As Matt exited the limo at Jackson Square, he gave Max a nod. “Take care of her.” Those dark, hawklike eyes held his a moment, then Kensington turned and was striding across the street, a tall, powerful man who always drew attention. He crossed in front of one of the carriages, gave the dappled horse harnessed to it a fond pat on the nose before he cut through the park.

“Home, James,” Janet said from the back. Max glanced up at her amused face in the rearview, then pulled away from the curb. “I notice you didn’t ask for my address,” she said.

“Because it’s on my stalker board.”

“Ah. I figured that was you outside my house this week, scratching on my windows. I’ll leave some Windex out there so you can make yourself useful.”

“Sounds like you need a gardener to cut back branches.”

“Hmm. I prefer to do it myself. I like yard work.”

“If you want, I can come help you do it this weekend. I’m pretty handy with pruners.”

“I’m sorry. Bringing me to screaming orgasm in the back of your pickup is one thing. Helping me with yard work is moving way too fast. I’m feeling smothered. We may need to back off this relationship for a while.”

He snorted. “You want to come sit up here? It might save your life, because I keep looking in the mirror to see you.”

“Then I’m ordering you to stop looking at me.” She slid out of his view then. A moment later, she was leaning against the seat directly behind him, her voice so close her breath touched his ear. “Just drive, Max.”

She slid her hand around the side of the seat and found the open collar of his placket shirt, her thumb caressing the light layer of hair there. He was taught to focus on more than one thing at once, so he didn’t have to tell her to stop to get her home safely. Not unless her hand dropped to his cock, in which case they might have a real problem. They didn’t really cover cock teasing in combination with combat driving.

He couldn’t resist covering her hand, though, interlacing his fingers with hers. “I’ve thought about you a lot this week. Missed you.”

She was silent a moment, her fingers going still beneath his touch. He sensed a pressure against the seat, almost as if she’d rested her cheek against it. “I don’t really do easy when it comes to relationships, Max. I prefer chess to checkers. Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“No ma’am. Not so far.” To his way of thinking, learning the way his opponent played the game was to anticipate and get out ahead of them, make them play the game on his terms. He sensed some of that between them, but something else too. Something that was more like checkers and chess mixed. He stroked her fingers. She was very responsive, every inch of her skin so aware of contact. He felt her concentration on that one stimulation. It made him want to touch a whole lot more of her.

Her Garden District house was built in the eighteen hundreds. It was a two-story with floor-to-ceiling front windows, large black shutters and an elaborate wrought iron railing on the second story. The front porch was flanked with a lush potted garden. He noted what she’d mentioned, that some of the surrounding vegetation and trees were growing a little wild, but in an appealing way. On the side of the house, vines twisted around the light post, which threw illumination along a cobbled garden path. She told him it led to a screened gazebo and porch in back. Two big concrete pineapples on either side of the front walkway welcomed visitors.

It was a nice place, and though Max was sure Matt Kensington paid her well, this type of home was beyond a secretary’s salary. Perhaps an inheritance? For all that he knew about her at work, he realized there was little he knew of her outside it. She didn’t speak with an accent. No Southern or Texas drawl, no Midwest flavoring. She spoke with precise, perfect English, like someone raised with a strict, disciplined education. Whether intended or not, it fed into the Domme side of her, making it easy to imagine her as a stern schoolmistress or haughty queen. From what he’d seen of her performance with Thor, that was just an element of the whole, genuine package. She was a woman who enjoyed control over a man, and could make him enjoy it as well, even if it wasn’t necessarily a part of his nature as it was with Thor.

She pointed him to an alley to park the limo, and chose to walk with him rather than have him drop her off in front. She took him up to the house through a back cut-through, so he saw the garden space she’d created in her small backyard. It was obvious that, when in season, fresh vegetables and herbs grew in pleasant disarray next to more carefully designed flower beds and shrub groupings. In addition to the gazebo and porch, there was a screened pavilion in the yard so she could enjoy her garden at ground level without being eaten by the bugs. The porch had a saltwater spa she explained converted to a hot tub in the colder months. It was nine feet by six feet, a rectangular small pool.

She took him past it to the back door. Handing him the keys, she let him open the door. He stepped in, taking stock of their surroundings, then gestured to her to step in and lead the way.

Janet gave him a curious glance but said nothing. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her making note of his personal security detail training, but she was apparently like him, filing it away rather than bringing it up. At least not until it would be useful to their interactions.

Her interior layout was what he expected. Quality furniture choices, a little eclectic, but they worked together. She added touches of color with flowers and pillows as women did, but kept the walls a simple, clean white, accenting them with pictures. Over the sofa in the living area was a large oil painting of a ballerina. Her back was to the viewer, but she was stretched out on the floor of a dance studio, a bevy of milling ballerinas behind her in their gauzy white skirts. She was on her hip, one leg pointed and bent over the other, her back arched and hand gracefully lifted behind her head.

A matching painting on the adjacent corner showed a ballerina leaping in the air, that white flowing skirt making her look like a bird in flight. The leotard she wore was cut low between her small breasts, accenting the slim grace of her body. Her face was to the camera, but his attention returned to the one that wasn’t. It was the central feature of the room as one came into it, meaning it had the most significance to her.

The space was comfortable, a haven for the woman who lived here. He could imagine she did some entertaining, but likely small groups of intimates. She wouldn’t invite strangers or business acquaintances here. He’d bet money on it.

“Follow me upstairs.” She touched his arm, moved up the steps, her fingers trailing the banister. She had her hair twisted on her nape, accentuating the delicate ears, the slender bones of her neck. It reminded him of the ballerina in the painting. His gaze followed its desired track down the trim lines of her suit where it nipped her waist, clung to the swell of her hips and ass, accented those gorgeous legs. She had on a slip beneath the skirt. He could see the edge of lace through the modest slit, a strange vulnerability that made his heart tighten. She’d stepped out of the shoes before she went up, and carried the low-heeled pumps in her hand.

He put his hand on the banister and followed her.

She turned the corner and vanished. When he reached the top of the wooden steps, he saw there was a side table in the hallway, holding a vase of flowers. Two small paintings flanked them, probably bought from the art district. They were New Orleans Blue Dog paintings, one where replicas of the dog lined a railroad track, and the other showing four images of him in a grid pattern. The whimsy of it reflected the woman herself. Controlled beauty with touches of the unpredictable, hints of the chaotic passion she could display as well. He was willing to put a lot of effort into making that last one happen again.

There was one photograph on the table as well. A young woman who looked like Janet, likely a sister. She had a soft prettiness that Janet did not, but Max saw it as a difference, not a shortcoming. Janet made up for it with her mesmerizing charisma. They shared a love of dance, because in the posed shot, the photo’s subject reached for the ceiling, leg stretched out behind her, neck arched as she cast her gaze toward the stage. She wore the gauzy long skirt, her upper body clad in a brief top of satin and glitter.

“That’s Nelle,” Janet said, something odd in her voice. “She’s not part of this.”

When Max looked toward her, she was leaning against the doorframe of a room at the end of the hall, and she had something in her hands, a black piece of cloth with strings trailing from it. He decided to leave that peculiar statement alone, for now. He came toward her. Through the open doors he passed, he saw a guest bedroom, an extra bath and what appeared to be her home office. The rail followed the hallway, open to the foyer below.

“Stop there,” she said, when he was about three feet from her. He would far prefer to close the distance between them, because he could feel her intent need and wanted to taste it, but he complied. There was a tranquility to the house he liked, a hushed presence that suggested it was a good space, a place guests would feel welcome, when she chose to make them so. What was swirling between them in the hall had a biting edge of the unknown, of risk and danger, but the kind that engaged his senses, sharpened them.

“I’ve been doing my homework,” she said, “and learning more about your training. What they’ll share online of course. The one that intrigued me was ‘ditch and don’. Do you remember it?”

Where a SEAL was required to ditch his gear underwater and then put it back on, all without surfacing. If even a strap was out of place, he had to redo it until he got it right. Guys who made it through Hell Week sometimes didn’t make it through the water phase, discovering they couldn’t handle that sense of drowning, of lungs burning and still having to think, to stay focused on the task, the mission.

“I remember it.”

While she threaded the black fabric, some kind of satin, through her fingers, he noticed she’d changed her nail polish to a deep burgundy. It matched what was on her lips beneath that gloss. Strawberry. That was this week’s scent. Not a sickly sweet teenager’s gloss. Just a faint fragrance that made him imagine her biting into the fruit, licking the juice from her lips, the red deepening the color of her tongue.