but he was paying ardent homage to her breasts. The fluid arousal in her lower body emanated through her like a cyclone of energy, through her belly, widening to encompass her breasts. From the anchor point between her legs to the flare of her arched upper torso, she became a tornado, undulating, twisting the small amount allowed by his grip. He stopped suckling and started flicking her nipples with his tongue. A firm flick, several rapid flicks, one slow, then over to the other for the same treatment and back again. The quick tweak of friction made her jerk and her heels dig down into the mattress helplessly. Her pubic bone ground insistently against him, her cunt slick against his hard abdomen as she mewled in ecstatic distress.

"Mackenzie," she gasped.

"No orders, sugar. Just take it. Let me make you crazy." He pressed his hips firmly against hers and she screamed at the rocket of sensation that spun through her pussy and up to each nipple tip that he continued to torment with that firmly flicking tongue. Left. Right, back again. Flick.

She felt the shudder start in her thighs. At the exact moment he raised his head, shifted his grip to her upper arms and shoved hard into her, her climaxing pussy clamped down on him, making him ram through the tight clutch of her muscles. He lifted his hips, slammed into her again, and kept to it, bucking her light frame like a doll on the bed. He was giving her full strength, holding nothing back, and it was frightening, bruising her. Yet she wanted it, his loss of control, this savage hunger in his eyes that could consume the image of gunfire and hatred, sweep that away and leave nothing but a helpless surrender to this.

She was strong enough to match him emotionally on any field, but she knew he was making it clear he had the strength to shelter her whenever she needed it. Protect her not only from whatever life threw her way, but from herself. Like now. Under that was his anger, irrational as they both knew it was, for risking her life, for making him worry, and so she opened wider, let him give it all to her, all of himself, the anger with the desire.

She had no choice, regardless. All she could do was hold on, cry his name and let the pounding waves of the orgasm take her once...twice...three times. Each time she thought she was done, he changed his angle in that skillful way he had, and she shot into the storm again, until she was sure she could bear no more, that his hard, relentless cock would be the instrument of blissful destruction for her.

She came off the third wave like a surfer who had been tossed into the embrace of the ocean and rolled over and over, landing on the sun-kissed beach in a state of limp, exhilarated exhaustion. Her pussy was like a small fist, opening and closing in spasmodic vibrations on his cock, and it took more than a few moments to realize he was still hard within her, his body held still and waiting against her.

Though she had not commanded it, he had offered it as a gift to her, which made the gesture all the more potent. Her body quivered in renewed response as she touched his face without opening her eyes, traced the firm lips, the tense jaw, the trembling body.

"Come for me, Mackenzie," she whispered. "You have my permission. Come for me now. But do it while stroking inside me very...very...slowly."

His hands went to her thighs, raised them so her ankles rested on his shoulders. He levered her up higher, his face close to hers, and then he began to stroke her, slow and even.

"All the way to the head of your cock," she whispered. "Then back in, so slow, so gradual, feel every kiss of my pussy upon you. Ah, God." He was hung like a horse in truth, filling her completely. "Out...slow now...slow."

"Mistress..." His hips jerked, his shoulders shuddered.

"Stop," she said abruptly, sharply, and he froze, his expression conveying how close he was.

"Mistress-"

"Obey me, Mackenzie."

He stopped, fully deep inside her, and her muscles contracted, squeezing him, stroking him. He had a skylight to let in the sun across the bed during the day, and here in the night it cast a reflection, so she could see the outline of her legs as she lowered them, curled over his hips and taut buttocks. She could see the powerful ridges of muscle standing out on his back. She ran her palms over them, caressing the breadth of those massive shoulders, sliding down, down, cupping her hands over him, feeling the heat gather, no matter where she touched him. She reached his ass and traced her fingers in the crease, dug her nails into the muscular crescents.

"God, I'd want you for your ass alone," she muttered.

"And here I was, thinking it was my mind." He gave a weak chuckle. "Mistress, you're destroying me."

Her lashes rose, so she looked into the passionate silver eyes, registered the tremendous struggle for control and his overwhelming need. For her.

"That's the point, Mackenzie," she whispered. Then she closed her eyes, took him in through her other senses, skin touching skin, her fingertips whispering slowly down the smooth, firm body, the muscles earned, the occasional change of texture from a scar.

"It's like going into a temple and seeing the sacred relic there," she said, her voice still no louder than his held breath. "Wanting to touch it. Not because someone told you not to, though there is that." Her lips curved slightly. "But because you can sense a living presence in it, just beneath the surface of the elements. And you know, if you can just touch it, really feel it, feel what it means, what its soul is made of, then you can be part of it. Forever connected, never alone."

She lifted her gaze, and in his she saw the truth of her words reflected back to her. She saw that gateway open and beckoning, her words having opened it within him. Break the body, and the soul must defend itself. Her body had been broken today, and her soul had turned to him to be her champion. Now his hands touched her face, as she was touching his body, with a hesitant reverence, trying to absorb the meaning of every inch, take it into him, the way she was taking him into her.

"I'm all yours, sugar," he said. "My soul is yours."

"Now," she breathed. "Without moving, without any friction, start to come for me, Mackenzie. Just from my command. Feel my voice on you like my warm, wet pussy, every syllable caressing you..."

He groaned, shuddered, and the climax burst from him, took him in the imposed paralytic state. Violet's words clogged in her throat, overcome by watching him battle his nature to obey her, allowing the climax to crash through his body, his cock pulsing but not moving within her as it shot hot seed. He quivered, staring at her, his face rigid with restraint, his hips moving just a little, quick jerks that could not be helped because of the force of the sensation.

It was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen, a man fighting to climax almost motionlessly, his entire being centered on the woman beneath him. Which made the energy from him even more powerful.

She lifted her hips, unable to resist the temptation herself anymore. He surged forward, knowing he'd been released, and they came together like the explosive collision of two planets, shattering into a million pieces to form a whole new universe.

Chapter 20.

"You're going to work," she snapped. "I will be fine. You said you need to investigate a couple of og leads at the gym and at the office. I can handle myself today, Mac."

He made a noncommittal noise and slid a stack of buttermilk pancakes in front of her.

Violet looked down. He had put fresh strawberries along the side of the pancakes, and cut them so they looked like rosebuds, using their green tops as a frame of greenery. Humor struggled with her attempt to make a serious point. "You are seriously cute," she informed him.

He smiled. "Same goes, sugar." He feathered his hand across her cheek, and she pressed into his touch.

Mac didn't have the heart, or perhaps the bravery, to tell her he'd never seen her look so appealing, sitting there at his table in just his shirt, looking ill as a hornet. But he could see in her face she needed him to back off. And though he didn't want to be more than ten feet from her today, he understood how important it was not to crowd at a time like this. "Can't blame a big male chauvinist pig for wanting to protect you."

She snorted. "It wouldn't matter if I was a female bodybuilder, you'd want to protect me, keep me out of danger. You were seething with it when you walked into the emergency room yesterday, like you wanted to shake me for daring to have a job that took me out of the kitchen and the bedroom."

His jaw flexed, and some of that anger swelled to the surface. "Well, I did want to shake you. I don't want you in danger, ever." His hand closed over hers. "Look at you. You weigh nothing, you're like a miniature doll."

"A doll that can bring you to your knees and make you beg," she reminded him with a challenging fire in her eyes.

"Want to try arm wrestling?"

"I'd win, because I'd order you to let me win."

His grin was quick. "That's what you think, sugar. And you don't strike me as the cheating kind."

"I'll stay right here," she promised. "I'll even make you dinner, use my formidable culinary skills. Popcorn and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We can rent a movie, and I can moan occasionally to get sympathy from you. And I have Boscoe."

He had gotten up early and retrieved her beagle, so now the short-legged hound was beneath the table, responding to her ear fondling with a happy grin.

He hesitated, and she saw the truth of it. "You're going out tonight, on assignment. I'll meet you at The Zone, then."

"This isn't your case, Violet."

"You said yourself, being with a Mistress will get you better access to the other players there. Now that I know that, we can do better mixing and mingling, give you that choice." She caught her fingers in his shirt, drew him close. "Besides which, you're mine, and I don't want anyone else touching what's mine. Understand?"

He brushed his lips over hers. Pleased to see the spark back in her eyes, he cursed the fact he had to get back to work, especially since his cock responded as eagerly as Boscoe to the sharp command.

"Yes, Mistress." He gave her a deeper kiss, enjoyed the way her hand curled into his shirt, dug in. It was difficult to break the contact, raise his head. "But you can take the night off. I am scoping out the gym angle today. That's why I may be late. I'm going to hit a couple of them this evening, during the prime times. Why don't you go see your Mom for a few hours? You talked to her last night, but I'm sure she'd want to see you, and you said she's only an hour away."

She looked at him, hard. "You're not lying to me."

"No, I'm not," he said firmly. "And I never will."

Though if he told the total truth, he didn't want her even the short distance away at her mother's. He wanted her tucked safe and sound into his house tonight, watching old movies and waiting for him to come home. Ruefully, he realized she was right about him. When it came to his woman, his Mistress, he was a sexist pig.

"Top Form is a workout club owned and run by two of your Mistresses, Tamara and Kiera Whitmeyer. Five of the female Doms from The Zone have memberships there." Consuela handed him the printout. "Two more, Lisbeth Holmes and Marguerite Perruquet, had a temporary guest membership. One of the male Doms, Tyler Winterman, also has a membership there, if that's relevant. However, only one of your vics had a membership, and it was a guest membership he used once. The hunch's got a good feel to it, but there's not a strong evidence connection."

Mac studied the paper. "She could have staked out the parking lot at the workout clubs of the others rather than getting a membership. Even followed them to a bar to make the contact. It's going to be one of these. I can feel it."

"Well, make it come together soon," Consuela glanced over at the pin-up board. "I'm getting real tired of the visuals around this place.

"Now this is of particular interest," she pulled out a sheet. "This Marguerite Perruquet had a brother kill himself at age fourteen. The investigating officer said he picked up some serious undercurrents at the house. If he had to guess, he would have said the boy had been sexually molested by the father. Never could prove anything, though. From what we got from The Zone staff, Marguerite prefers younger men."

"She's symbolically punishing the brother?" Suarez raised a brow. "That seems fucked up."

"Unless she blames him for leaving her alone with the father, because maybe he turned to her after the boy died. I'm going to go sign up for a guest pass at Top Form this afternoon," Mac said. "I'm with Connie. I'd sure like to nail whoever our murderess is before I'm standing over more of her work. Here's another interesting coincidence." Mac pointed to the timeline. "Marguerite's guest membership coincides with the time frame in which Rodriguez was murdered, the one vic who did have a membership to Top Form."

"But no correlation on the others, though admittedly the gym that Turner belonged to doesn't keep any type of records on guest memberships."

Consuela ran a hand over her tired features, reminding Mac that she'd been busting her ass on the research end of this case as many nights as he'd worked the field angle.

"You okay, Con?"

"Yeah." She studied the murder pictures. "You know, Mac, they didn't deserve to die like this, but I got to admit, I don't totally disagree with Suarez. It's a dangerous thing to give someone this much control over you. A guy has to have something wrong with him. It's like some type of weird Mommie Dearest complex. And don't even get me started on the women who like to be tied up. Hundreds of years to get men not to treat us like house pets, and you've got a bunch of idiot bitches begging to be tied up and beaten."

"I don't know, Connie." Suarez flashed her a grin from his desk. "I kind of like the idea of you in thigh-high boots with a whip."

She shook her head. "Dominatrixes, my ass. Probably just feminists who get off on beating men the way we've been beaten down all these years. Still sick, but at least I can understand that better. It's the subs I don't understand."

Because she was trying to understand the politics of it, and there were no politics to it, Mac knew. It was about trust and power exchanges, not political correctness. Submission was the offered gift. In a way, it was not much different from marriage, two people submitting to one another's will, open to the give and take that led to unity, a complete opening of the heart to one another. Pain and relinquishing control could break down the walls even faster, make a person realize what it was he really needed, without all the fog that political baggage could bring into a relationship.

Consuela cocked a brow. "Mac, you with us?"

"Mmm."

"I think you've been immersed in this stuff way too much. Go out, go see a ball game. Hit on some gorgeous woman and have her blow you off."

"Classy." Mac chuckled, shaking his head. "How about you do the same, Con? Go home, have your husband go down on you a few times, if you can keep the kids out of the room long enough."

Suarez hooted with laughter. Mac snatched up his files and narrowly dodged the stapler Consuela slung his way. Grinning, he retreated to the conference room, enjoying the stream of creative Cuban epithets following him, and the more relaxed expression on his co-worker's face. A few moments later, he heard them return to debating the pros and cons of the S M lifestyle and blocked it out, focusing on the information in front of him.

An hour later, he looked up to see Darla leaning in the doorway.

"I hear you're headed for the gym. You think you should take some backup?"

He shook his head. "I'm just scoping it out, see if I pick up a scent. I'll check in with you at nine, let you know if I'm hitting The Zone tonight, though I doubt it. Violet will be incommunicado today, but she should be back in the game in a day or so."

"Is she doing okay?"

He nodded. He wanted to say more, extract some further promises from Sergeant Rowe to keep Violet's identity secret, even if it cost him his life. No matter how he had accepted it, he could not tolerate the idea of her being exposed to the type of thinking he'd just heard, though rationally he knew she was an adult and likely had heard it before. As he had, countless times. Like kids hidden in a closet, hearing what other kids really thought of them.