With my next shiver, he broke away, returning with a white, fluffy robe over his arm. He held it at the ready as he freed my cuffs from the ceiling chain. I collapsed into his waiting arms, cocooned by the pillow of the robe.

I trembled against him as he removed one wrist cuff and kissed the damp skin beneath it. He repeated his kiss with the other. “You’re free now.”

Such loaded words; I’d already been freed. He’d described this kind of behavior as a descent. It was just the opposite. With this man, I had flown. I’d soared. In a way, to submit . . . was to ascend.

Maybe I was still flying. Everything seemed muted and soft, the lights dimmer.

“How do you feel?”

“Little dizzy,” I said in a scratchy voice. “What happens now?” There would be time enough to disbelieve what I’d just done. But tonight I was just going to roll with it.

“I’m taking you home.” He guided my limp arms into the robe sleeves. “I expect you to relax and worry about nothing while I cosset you.”

I could deal with that.

He bundled me up, cradling me against his chest, then carried me from our room.

Would we have to see those people? Go through the ballroom? When I stiffened, he said, “We’re going out a private exit, love. The car’s waiting.”

Even when we were ensconced in the back of the limo and under way, Sevastyan didn’t release me, keeping me on his lap. He removed my mask and his own, then reached into the cooler for a bottle of orange juice. “Drink.” He held it up to my lips.

I quirked a brow. “No warm milk?”

“You have no idea how hard your body worked tonight. I want you to come down softly.”

I took a sip of the juice—had to be the best I’d ever tasted. It was everything I could do not to chug it like a frat boy on a keg nozzle. “What do you mean by coming down?”

He eased closer to lick a drop of juice from my lip, making my lids grow even heavier. “Your blood is flooded with endorphins. That’s why you felt—”

“High?”

“Precisely. But what goes up must come down.”

“You’ll be here to catch me when I fall?”

He curled his forefinger under my chin. “Vsegda.” Always.

Tonight we’d gotten one thing figured out. Surely hurdles had been cleared. Now we would make strides together.

I kissed the crooked bridge of his nose, then buried my face against his chest. I ran my fingers through his thick hair, clutching it as I hugged this big, brave man close. I’d never felt so cherished. So protected.

He was my guardian angel, my friend, my dream lover.

Aleksandr Sevastyan was everything. Everything.

He pulled me back to meet my gaze, his hooded eyes like gold coins. “Revelation?”

I whispered back, “Obsessed.”

At the town house, he kept me in his arms, sweeping me inside and up to our bathroom. The light was low, the whirlpool bath already bubbling.

When he peeled the robe from me and lowered me into the water, I wanted back in his arms. As if he disliked the distance just as much, he hastily stripped, then slid in beside me. He sat on the submerged bench, pulling me back into his lap, my shoulder against his chest.

“I could get used to this,” I sighed. I’d read about kink aftercare and how important it was, but hadn’t grasped how much I would need it. I felt like I’d been broken down to the most primal levels and now had to readjust to everything.

It was like lingering at the edges of a drug-induced high, produced from the cleanest-burning drugs imaginable.

He started kneading my shoulders. “I intend for you to get used to it. Tonight, I take care of you.”

I felt his shaft stiffening beneath me and grinned to myself—more of him, this very night? And his massage! Kneading . . . kneading . . . So. Freaking. Good.

Once his big hands had rendered me into a heap of bliss, he began shampooing my hair, massaging my scalp until I was on the verge of drooling for the second time this night.

After rinsing the strands with a sprayer, he worked conditioner through them. I turned to watch him over my shoulder. His face was drawn with absorption, as if he truly wanted to get this right, to bathe me and care for me, just so. That melted my heart.

He caught me staring up at him like a fool. “Are you enjoying this part?”

“I loathe it.”

He chuckled. I’d actually made him laugh? His lips were curling. Still not a full smile, but close.

His lightheartedness signaled so much to me, and I grew even more optimistic about our future. “You never thought I’d go through with it, did you?”

“I admit it.” Finished with my hair, he smoothed the length over one of my shoulders, then grazed bath oil over my sore upper back.

“Any regrets?”

“I decided that if you were willing to go through that—your first real time—then you must want it badly.” His c**k pulsed against my bottom—because he was replaying those scenes? “I took you to a place that I thought of as sordid. And you saw beauty everywhere and felt hope. Maybe that club is what you make of it? What you bring to it.”

“I believe that, especially now.”

“I meant what I said earlier. You know your own mind. I’d forgotten that along the way.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted one of my arms, washing it from fingertips to shoulder before bathing my ticklish underarm. “In Nebraska I witnessed your drive when you set your mind to something. I saw how hard you worked; at everything, you tried so damned hard.” He saw to my other arm. “I wanted to know how you could keep at it, with no guarantee of success.”