Matt nodded. “Ben’s loyalty to you, to us, is unquestioned. If you want to put an end to it right here, right now, you need only tell him. He’d do it, in a heartbeat. But if you’re not going to make that call, you need to let it play out. Sometimes you have to step out of the way and see what Fate decides.”

“Jesus. You’ve been talking to Jon.”

Matt’s lips curved. “No, but he’s rubbed off on me, as we’ve all rubbed off on each other over the years. It’s time for a change in Ben’s life. He feels it, as do we all. Unfortunately, what we’re suggesting makes Marcie a guinea pig. Normally, I’d trust my gut, take the risk, but this part is your call, Lucas. Yours and Cassandra’s.”

“Cass will get worked up about it, initially, but in the end she’ll say Marcie’s of legal age. That if what she wants is Ben, she has a right to take her shot. To get hurt like any other adult. But she’ll worry, same as I will. Marcie is so fucking young.” He sighed. “I don’t know how I’ll react if he breaks her heart, even if he’s dealing with his own knee-jerk fight-or-flight instinct. Fair warning.”

“We’ll protect her if she needs protecting. We’ve always put the well-being of our women first. It’s in Ben as strong as any of us, for all that he hasn’t found a singular focus for it. Maybe he has now.”

“Whoa, wait a minute.” Lucas caught Matt’s arm. “Did you just suggest what I think you suggested?”

Matt gave him his trademark piercing expression. “Have you ever known him to act this unsettled about any woman? Or ask the question he asked about her being part of the group?”

“He said it was just a heads-up, because of her fantasies. Not his.”

“Maybe not consciously.”

“Fuck.” Lucas sat back. “Seriously? You think this could be going in that direction? I just wrapped my mind around him mentoring her.”

“I wouldn’t swear to it, but I do know when it comes to women, Ben isn’t easily rattled.”

“Damn it, Matt.” Lucas sighed, ran his hand over his face. “If it’s true, she will stumble on those dark places. And you know the problem isn’t her inability to handle that.”

“Correct. The problem is how Ben will handle it. If it’s any comfort, I suspect Marcie already knows a great deal about Ben. She may not be able to withstand the storm, but she knows it’s coming. She’s inviting it, because she trusts somewhere in that maelstrom, she’ll find Ben, and Ben will find himself.”

“Okay, you have been talking to Jon too much.”

Matt grinned then. “Care to place a bet? Freaked out because he’s always known Marcie as jailbait, versus freaked out because maybe she’s something more than that?”

“You know I have no choice but to take that bet, as a point of pride and personal comfort.”

“I like to take advantage of charitable opportunities. The local animal shelter needs new fencing. Savannah’s already financed it, but she wants me to match it. And adopt the ugliest dog I think I’ve ever seen. I believe it’s the mating between a moose and a sheep. Five thousand.”

“Bastard,” Lucas muttered. “Fine. Five thousand. But no more talk about rubbing off on each other. Gives me some pretty disturbing images.”

“Agreed,” Matt said.

* * * * *

The meeting could have been about painting circles on a monkey’s ass for all that Ben really cared about it. Because of that, he sharpened his focus a hundredfold and secured everything Matt wanted from the strategy session, and then some.

Such obvious proof he was on top of things was validating. It put him in a much better frame of mind. Mentor. He was Marcie’s mentor. Lucas had given his blessing, and that helped. Hell, he’d always liked the brat, and now that she was a hot young woman, it could be enjoyable. He’d help her find the right path in the D/s world, know he’d had a part in bringing her into the full glory of that.

He’d have to tread easy, be careful, but every interaction with a difficult sub was a chess game. Marcie really wasn’t difficult as much as she was green and headstrong. But she sure had a lot of guts. He liked that. She was also absolutely determined to prove she’d go above and beyond for him.

When he had that thought, they were doing the usual shake-hands-while-thinking-what-a-dick ritual, part and parcel of their interactions with this particular negotiations team. Ben stopped in mid-motion. While he jumpstarted his brain enough to finish out the hand shake with Fred Marlton, Ben turned to Matt. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

They’d intended to catch an early dinner, but Matt nodded, reading his set face. “All right. Take the limo. We’ll walk down to Acme’s to eat.”

Normally his gut would gripe at missing out on their po’boy sandwich, but his stomach had another issue right now.

The right Master could go after her with a fucking baseball bat and she’d still come at his command. She needs strong guidance, training to help her protect herself from that extreme… Goddamn. Had he really made such a newbie Dom mistake?

Taking the stairs, he hit the lobby with a swift, ground-eating stride. Matt had already anticipated him, because the limo was pulling up front. He wished it was Max who was at the wheel instead of Tobias, because Max could get through New Orleans’ business traffic like shit through a goose. However, by unanimous agreement of the K&A team, Max was Dana’s daytime driver for her job as assistant pastor at one of New Orleans’ many old churches. His duties had even expanded to assisting her with some of the church’s programs, like helping with the soup kitchen and doing maintenance on the building.

It was all right. K&A wasn’t that far. If they hadn’t been running late this morning, they probably would have walked the fourteen blocks.

As Ben got into his vehicle, he checked his PDA, which he’d kept turned off during the meeting. He bit back an oath.

One text from Janet, over two hours ago. There’s a problem with your intern. You need to get back here.

He texted back On my way, and grimaced as he received an immediate reply.

About time.

When he arrived at the building, he took the private, coded elevator that went straight to their floor. As he emerged, he saw Janet sitting at her desk, waiting on him, purse at her elbow. Five-fifteen. The meeting had taken all day, fuck it. As she shouldered her bag, she gave him a steady look. “I gave her the note precisely thirty minutes after you left, just as you instructed. We had a busy day here, so I wasn’t aware of the problem until I took her some files at three p.m. That’s when I sent the text. She made me promise not to call and interrupt your meeting, but I was on the verge of breaking that promise when you texted me.”

He needed to address the hard note in her voice, but of course the most important thing, even in Janet’s opinion, would be to skip the apologies and fix the problem. He’d screwed up.

His office area was sequestered from the others because he often met with clients and adversaries who didn’t need to be privy to snippets of information overheard in other sections of the office. As he turned the corner, moved down the hall toward his space, he heard her. To most, it wouldn’t be detectable, but when he was in a session with a sub, he was attuned to the slightest indrawn breath, the rise of gooseflesh over fair skin, the tensing of muscles, warning him when she was reaching her limit. This was far beyond that. He quickened his step.

Tiny sobs, small expulsions of air bitten back. As he reached his reception area, something twisted in his chest. Something different from anything he’d ever felt.

Marcie was still sitting on that barbed pillow. Her body was quivering as she tried to finish up some memo on her computer. Two out of the three documents he’d left her to prepare were laid out on the side table. They’d be perfect, because she would have re-checked them a couple extra times, taking into account her distracted condition.

Instead of following his direction, she’d stayed on that pillow all day. Each time she rose to go to the printer, the file cabinet, as she would have had to do numerous times, she’d had to sit back down on it, let the hundreds of barbs stab into those welts anew.

Her hands were shaking as she typed. She’d apparently long ago stopped trying to stifle her tears, because there were dried tracks on her cheeks beneath the newer ones, tears caused by stress and pain. While her hands were moving, the rest of her body was rigid, trying to minimize any motion that could impact those barbs. She’d still feel their bite with every key typed on the laptop.

“Marcie.”

She stopped abruptly but didn’t look at him. Her fingers curled over the keyboard.

“Get up.”

She couldn’t. He knew she couldn’t. But she tried, placing her hands on either side of the computer. Her elbows quivered so hard the desk vibrated. Since there was a small store of office supplies on the desk, the printer pulled closer, at some point she’d stopped getting up. Now the lack of circulation, the prolonged stiff posture, was defeating her efforts to rise. Stubborn, beautiful, pain in his ass.

Going to her, he turned the chair on its swivel toward him. Clasping her upper arms, he eased her to her feet. When she tried to swallow a pained noise, he cupped her face, turning it up to him. He was tempted to take her head off with a bellow that would scare monks in their temples in the furthest corner of Asia, but he kept his voice even, steady. “I left you an order. To remove that pillow when Janet gave you the note.”

“I know. But I had to prove—”

“Stop.” He cut her off with the steel injected in his voice. “A Master told you to do something, and what did you do? You disobeyed. You can call it interpreting, overcompensating, whatever the hell you want, but it’s pure disobedience.”

She was pale, and he could read her thoughts in the trembling of her body. She thought he might punish her further, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to bear any more pain. But she would. Just to prove to him she could. Christ.