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When she saw Neil’s truck, Abby told herself to turn around and leave. Instead, she bypassed that lot, following curved roads through the forested section of the city park until she reached the soccer fields. Parking there, the option farthest from his vehicle, should eliminate the chances of her seeing him. It was a big park, with extensive running trails.

He’d told her about it because he knew it was her cardio workout of choice. That was why she was here.

Though if she’d really wanted to avoid all chance of seeing him, she wouldn’t have come early afternoon. That was the time he’d told her he preferred. The New Orleans humidity and nine-to-five job schedules made it a less appealing time for anyone. But he was a Navy SEAL. Seeking out less-than-optimal weather conditions was part of his conditioning.

She wasn’t a Navy SEAL. She ran as the sun was coming up. At that hour the air held onto the fading possibility of coolness. Even more importantly, she witnessed the reassuring way the light pushed back the shadows. The voices needed their cover to torment her.

At least so far.

She might have heat stroke, running at this hour of the day, but she had no complaint with the brightness. As she locked her Lexus, the silver color flashed with sunlight. Heat soaking into her skin aided her warm-up stretches. She tightened her ponytail, bounced on her toes, running in place as she closed her eyes, got into the zone. She was going to push herself today. She was here to work out, not bump into him “by accident.”

Still, she indulged a vision of his tall frame in shorts that showed muscled calves, his impossibly firm ass. Maybe a loose tank shirt…or no shirt at all.

Unlike her, he didn’t need the “gonna push myself today” pep talk before his workout. It was his default mode. His life, the lives of his team, depended on his level of fitness, mentally, physically. She approved of that discipline and dedication.

She remembered the strength of his hands, the piercing regard of his slate-colored eyes. When shadowed by his bill cap, the irises were purple-tinged gray. Light turned them more blue. The last time she’d seen him, the cap he’d worn had been frayed along the bill, with a white mesh in the back. The cap bore an embroidered patch of a large-mouthed bass, some kind of outfitter store logo. He looked like what he was; a Louisiana good old boy, from the strong jaw covered by a gleaming soft brown beard, clipped short, to the tips of his thick tread shoes designed for all sorts of outdoorsman type activities.

It was a cosmic tragedy that there wasn’t a submissive bone in that tall, lean body. Taking his deep commitment to service down roads that could make a different kind of sweat sheen upon his skin? In the solitude of her bed, the desire had fueled her fantasies, given her a blissful break from the pre-dawn worries that made sleep elude her.

She chose the six-mile trail. It circled the park, but also included an auxiliary loop around the more heavily wooded adjacent utility station property.

He’d mentioned those woods occasionally offered wildlife sightings. Deer, foxes. A young black bear. Even an alligator venturing out of the marshy areas.

Watch out for snakes. They won’t bug you if you don’t bug them, but if you startle one on the path, he might get cranky. Don’t run that utility loop without a partner. It’s pretty isolated. When I’m home, I run there regularly.

The advice had happened at a cookout at Dale and Athena’s, mutual friends, and the first place she and Neil had spent time together socially. While the tone of the comment had been low pressure delivery, the offer was unmistakable. The half-smile on Neil’s lips as he lifted his beer to his mouth, that steady look in his appealing gaze, told her he was more than willing to be that partner.

Some of the other things he’d said to her that day had been far more direct. But so was her firm assertion that them getting together wasn’t a possibility. She’d used the simplest explanation. She was a Domme. That was how she liked to enjoy men. He was not a sub.

“I don’t need you to be what you’re not,” she’d told him.

“Maybe being what you need is what I am,” he’d responded. “Have you thought of that?”

She needed to pace herself, would do so, but to drive away those thoughts, she lengthened her stride, increased her speed. She focused on her form, becoming mindful of her muscles, the way her body moved.

Thankfully, by the time she’d reached the turn onto the utility loop, her mind had dropped her into that zone. As she took the path, it stayed wide enough for several abreast, but the forest became thicker along the sides of the path. At least until the utility station and its outbuildings came into view, the thinner buffer of foliage held back by a chain link fence that enclosed the structures and equipment.

She kept her gaze trained on the vegetation to her right, a better view. She saw the flash of a fox’s red coat and sharp nose, a plethora of squirrels scuttling along tree branches. Plus at least one snake, a long, gleaming brown and black Eastern garter. He crossed the path well ahead of her, so there was no need for either of them to get cranky.

As she reached a rise in the trail, she had a view of it a quarter mile ahead, where it sloped down and along the other side of the utility station, following the fencing. Through the dispersal of trees on that side, she caught a flash of movement. Two men running side by side.

The impression was brief, the trees and bushes swallowing them again. No way to tell anything about them except they were men. Yet every muscle in her body tightened, and her breath shortened. One of them was him. She knew it.

He was right. There were all kinds of animals to be seen on this trail, including those that quickened a woman’s pulse.

Why did he hold her attention like this? She had another, far more critical reason for discouraging him, but the one she’d given him had plenty of merit on its own.  Every man she’d enjoyed, every lover she’d taken, had come with that minimum requirement.

That he wanted to serve a Mistress.

Outside of regular sessions in a BDSM club, it had been years since she’d allowed a man into her life, beyond a friendly coffee or lunch. Or a group social occasion. Things where boundaries were as defined as within the scene itself.

Sexual pleasure, the intense intimacy that a BDSM session could create, the warm friendship that could exist outside it when you chose right—she had all that with her small select group of male partners.

She was halfway through the utility station loop. If she backtracked, she calculated she’d complete a four-mile run. Plenty for today’s workout.

Instead she kept going. Her stride lengthened. The men had looked similar in height, suggesting he was running with Max, a friend and fellow SEAL. She’d have to push herself to catch up with those two sets of long, strong legs. But the sun was shining, she was feeling good, and something playful took hold of her.

Something urgent and playful.

When she closed the distance, it was at a straightaway on the north side. The trail opened up and widened as it headed back toward the park.

Surprising two trained special operators was an accomplishment. But this was familiar, non-threatening ground. The gust of wind that had the trees sighing, creating cover for her approach, also aided her half-baked plan. As she offered a runner’s courtesy, she managed, mostly, to keep the exultance out of her voice.  

“Coming up on your left,” she called. Then, lungs and muscles burning, she dug out a burst of speed to sprint past Max’s left. As two handsome heads turned to mark her, she shot them both a grin. “Kind of dragging today, aren’t you, boys?”

She glimpsed surprise and a man’s pleasure as Neil recognized her. It charged her with another spurt of energy, and then it was on. She laughed as she heard them increase their pace. She wasn’t going to have the advantage long, but she enjoyed it while she had it—all of eight seconds, and that was because the trail twisted in a couple sharp curves easier for one lone woman to navigate, versus two tall men running side by side.

They rejoined the main park path, which had ample room for the two of them to draw abreast, Neil closest to her side. With a suppressed smile, she noted that meant he and Max had changed places. She tossed a smile in their direction, but had no breath to speak. She did have the energy to appreciate Neil’s sweaty muscles, concentrated expression, and tendrils of short, damp hair clinging to his nape. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with NAVY posted on the front in blue block letters, the fabric clinging to his upper body. Max wore a muscle tank open on the sides.

Both of them had on the clingier exercise shorts that held everything securely, things that didn’t appreciate the constant jostling of a hard run. The fabric extended a few inches below the loose pairs of shorts they had pulled over the top. She would have liked to see them running in the clingy shorts alone, but the numbers of female collisions with inanimate objects probably made that impractical. Nature would absolutely demand a woman drop all other awareness to appreciate the view.

They didn’t leave her behind, as they could easily do. But she was reaching the critical point where her laboring lungs needed an oxygen break. Fortunately, an approaching workout station gave her a graceful exit excuse. She didn’t intend to disrupt their workout intensity, and there was no way she could keep up with them indefinitely.

Plus it would highlight the vital subtext. She wasn’t here to meet up with anyone. This had merely been a pleasurable coincidence.

The irony of her choosing to play games with her own head wasn’t lost on her.

“We do interval training here,” Neil said before she could gasp out a friendly farewell. He and Max didn’t even seem winded. Super-soldier maniacs. “Why don’t you take a break while we run through the stations?”

“I’ll just keep going.” At least until she got around the next curve, where she could drop to a staggering cooldown walk with her dignity intact. She let the corners of her mouth tip up. “I was just passing by. Literally. I’m impressed you kept up.”

His return smile held something heated and dangerous. “Going to make me chase you down?”

Max had already started on the chin up bar. Abby jogged in place. Neil was doing the same, though his movements seemed to rotate around a still and intense core of energy, ready to surge into action.

The sweat of a good workout was drying on her skin, the wicking mesh fabric of her top offering her coolness. She felt strong, alive. Foolishly optimistic. Foolish enough to flirt with a man she shouldn’t flirt with. His expression held the same hazards as the very first time their gazes had met. He wanted more than she’d ever be able to give him.

“You think you could catch up to me after you did the whole circuit of stations?” She bounced from foot to foot. It gave the impression she was getting ready to resume her run, though she was slowing her pace, bringing her heart rate down. Optimistic her mind might be, but her body was a hardcore realist.

“He’s supposed to do three rounds,” Max called out.

“Three. Wow. So probably not.”

Neil’s shot Max a narrow look, but then his gaze returned and swept over her. Among the obvious signs of male interest, a blatant appreciation of her curves, was also a concern for her well-being. Care and desire. A heady combination. “Want to find out?” he asked. “After you take a water break?”

She did, actually. She wanted to test him, push him. Play with him. “Maybe,” she said. “But the water break is as much of an advantage as I’ll give you.”

The corner of his mouth lifted again, and he headed for the stations, breaking into a graceful run and lunge onto the jump pad. From there, he hooked his hands into the underside of a net suspended in the air, swinging along its length. Max had left the chin up bar and was traversing the uneven balance beams. Barely looking at his feet, he leaped over to the jump pad after Neil and launched himself at the net just as Neil finished it and moved to the chin up bar. He began to lift himself up and down with seemingly effortless upper body strength.

One armed. Left, then right.

She was circling the stations at a slow jog, sipping her water. In gyms, a person’s peripheral vision might be trained on whomever he or she hoped was watching as they showed off their rippling muscles, toned bodies, their feats of dexterity, strength or endurance. This wasn’t that. With how much energy and speed they were applying, any loss of focus and they’d end up with broken limbs. She was watching two men in top fighting form, dedicated to keeping it that way.

While they couldn’t afford distractions, she had no such boundaries. Any woman who denied herself the delight of watching this needed a lesson in self-care. She transitioned from a jog to a swift walk, which allowed her to keep her heartrate up but offered a better view of their move from station to station.

Max’s open-sided shirt gave her an artist’s trove of anatomical splendor, smooth rolling muscle. Though Neil’s shirt didn’t offer as much of a view, it stretched over his shoulders and biceps. Plus, with the intensity of the workout, even the loose covering shorts couldn’t hide the intriguing display of flexing haunches and thigh muscles.

Max completed the other stations, dropped to his feet and returned to the trail. Tipping his dark blond head to her, he sent her a friendly look. “Gotta get to work. Don’t let him slack off. Crack the whip if you have to.”

The amused gray eyes said it was a deliberate tease. Max was in a deep and committed relationship with Janet, a Mistress that Abby knew. A former SEAL, Max worked security as head limo driver at Kensington & Associates in New Orleans. Janet was executive admin to the CEO there, Matt Kensington.

Noticing Max was headed back the way they’d come, she realized he was going to run the same distance back, instead of the shorter distance remaining to complete the loop. He might be a former SEAL, but he still trained like he was on active duty.

Neil was on his second circuit of the ten stations, working his way over parallel bars. The short sleeves of his T-shirt revealed the scar from the shrapnel wound he had taken on one of his most recent missions. The day of Dale and Athena’s barbecue, he’d just received a thumbs up that he was fit for duty again. Which meant he could be called back at any time to Virginia Beach. VA Beach, he’d called it, VA rhyming with Ah.

As in Ah, shit.

Max’s teasing comment reminded her that, if Neil knew Janet was a Mistress, Abby’s reason for keeping him at arms’ length had lost some of its starch. He had a close-at-hand example of a power exchange incompatibility that hadn’t hampered two people pursuing a relationship.

Especially when the interest between the two people in question ran this strong.

Every time she saw the scar, she had the most irritating need to lay her fingers on it, ensure herself of his durability. Admonish him in a purely Mistress-driven way to take better care of what she absurdly felt possessive about.

Him.

They hadn’t even kissed. But it had been a very close thing that day.

“I just love your fucking mouth. I’ve dreamed of it. Am I in your dreams at all, Abby?”

The memory sent her a small burst of revived energy. He was halfway through the second circuit. It should give her enough time to make her escape.

Not escape, she primly corrected herself. Well-timed exit. But she’d dallied in dangerous waters long enough. Once out of his sight, she’d finish out the rest of the run at a cooldown pace. She considered herself pretty fit, but she was going to have to go home and let a hot shower and aspirin do what they could to minimize the sore muscles she’d have later.

But it had been worth it.

“You’ve got one circuit to go after this one,” she called out, waiting until he landed on the opposite side of a cargo net he’d just scaled. “Max says no cheating or cutting it short.”

“He’s such a mom,” Neil grunted. He ran through the high step blocks, though at the end of it, his gaze flicked toward her, calculating. Telling her he knew what she was planning.

“He’s got an outstanding set of pecs to complement his maternal side,” she noted casually. “Good ass, too. Nice seeing you today.”

She tried not to make the smile she tossed him challenging, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself, or the words that came out of her mouth. “I don’t expect to see you again today.”

“Would you like to?” He stopped on the peg bridge, held the resistance moment as he kept himself off the ground, hands clasped around the pegs, elbows bent. The view was enough to give a woman multiple eye-gasms.

She let the yearning grab and hold her, the way her gaze did his. “Impress me.”

She nimbly leaped back onto the path and took off. Her heart might burst in her chest, but if she kept the pace, she had a chance of reaching her car before he caught up.

Maybe.

* * *

Every time her body begged her to slow down, she refused it. She could be as much of a hardass with it as she was with her subs. SEALs weren’t the only ones with extreme self-discipline.

This was a mating dance, but not the mating dance of a female coyly slowing her pace or cloaking her strengths to reel in male prey. She meant it. She wanted to be impressed. She wanted a man to work his ass off for her, because everything in the world worth having was earned.

What she could give a man would reward the effort.

When she couldn’t do that anymore, then her days of making a man work for it, gratifying that Mistress side of her, would gracefully come to an end.

She was fair and kind to the men who pleased her.

Her body had found a second wind. She lengthened her strides, the knowledge of the pursuit fueling her adrenaline. She passed a couple male joggers braving the heat, aware that they tried to increase their pace as she blasted by them.

It was an erotic game, but beneath it was the call of nature, the male proving he was strong and fast enough to protect a female, keep her safe, drive or hold off an attacker.

Something about Neil suggested he could do that in the battleground of her mind. Though she’d locked away the thought, it kept coming back, a reminder of how dangerous her interest in him was. Delusions came in a lot of insidious, subtle forms. If she let the conscious ones get a foothold, the unconscious ones might break through all the faster.   

She enjoyed outpacing the other men, wasn’t offended by the wolf whistle she heard follow her. She had no false modesty about her appeal. Her slender waist, fabulous legs and generous curves were what actresses busted their asses to get. Her red hair, long and wavy, framed a face with fair skin, catlike hazel eyes, lush lips.

In a public venue, she had the looks that would cause a fire hazard if she pulled out a cigarette, because of the small army of lighters that would be whipped out of male pockets. Fortunately, she didn’t smoke.

Beauty had its time and place. She enjoyed the male attention while knowing how little it meant for what she sought and needed from a man. She found that in his eyes, had developed a knack for recognizing and cultivating it. Being an experienced Domme came with a shitload of well-earned privileges.

Which was why her pull toward Neil made no damn sense at all. Playtime was over. She needed to abandon this. Not soon, but now. She was coming up on a shortcut. If she took it, he wouldn’t know she’d left the main trail. She’d most certainly make it to her car before him. She could head for a shower.

She’d put in her time at work this morning, but there was more she could do at home.

She hesitated, kangarooing it in place, her ponytail swinging against her shoulders. She weighed what made sense against what a far more deep-seated part of her wanted.

Then she glanced over her shoulder, and her heart stuttered, leaped. She could see him through the trees, coming.

Coming fast.

He’d also stripped off his T-shirt, because she caught a glimpse of his upper body, tanned, muscled, furred flesh. From the barbecue at Dale and Athena’s, she knew he had a nice layer of chest hair, gleaming brown.

He turned his head, and even through the trees and the winding path’s distance, she knew he’d seen her. She shot off the main trail onto the shortcut, the quickest route to her car. It went through denser woods, was narrower.

She was a good runner, and she was competitive. What moved her feet now wasn’t only the desire to make him earn the prize. It was to prove she could keep the upper hand.

Nothing would stop her. Sexual awareness kicked in to add to that adrenaline reservoir. When she tripped on a root and went down, she rolled, came back up and hit her stride again with barely a pause, ignoring the pain singing through her scraped knee.

She was giving her all, and he was closing the gap. Yes. She wouldn’t look back, sacrificing precious seconds. But she could feel him. When the trail widened out, rejoined the main one again, she saw the soccer fields and parking lot where she’d left her car.

He was ten feet behind her.

She sprinted across the lot, but in the open flat terrain, his longer legs had the distinct advantage. She dodged right, but one arm snaked out, circled her waist. Laughter bubbled from her as he swung her toward him. Her feet brushed the ground, and then he had her back braced against her Lexus. Despite their speed, the energy that propelled them, the movement was controlled, careful of her.

But there was a quiver in the muscled arm, and the light in his slate-colored eyes was a windstorm, whipping away her gasping breath.

He’d tied the T-shirt around his waist. Still holding her, he tugged it free, mopped it over his damp chest so he didn’t coat her in sweat, a consideration that just intensified her desire to get closer. Her hands were clutched over his slick biceps. She was aching, staring up at him.

A kiss would be so easy to take, to give, but in this stretched out, erotically charged moment, neither of them wanted easy. She wanted that suspended blink where nothing could be claimed or denied, wild and undefined as the power of nature. Since a beginning started the journey toward an end, she wanted no beginning. Just this, the power and anticipation of an impending storm.

He backed off. Not to let her go, but to let his hand slide to her hip as he dropped to a knee. He pressed the T-shirt to her leg, which was trickling blood down into her ankle sock. She’d scraped it when she fell and he’d noticed.

“So did Max really have to get to work?” she said, gazing down at his bent head.

“Nope. He said he had an urgent snipe hunt.”

Her heart rate was dizzyingly high. He rose to his feet, his eyes on hers, his chest expanding and contracting. When she offered her water bottle, he took it, their hands brushing. Watching his throat work as he took a couple swallows had her reaching up, letting her fingertips glide over it, curve. His gaze locked back on her, and when he lowered the bottle, her touch went to his jaw.

“You work out hard. Your focus…it’s intense.” Her gaze slid over him, attempting to convey practical interest. “You don’t have a soft spot on you. How do you make sure you work out every muscle group equally?”

She didn’t care about his answer. She was just giving herself time to consider her options.

“To get every muscle group in the right shape, you have to isolate it in your mind,” he said. “Even if the rest of your body is moving, you’re focused on that one set of muscles, targeting them, asking everything from them and closing out the rest. So you can get the maximum effort from them, and the maximum gain as a result.”

Though his tone seemed as casual as the question, his eyes never left the lock with hers. She needed to look away, but she didn’t know how.

“You give care and attention to each group,” he continued. “Let it know how vital it is, alone as well as part of the whole. When it comes time that you need them all, they’ll come together the way they’re supposed to, give you everything, every part responsive.”

Her lips curved, showing appreciation for the cleverness, the shades of meaning. But then his gaze became more serious. “I’ve been dreaming about you.”

The words weren’t calculated charm. There was bemusement in them.

“Was it a nightmare?”

“Hardly.” A half smile tinged with regret. “I head back to VA Beach tomorrow.”

Though sharp disappointment gripped her, it was tempered with relief. The temptation he presented, the mistake any prolonged involvement would herald, was mitigated by his job. While he had a pilot’s license and apparent access to a plane that allowed him to fly to and from New Orleans whenever he had a few days, his work was based out of Virginia Beach. Anything she indulged with him would have clear start and end times. Not too different from having regular sessions with subs.

Except he wasn’t a sub.

It didn’t stop her from wanting to play with him like one, though. She let it loose, cocking her head, giving him a bolder look. “So this dream. Did you wake up with your hand on yourself?” Her gaze dipped pointedly.

She’d eased back from his hold and crossed her arms under her breasts. Leaning against her car, she hooked her ankle around her other leg. Though measured in inches, it established distance between them.

“In a manner of speaking.” Though his attention was on her like a target, his lips twitched. “In my dream, it wasn’t my hand. So when I woke, I preferred to keep thinking of it that way.”

“Was it my hand? Or my mouth?” She moistened her lips, drawing his attention there. “Or regions further south?”

“It was your breasts. They were slick with an oil that smelled like honey.” He braced a hand on the top of the car to her right, and fired a shot as brazen as her own. “You were working my cock between them, nipples tight as they rubbed against my thighs. I had my hand wrapped up in your gorgeous hair, trying not to hold so tight, but there was something in your eyes, wanting me to make it hurt.”

He took another swallow of the water, lowered the bottle, stared at her. “It’s easier for you, isn’t it? Me not being here all the time. Keeps it contained.”

Contained wasn’t the word she’d apply to anything about him, particularly after he’d expanded on his dream. She’d dug her nails into her biceps. But he’d also just confirmed and reminded her what he was—exactly what she was herself. A sexual Dominant.

“Is keeping it contained a problem for you?” she said, even.

“Not yet.” He’d noted the pressure of her nails. It eased the set of his jaw, but not the flint in his gaze. He set the water bottle on the ground and squared off with her. “So what’s your optimal scenario here? I’m not looking for high level analysis. I mean right here, right now.”

He’d kept it simple. She responded in kind. "I want to touch you how I like, and not have you touch me back. Not unless I say so."

She didn’t expect him to take that with good grace. But he leaned forward, braced his arms on either side of her. He had an extraordinary capacity for maintaining continuous eye contact. The slow blink he gave her now was the first she thought he’d done since this conversation had started.

Looking someone in the eyes for more than a second or two was getting increasingly difficult for her, but today was a good day. She held the lock.

His arms were caging her against the car but not touching her, his palms flat against the window frame. He’d complied with her request in a way that sent an entirely different message. Not submission. Not compliance. A sensual lure.

"Go for it," he said.

Though this was a quieter part of the park, particularly this time of day, there were still people around. A group of young men were playing on the soccer field. The occasional walker emerged along the path bordering the parking lot. But she could indulge herself and stay within public decency laws.

Mostly.

He’d dropped his shirt on the hood of her car. She retrieved it, placed it against his chest, over his heart, feeling the thud through the thin cotton. He’d swiped it over that part of himself, but he hadn’t done his shoulders, neck, arms. She did the arms and shoulders first. She’d topped men in amazing shape, but this…even if he was stripped naked, he was conditioned to be a weapon.

Her stroke slowed over that mark on his upper arm. It was the freshest scar, but not the only one.

His shoulders looked as if they could carry the weight of another man. If she ducked under his arm and circled him, she’d see that same development in his back, down to the defined waist and sculpted buttocks, upper thighs. Every inch of him was taut to the touch.

She was deliberately keeping the shirt as a thin barrier between her palm and his skin, though his heat penetrated it. She was in the shelter of his body, feeling his breath as she touched him how she wanted.

 She moved the shirt to the back of his neck. It required her to straighten from the car, lean her body further into his. Still without touching him, but so close the temptation to wind his arms around her, erase that last distance between them, would be growing.

Too easy. He could pass a test like that.

She glanced around them. Thanks to her proximity to him, the car behind her, she had a couple sure moments of privacy. She wore the mesh sports bra under a gray tank, running shorts over crimson red leggings. Leaving the T-shirt draped on his shoulder, she reached beneath the tank, hooked the elastic of the sports bra and pulled it above her breasts, still mostly concealed beneath the loose tank.

“Eyes up, sailor,” she murmured.

Tucking the tank into that band of elastic over her breasts, she leaned in, pressing her unbound nipples to his bare chest. She reclaimed his T-shirt, reached under his arm to run it up the damp valley of his spine, in between his shoulder blades. Then down that valley again to his lower back, her fingertips pressing against the upper rise of his buttocks.

She spoke in a quiet whisper. “Did my nipples feel like that in your dream?”

“Fucking hell,” he muttered. In her peripheral vision, she saw his arms flex, his palms press harder against the car. But he held, and kept his gaze on her face.

She eased back, smoothly pulling the tank and sports bra back into position. The T-shirt rested against his chest, her hand clutched in it. She wanted to keep it. A trophy. She wouldn’t, because this was a race she couldn’t win. She wouldn’t take what she hadn’t earned.

As an experienced Mistress, she’d had the privilege and pleasure of having a man belong to her entirely, give her a full surrender. An act of trust and willing submission. When it was over, if it was a particularly intense scene, she drank a single glass of wine to mitigate the Dom-drop she’d experience at leaving that state of heady intensity, the return to reality.

If Neil belonged to her, she wondered if that state would ever recede. If even the simplest kiss exchanged would waft that feeling over her, leave her knees weak and heart pounding.

“So you leave tomorrow,” she said. It broke the moment. Somewhat. She was staring at her hand, his chest, feeling the thud of his heart.

Slowly, he straightened. Though he wasn’t touching her, physically providing support, when his hands left the car, so the boundary of his arms around her no longer existed, she swayed. His hands were on her then, resting on her waist, her hips, a steadying touch, but more than that as well. Her skin reacted as if firecrackers had gone off all along the nerve endings.

“When I kiss you for the first time, you’re going to ask for it,” he said.

“And you needed to say that, why?”

He touched her face, a light thing, but when his hand lingered there, she found her turning her face against it, holding. Wanting to close her eyes. When he said his next words, she did.

“Because that’s the threshold, bébé. The real starting line. We both know it.”

Shit.

She moved away from him, an awkward jerk, restoring her personal space. Fishing her car key out of her pocket gave her a moment to collect herself, regain control of the situation. She hit the unlock button, heard the chirp. She didn’t look at him. “When will you be back?”

A pause. “Don’t know. Hard to say when we’re down range.”

Down range. The term SEALs used for unknown corners of the world, where dangers far beyond the quiet of this New Orleans park waited.

“Where—” She stopped herself, sent him a humorless half smile. “I know that’s a question you can’t answer.”

“No. But here’s one I can.” He opened her car door for her, leaned on it. “I’ll be thinking about you. A lot. And looking forward to the next time I can get back here.”

“Do me a favor. Don’t be thinking about me when you should be thinking about staying alive.”

His gaze was a wandering caress, on her lips, her cheeks, her brow. “I thought a Mistress didn’t ask for favors,” he observed. “She just laid it out and said how it’s going to be.”

She pressed her lips together. With a decisive movement, she hooked her hand in his waistband. “Don’t move.”

As her unmistakable command, the mixed blue-gray of his eyes went to a deeper hue. He didn’t lift a hand to touch her, though she could feel his natural inclination to do so.

Sliding her hand beneath the elastic, she caressed his waist, his hip, her thumb doing a stroke of the intriguing inguinal muscle that arrowed toward his groin. Then she curved her hand low on his waist, his hip bone beneath her palm, and held there, knowing she had his full attention. Her hand was positioned in an intimate spot, not an inappropriate one, but close enough it was all within tempting reach.

“Watch your ass,” she said evenly. “That’s the only thing you should be thinking about. Not mine.”

His smile was quick and feral. Fearless. “There are some things that even survival instinct can’t override,” he said. “The tides, the rising of the sun, and me thinking about your ass.”

He put his hand on her face, his thumb caressing her jaw, her lips. He hadn’t waited for permission, and she knew it was deliberate.

Everything he’d done had been calculated, things he’d accepted and allowed. Just as she had. No submission involved. They were two dominant personalities, dancing around the inevitable crash and burn, too attracted by the flame to have any sense about it.

“I’ll see you soon, dream girl,” he said. “Count on it.”