For the time being, Des was supposed to minimize contact with immune system risk factors, like groups of children. Julie knew that, but she'd been at the theater when he'd decided to invite the kids over, so she hadn't been able to run interference. Not that it would have helped much, since Des was getting more recalcitrant with every pa.s.sing day. Whereas he'd take a certain amount of mothering from Betty, he tolerated zero levels of it from Julie.

However, though Betty was scathing in her discussion with him, she'd called Julie later to give her some even-handed advice. "He's going stir crazy. Once the cold pa.s.ses, if he'd be a help to you at the theater and no one there is an adolescent petri dish, see if he'd like to go to work with you."

Julie hadn't attempted to snow him as to her reasons. She simply asked him if he'd like to come with her to the theater to get out of the house. With a searching look, he accepted.

It turned out to be the best solution for all of them. Not surprising to her, he was a big help, and it came at an opportune time. Lila's play had opened and run with better than decent ticket sales for all showings. Harris and Madison had picked up the extra slack and made it happen while Julie's care and attention were focused on Des.

Audience reception was so strong to Done Right, they decided to ride its momentum. The next production they'd planned had hit a scheduling hitch, so they b.u.mped it further down the schedule and decided to do a follow up play Lila had already written, set in the same world.

Julie was pleasantly surprised to find Des was willing to do anything needed to help, even mundane clerical tasks. One day he sat with her at a table in the front row, a.s.sembling promo packets for her student volunteers to pa.s.s out at the area colleges, local community organizations and anywhere else potential audience members would be. As she'd sat across from him, working on her computer and emailing press releases to the local news outlets, she'd secretly watched and savored his efficient way of working while he bantered with the tech repairing a couple of lights along the stage edge.

Lila was directing this play as she had the first, with heavy support and guidance from Harris and Julie. During rehearsals, Des provided good input to her on how the Dom/sub dynamics would come across to an audience. He also supervised volunteers on scene building-after Julie made it clear she would eviscerate anyone who let him do anything he shouldn't.

He didn't appreciate such overprotectiveness and was quick to inform her of it, not always in kind terms. She understood there was a line he didn't care for their relationship to cross, but she also couldn't help caring about him and being protective. Fortunately, through their arguments, they learned to understand one another somewhat better.

"You're not going to get to be bossy much longer," he warned her in a lighter moment. "You'll be back at my mercy and then I'll make you sorry."

"Yes, I'm a terrible girlfriend for looking out for you," she retorted. Yet she longed for that time as much as he did.

However, his recuperation period brought a bolstering rea.s.surance about the substance of their relationship. While she'd never thought it was based only in s.e.x and BDSM, before his surgery those things had been new and exciting enough to overshadow learning other things about one another.

He didn't care much for TV, but they both loved good films. He liked Fast and Furious type action films, while she was a cla.s.sic film buff. They found common likes in older movies such as Forrest Gump and Regarding Henry. They also enjoyed choosing the worst of the B flicks-double ZZ bas.e.m.e.nt finds, as Des called them-to dissect over popcorn.

They returned to Daniel Stowe gardens and wandered the trails, enjoying the flowers, sitting by the water and talking about everything. They never ran out of topics, though she equally liked their comfortable silences. One night when Betty deemed he was doing well enough to be out in a crowded environment-and he was chafing too much at the prolonged restrictions to keep him at home-they joined Logan, Madison, Troy and Shale at a karaoke bar and each tried out the mic, with hilarious results.

Though Des tired out before midnight, he tipped his chair against the wall behind him and enjoyed watching the others. She leaned against him, hand lightly on his thigh, and feeling glad to be there with him.

They talked about deeper things, too. Elaine, his mother, her relationship with Thomas and Marcus. When her friends had headed back to their North Carolina house after the surgery, Thomas had told her they'd be there for at least a month. She knew there were plenty of good doctors to handle his follow up in New York, so she suspected they were staying close in case anything came up with Des. She appreciated it, even as she hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

The one thing she and Des didn't talk about much, though Julie knew it was on both of their minds, was the future. A healthy kidney like Thomas's might last Des eleven years, but she worried about when it would give out. At that point, he might be on dialysis permanently. But that was the future, and he wouldn't let her talk about it, not now. As his strength returned, he had other priorities in mind. One night, he let her know it in unmistakable terms.

"It's a full moon tonight," he mused, looking at the play of its light coming through the window, creating a silvery-white beam on the bedspread. Julie lay in his arms, a luxury during his healing that was becoming blissfully routine again. Her fingertips slid over his bare chest and he turned his head to nuzzle her temple. There was a different quality to the caress, more firm, questing, and she drew in a breath as he moved down to her cheek, nudging her jaw so she lifted her chin and he kissed her throat. Her arms wound over his shoulders, fingers sliding through his hair.

"Des..."

"Love the way you say my name like that," he murmured. "Look at me."

She lifted her head to meet his gaze as his fingers took over from his mouth, stroking her throat, tracing her collar bone, his palm moving over her heart and holding there, a pressure that made her aware of her heartbeat and the sudden concentration in his brown eyes.

"For just a second there, you let it all go. Your body took over, your soul, that submissive side that surrenders to me. It's time to let the rest go, love."

Her brow furrowed and he shook his head. "Do you have to talk about how you breathe? No," he answered the obvious question. "Because you just do it. I told you from the beginning, I've carried this with me my whole life. I live the best way I can to ride the train as long as possible. I don't want to miss a bit of the scenery because I'm too focused on where the train will end up. I need you to do that, Julie, now more than ever. Your worry is killing me."

She was wearing a silky baby doll that he'd talked her into buying and wearing to bed, with the droll observation, "Just because I can't use my c.o.c.k right now doesn't mean I don't like to keep it entertained." He slid the thin strap off her shoulder so he could finish his caress of her collar bone to the point of her shoulder unimpeded. He brushed his knuckles over her breast, teasing the ripe curve. His heated eyes remained on hers.

"When I see you worrying, I worry about you, and all this scenery gets ruined for both of us. If this is going to work, you have to enjoy the train ride with me and not get bogged down. Sounds selfish of me to demand that, I know, but if you can do that, I promise that att.i.tude will take us both to a better state of mind. A synergistic reaction like some other things we enjoy. Hmm?"

She smiled tentatively, through a swirl of reaction from his touch. It made sense, didn't it? After all, yes, she could lose him, but he could lose his life. If he could figure out how to handle that reality without being obsessed with it, so could she.

"I'm just new to it," she said. "I can do it. I just need practice."

"I can help with that." His mouth curved, and he placed her in the full block of moonlight. "Lift up."

When she complied, he put a pillow under her back, making a tempting bridge of her body. Her heartrate kicked up. Being around him on a normal day was like being around an aphrodisiac. Since he'd started to regain his strength, they'd made a concerted effort to ignore their smoldering chemistry, but his expression said he planned to turn up the heat.

"Take off the gown and the panties. I want to see my sub."

She complied. She didn't want to fall back into worry so readily, but he wasn't yet cleared to have s.e.x. Was he planning on pushing that envelope? Would she be able to deny him?

"Ssshh. Your thoughts are making a racket," he chided her. "I want to watch you, love. And we're going to do it my way."

He left the bed, a visual gift in his loose pajama bottoms and nothing else. He'd lost some muscle tone and weight, but not much, his lean torso as wiry and interesting to her as it had ever been. The surgical scar still gave her heart a little jump. Reaching out, she grazed her fingertips over his flank as he bent over his dresser.

He turned, holding a handful of rope. "Lace those wandering hands behind your head. I'm turning you into my own personal pin-up."

He tied her wrists and fingers above her head. Running the ropes over her b.u.t.terfly spread elbows and upper arms, he did an elaborate breast harness that constricted and lifted the curves, putting them on lush display for his avid gaze. Next he brought the ropes beneath her, through her thighs. He spread her knees, bent and tied them in the same b.u.t.terfly shape, giving her a true hourgla.s.s look. He did an elaborate rope harness over her pelvis with more slender rope.

When he was done, he hooked his fingers in the slim rope, stroking the small knots over her c.l.i.t and l.a.b.i.a, watching the way she squirmed, lifted, undulated. He'd left her enough movement to be a man's wet dream, struggling and quivering, her limbs, b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips bathed in moonlight. Her throat arched and her wet lips parted.

"Des," she pleaded as he put his fingers inside her. His jaw was tight, his gaze relentless, that shift that let her into the darkest room of his soul. It was a dungeon where he wanted to possess her completely, take her to this.

"Your gorgeous wet c.u.n.t. f.u.c.k, I want to be ramming into it, reminding you I'm boss. Sounds cavemanish, doesn't it?" he mused. "But that's the way weeks of this s.h.i.t makes me feel. That's what's coming for you, love, when I get full strength. Just some merciless, caveman, Master-slave, nothing PC about it, f.u.c.king. I need to drown you in a boatload of Tarzan."

"Okay," she agreed, breathlessly. "But you don't have to do this for me. I want to come when you're ready, when we can go together..."

He chuckled, a dangerous sound. "This doesn't have anything to do with what you want. I'm not being selfless, love. You'll know that before it's over. Watching this happen, turning you into some wanton little s.e.x slave on my bed, may turn me on so bad it'll give me an aneurysm, but you don't call the shots. You're going to come for me. Again and again. And again. When you're exhausted, limp in my arms like a pretty little hen buffeted by a storm, I'm going to do it one more time. I want you to be begging for mercy, and not getting any from me. Fair enough?"

"Doesn't sound like fair is your goal." She was surprised her voice was more than a squeak.

"No, it's not. Clever girl." He bent, suckled her c.l.i.t as she jolted at the sensation. Rising to go to the dresser, he returned with a vibrator about six inches long. He fixed it in the small net of rope he'd created over her c.l.i.t and l.a.b.i.a, cinching the lines to hold it there.

"Now see, this will roll a bit," he explained with l.u.s.tful satisfaction. "You'll have to keep squirming to hold it where you want it as you get more and more excited. It'll also give you a little breathing s.p.a.ce as you come down from one climax and charge up the hill to another. But I won't let you take too much of a breather. No cheating."

He turned the vibrator on, and the rhythm was one that would push her up, and drag her down. As she tried to wrap her fragmenting mind around that, Des bent to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and leisurely suckle her distended nipples. The excruciating sensations were coming from everywhere. She rolled and pitched like she was on a turbulent sea.

When he at last sat back, his lips moist from nursing her, he drove her even higher simply by watching her with a man's undisguised hunger. He had an impressive erection against his pajama bottoms, but he seemed to ignore it, focusing on her, taking his satisfaction from his control, what he could do to her.

She toppled over the first o.r.g.a.s.m, and it was a rough, tumultuous one, fueled by several weeks of desperation and worries. Mortality had been beating down both their needs and this was a defiance against it, an answer and challenge at once.

She cried out her response, the unrelenting pulse of the vibrator giving her no quarter. The more she squirmed the higher it took her. When his fingers slid between it and her soaked c.u.n.t, she mewled in relief and jerked as he brushed his fingers over the lips of her s.e.x, communicating a muted form of the vibration through his fingers.

"That's it, my beautiful s.e.x slave. Your Master wants to see you do that again." Lowering his head, he cleaned her with soothing strokes of his tongue. Tears rolled out of her eyes, reflecting what she was feeling. He rose to kiss them away, bracing himself over her. She couldn't explain why she was crying, and he didn't ask, but it wasn't because he didn't notice or was being callous. She suspected they both understood why.

He changed the vibrator rhythm to a gentle roll against her c.l.i.t. He worked it against her sensitive flesh in slow circles. As he did that he was kissing her body, rubbing his sandpaper jaw against her tender skin. He rose to kiss her gasping mouth with leisurely thoroughness. Then he went down again.

Never had she had a lover do this, this unhurried, you-are-my-universe kind of lovemaking where he fed off her every reaction, making it all about her, but all for his own pleasure. She could do nothing but be lost in him, ache for him and love him. There was no conflict here, just two souls dancing forever in a world belonging to the two of them.

Climax after climax. He hadn't been bluffing. He used the vibrator, his mouth, his fingers, the demand of his voice. His piercing eyes, dark as an abyss, insisted, his body looming over her haloed by moonlight.

When he at long last decided he was done, a couple hours had pa.s.sed, and she was a dish rag. No, dishrags had more starch to them. She was as malleable as water, perspiration glistening on her naked body, her lips parted to gulp in air, all her pulse points thudding with a replete la.s.situde.

He adjusted her bonds so he could turn her over on her stomach, bringing her knees beneath her, tying them together, adjusting the pillow so her a.s.s was in the air, her c.u.n.t framed by her thighs. She heard another drawer open, and smelled the fragrant scent of the heated lubricant he'd used on her before. She wasn't able to resist anything and, when she felt the broad tip of a d.i.l.d.o at her rear entrance, she had no resistance. By the time she registered how thick it was, he already had it past both rings of muscle and was easing it deeper into her pa.s.sage.

"Oh G.o.d, Des. That feels..." It was uncomfortable, unnerving, but she was so loose, it wasn't burning. Though the potential was there, a little fizzling sting around her rim. He adjusted the ropes once more to hold the toy in place. She heard a metal clink, and his belt brushed against her a.s.s.

"I decided you needed a reminder. I want to own your soul, Julie. Okay? Give every bit of it to me, so I'll know I didn't f.u.c.k this up, dragging you into this."

"It's already yours," she said, voice breaking. She wanted the pain and punishment. How had he known it? What she heard in his voice said maybe he needed it, too.

He reached beneath her, adjusted the vibrator once more and turned it on to that mind blowing rhythm that made it impossible to stay still. She let out a moan of protest, it was too much, but when the first crack came, she was already lifting into the blow, and the vibrator stroked over her c.l.i.t, sending an impossible shard of pleasure through her.

She shrieked on every strike. The hard sting, the clutch on the d.i.l.d.o in her a.s.s, and the vibration in her c.u.n.t, combined to break her down into whatever he needed, whatever they both did.

Once again, astoundingly, he took her back to climax. This time she was sure it tore open her soul. When it was done, the dam had given way and she was fierce in the grip of a cathartic cry, working out and knocking loose every worry or fear she'd let build up in her all these weeks.

"That's my love. My sweet sub. My girl. There you are."

He'd untied her, was rubbing her back and legs, turning her in his arms, wrapping her up in a blanket and him, holding fast. She put her hand over his, and knew what Elaine had said was right. Whatever she'd felt before, it hadn't been love, not truly. She'd never let herself be lost in someone so completely.

"Ssshh, easy love. Easy, girl. I'm here. I'm a monster, but I'm here."

"Not." She sniffed. "Perfect in every way. Master."

"Sssh. Sleep. It's okay now. Sleep."

She had no choice in that, either, since she'd left behind her own will hours ago and wanted only to obey his every word, give him everything he wanted. She held onto him and was pleased that he didn't let her go, either.

He was right. There was no room between them for any more worries. Only love, and it could fill and overflow their hearts and souls until they swam in it all the way to Heaven.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

A week later, they received an invitation from Marcus and Thomas to stay overnight at their North Carolina house. Elaine wanted them to come for dinner because Les, Thomas's sister, was coming home for the weekend from medical school at Duke University. She hadn't yet had a chance to meet Des.

While she'd normally look forward to any visit with Marcus and Thomas's family, Julie chafed at the timing. The day they were supposed to go was the official day Des had an all-clear to resume all normal activities-including s.e.x. She'd figured Des would prefer to have the privacy of his place to tear her clothes off and do all the things that he'd been threatening, but Des told her to say yes to the invite.

As they left Charlotte that day, Des agreed privacy would be optimal, but he gave her a wink as he took the exit ramp onto I-85.

"They're going to give us a private bedroom, aren't they? They live in the sticks, but it's not like Little House on the Prairie, everyone in a one-room cabin."

"You just admitted you've watched Little House on the Prairie."

"Everyone has watched at least one episode of Little House on the Prairie, no matter how much they deny it," he said staunchly. "Melissa Sue Anderson was hot. And don't get me started on Ma." His gaze slid over her. "I wouldn't mind seeing you in one of those cute farm girl dresses with the little boots and stockings."

"There's something deeply twisted about you."

She chuckled as he grabbed at her knee and she scooched farther against the pa.s.senger seat to avoid him. Even as he teased her, though, she wasn't fooled. Something was up. He had something planned, but he wasn't in the mood to share, even when she probed. But he gave her a nice surge of arousal when he leveled a more direct gaze on her.

"Come here and stop hiding over there."

She moistened her lips and slid back to the center of the seat. He settled his palm on her leg, sliding up to her upper thigh and then turning his hand so he cupped her between her legs under her skirt, fingers playing over her l.a.b.i.a like a violin and sending a quick little shudder through her. "You just sit like that for a while," he said conversationally. "Find us something on the radio while I drive."

"s.a.d.i.s.t."

His eyes glinted, but he kept his hand there until she found a station he preferred. "You feel wet," he said. "I'd like to keep you that way all day, but..." He gave her a firm stroke that made her draw in a breath and put his hand back on her thigh. "That's just a reminder that things will happen when they should happen. All right?"

"Okay." She curled her hand over his. "I'm rethinking wanting you back to 100% again. You may drive me crazy. Crazier, that is."

He shot her a grin. "Sit back and enjoy the ride, love."

Elaine fed them a repast that would put a Thanksgiving dinner to shame. So much so that Julie was afraid they'd need to postpone s.e.xual activity for a week unless she did a marathon jog from here to the state line. Since she abhorred all types of formal exercise, her serious contemplation of the idea said just how desperate she was.

It wasn't that she needed this first time to be acrobatic, rock-her-world kind of s.e.x. She just wanted her Master's c.o.c.k deep inside her, his body pressing her down, his arms around her. She needed that link and connection as much as she needed air, and the more she thought about it, the scarcer the air seemed to be getting.

It didn't help that Des kept touching her, putting a possessive, stroking hand high on her thigh under the table. Or laughing at Marcus's and Rory's banter with his s.e.xy timbre. Or getting that attentive look in his brown gaze as he listened to Elaine. She wondered if his frequent touches were a way of communicating his own urgency, but the difference between her and him was he fed off of denial, fueled by his sub's frustration. The only thing that might keep her from murdering him was that she couldn't have s.e.x with a dead man. Though if she got any more s.e.xually frustrated, her moral barometer might drop precipitously.

Des had shifted his hand to the back of her chair and was playing with her bra strap under her shirt when she was beaned by a biscuit.

"Hey, girl with the idiot dreamy look on her face," Marcus said. "Pay attention. Might as well be freaking newlyweds," he grumbled to Thomas. "When she's not looking at him, he's looking at her."

"Yeah, not like anyone else we know at this table," Les said, rolling her eyes at him and Thomas. She winked at Des. Though when not smiling she looked like the serious overachiever she was, Les was a pleasant girl with brown hair and hazel eyes like her mother's. She became even more animated when Daralyn, a family friend who'd lived with them for the past few years, was here, but Daralyn had a field trip with her community college this weekend. Something Julie was happy to hear because, though she loved being around Daralyn, the young woman was painfully shy and needed to be more socialized.

Marcus sent Les a mock frown. "I have a very important something to tell you both," he said to Julie. "I acquired the information at great personal cost."

"You had to give up hair mousse for a week?" Rory asked, wide-eyed.

"Shut up, crip, or I'll let the air out of your tires," Marcus advised.

Elaine tsked at their byplay. Yet Julie noticed the men were keeping the humor clean if tasteless so she didn't have to resort to outright admonishment.

"Spill. What's this valuable info?" Julie asked.

Marcus glanced at Thomas. He had his arm stretched behind Thomas's chair, body canted toward him, foot propped on the cross piece beneath. Unlike Des and Julie, they'd already been able to resume carnal relations, but from the hawk steadiness of Marcus's gaze, Julie suspected he didn't yet consider them caught up from the deficit. But when had Marcus and Thomas not been like that? Honest to G.o.d, she was going to have a meltdown if she couldn't have Des, or he could have her, two minutes ago.

Des was more than partly to blame, and not because of his attentiveness today. The man had used his Devil-cursed self-discipline to tie her up and do a repeat of that wonderful night several times, a scintillating reinforcement of the Dom and sub bond, as well as the other bonds between them. As much as she loved that, the aftermath had been even more precious. He'd held her so tightly, a quivering ma.s.s of "f.u.c.k it, I want to live" energy that broke the heart and made her love him all the more.

"I had to call Tyler," Marcus informed her.

She returned fully to the present with a mock dramatic gasp, putting her hand to her heart. "Oh my G.o.d, you're right. Thomas, how could you let him make such a terrible sacrifice?"

"I will dip your hair in rubber cement while you sleep," Marcus said.