“That was the first weekend she tried to kill herself. Her parents never even suspected you were the cause, because in their presence you were so solicitous of her every need. You were getting bored of the game, though. That’s what you told yourself.

So without a word to Eliza and only a brief note to your foster mother so she wouldn’t bother looking for you, on the day of your graduation you picked up your diploma, drove out of town and never looked back.”

Her voice continued its brutal laceration of his memories. “Your ability to love, if you ever had it, was annihilated at that point. Nathan Polinsky stopped existing and Jonathan Powell took control. Casual dates were never casual for you. You staked out your quarry and went after her with a hunter’s instinct. Every time you succeeded, you wanted stronger prey. The stronger the better. You would take them all down, prove that none of them could take advantage of Jonathan Powell. It’s your addiction. When you see a woman, you immediately start gauging her defenses, her strengths, figuring out how to work your way through them.”

She turned and faced him, that terrible memory replaying behind her in graphic, stark detail. He tried to block it out, tried to just focus on Dona’s eyes, the movement of her lips, but he couldn’t ignore Eliza’s tears. She’d trusted him.

That was her fault. He hadn’t asked her to love him so much she sacrificed her self-respect. She should have known he was bullshit and turned her back on him, gone with one of those right-side-of-the-track guys whose worst offense would be the cliché of taking her virginity in the back of his car and giving her flowers afterward.

“Eliza truly loved you. She let you destroy her because she sensed how much you needed her. She was too young and pure to understand, but it didn’t make her love less noble. We believe love is strong enough to overcome everything, but that’s not exactly true. Love endures. It can rise out of the ashes of a destroyed relationship to be the foundation for the next one. But you don’t love, Jonathan. You choose a woman only to make her suffer.” The mirror images faded away, just as Eliza had faded out of his life, forever gone.

The thought of her had lingered for so many years, until he’d finally locked her in a room of his subconscious, ignoring her no matter how often she beat on the door and screamed. Eventually he’d piled enough debris on her to silence her. Until Dona unearthed her again.

He’d tried to love Eliza even harder than he’d tried to love Lauren. Perhaps in both he’d sensed the key to his salvation, something that could be his if he could just get past his fears. He had failed, both times. In the end he just couldn’t trust either woman enough.

Sick at heart, confused, he nevertheless lifted his gaze to Dona, pinned her with a defiant look. “I didn’t choose you. You came for me.” Inside, he wondered if somehow that would make it different this time, cause it to end differently. Wished the thought didn’t tear at his insides with self-doubt and loathing.

“You’re exactly right. I did.”

Suddenly she was back on that couch, sprawled like the temptress she was. Her thighs spread open, showing him the glistening folds, her body entirely, blessedly naked, her arm lying lazily above her head, indolent. “Do you think you can pleasure me far better than those two did?”

A confusing thicket of lust, anger and need rose up in him like the rasp of thorns on the inside of his chest. A need to get rid of his pain by immersing himself in her body.

“Hell, yes,” he growled.

“You are arrogant, Nathan.” Her lips curved. “I do like that about you. Come fuck your Mistress.”

* * * * *

He stumbled as he moved forward, finding his ankles manacled on a close chain.

He had to make short, shuffling steps to get to her, underscoring his servitude, reminding him that his desires and needs were tempered by her Will.

As if she knew he understood the lesson, the bonds were gone. He stood before her, naked as she was, the two of them staring at each other. Despite the moment of bravado, he was still off balance, shaky inside and out from facing Eliza. He noticed then that Dona was trembling too, though he couldn’t imagine why she’d be nervous about this moment. Unless this moment was different. As he looked into her eyes, he saw it was. She was lying on her back, waiting for him to come to her. Waiting to take his body onto hers, allow him to spread her legs and sink into her. After all the terrible things she’d seen of his soul, she was opening her own, giving him a moment of her own vulnerability, and he had no idea why.

He took one step and then another, as careful as if he was still bound at the ankles.

Her eyes, the very energy that surrounded her, captivated him, tortured him and yet brought him a sense of security he’d never had before and didn’t understand now. She anticipated everything, so he didn’t have to pretend anything.

Yet she shivered at his approach.

It made him want to give her everything, be a far better man than he’d ever desired to be before, even though he knew it was too late. Instead of falling on her like a rutting bull, he knelt and put his lips to the tender arch of one bare foot.

Had he ever let himself savor a woman? Breathe in her essence like this while her body lay before him like a gift beyond measure? Press his mouth to her skin amid the punishments of Hell, rub his cheek against her ankle like an affectionate tomcat and see her lips curve in a distracted smile. In the vast knowledge he had of the way women’s physical responses were inextricably tied to the emotional, he understood her body could be violently aroused by that one touch on her foot. There were no individual body parts on a woman. Everything was connected, every touch felt at several different levels, a mystery that a man could comprehend, be grateful for, but never understand himself.

“Nathan.” She spoke his name in a whisper, the name his soul knew. Raising her arms, she looked at him with eyes of rich brown earth, welcoming him. “Did you ever have a pet, my lovely slave?”

He shook his head. “I had a friend with a cat. When I was a kid. It seemed to like me.”

“Did you like petting the cat?”

“I did. She…” A painful smile came to him at the thought that the feline had been a female. Dona gave him an answering soft smile on her lips that said she’d followed his thoughts easily. “It was nice, petting her.”

“Have you ever thought about the way a cat or dog is so willing to touch and be touched? Be my pet. Let me touch you, pet you.”

“I haven’t earned this gift, Mistress.”

“I have.” There was a sudden fierceness to her, a ripple of something that suggested that this moment had not been planned as part of the program. However, he was learning there were tremendous benefits to not arguing with a Mistress.

He put his knee on the couch and lurched, catching himself as their surface moved like a waterbed. They were back in the oasis under a Van Gogh starry night sky. While they floated on a human-sized lily pad, smaller clusters drifted by, their white blooms scenting the air. The night was filled with frog warblings.

He caught himself on his elbow to keep from falling on her, which put his other hand in the perfect place to cup her face, his thumb tracing her collarbone. One of her hands was at his ribs, the other at his hip, steadying him as he got accustomed to the sensual undulation of the water at their every movement. The edges of the pad cupped up, keeping the water from them.

“How do you do that?”

“I don’t. Not always. After so many years, I anticipate His thoughts and plan, the settings He gives me, but sometimes He alters what I imagine. I’d intended you to make love to me on the couch. He liked this better.”

“So do I.” He was suddenly, intensely aware of the fact his body was laid upon hers full length, her thighs cradling his hips, nothing between them. “Would you like me to switch places, my lady, so you can ride me to your pleasure?”

“No.” Her eyes were luminous, filled with the stars above, making him dizzy. “I don’t need to be on top to be your Mistress. After all, you’re waiting on my permission, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t deny it. “May I kiss you?”

“Not yet.” She tilted her hips. With the pressure of her hands on his buttocks, she angled him so his head pushed in, sunk into her wet heat like the answer to every fear or question he’d ever had. He couldn’t help resting his forehead on hers, swamped by the sensation. Emotions flooded him, along with the desire to move.

He stiffened, lifting his head. “I didn’t…Mistress, forgive me. Protection… Do you need it here? I know it’s a little late to be thinking of it…” She framed his face with her hands, her voice husky. “No. This is a place where protection isn’t an option, in any form. It pleases me that you thought of protecting me, though.”

“I wish I could destroy the part of me you call Jonathan.” He blurted it out. “You were right, a moment ago. It’s so deep inside me…” The sound that he forced out of his throat was too harsh to be a laugh, too bitter to be a sob. “I’m never going to deserve you.”

“Hush,” she said, her fingers brushing his lips. She moved her hands, cupped her palms over the small of his back. Tightening her legs on the swell of his buttocks, she lifted up to him, taking him more deeply and presenting her breasts to his suddenly dry mouth. “Move inside of me. Slow. Strong.”

He obeyed. It was torturous, feeling her walls slide along his length, convulse against him, the firm pressure of her tiny clit against his pubic area, the feel of her body everywhere it touched him. Stroking, gripping, moonlight on the arch of her throat. The gratifying sounds of her increasing breaths, her cry of pleasure as he bent his head and suckled her breasts in turn, bit her throat, trying in every way he knew to increase her pleasure.

He wanted to make her climax as shattering as he was sure his was going to be, if she permitted him the reward. Each slow and even stroke made it far more difficult to hold back, particularly when she showed no signs of letting him release. But even more than the desire to climax, he wanted this moment to go on forever, bask in her pleasure at his touch and their joining. It was too open on her face to be feigned, too obvious in the clutch of her limbs.