"A simple fashion statement only, Ms. Moira. Being a sensitive male of the modern age, I'm capable of discussing women's clothing choices. And crying."

Cassandra challenged any woman to stay unaffected by the sexy humor in his gaze. His voice lowered, taking on a husky note. "But if I'm already in trouble, I'll risk it all by saying I can't decide which part of you it enhances the most. The curvy ass, which I very much liked having on my thigh, or your tits, sitting up so high over that absurdly tiny waist that they jiggle with every breath you take."

"Crude," she responded with a sniff. "Women don't appreciate that."

"Not until they're good and hot. You walked in here soaked for me, and your nipples are already hard. Aren't they? Tell the truth, or I'll find out for myself."

"Just because my body has an involuntary attraction to you, which you know damn well any woman with a pulse would, doesn't mean anything," she said loftily.

"Like you and Ben flirting?"

"Exactly."

"Did you go check out his office this morning? Smell his suits?"

The flush in her cheeks was gratifying, but her words gnawed at Lucas's gut. As hardcore evidence went, he knew he didn't have much to justify a deeper attraction. While another man would understand that it was different when sex gnawed at him like this, a woman would just think he couldn't keep his hormones under wraps. She didn't realize that sex at this level for a man was the need to possess, to claim. To keep.

This was beyond hunger. This was evisceration, begun when he heard the first note of her voice as she came down the hall. Then, put this outfit on top of it. . . Jesus, she was trying to kill him.

Down, boy. All in time. You have apian. Stick with it.

Easing her to her feet, he covered his reluctance to release her by straightening his cuffs.

"So, if it's just sex, I assume you're still willing to take my dare."

"As long as there's no interference with—"

"Business. We settled that yesterday. However, ultimately, I think that depends on you.

Your infamous control, that is."

She narrowed her eyes as he continued. "This meeting will be a couple hours of Ben droning on with a Japanese lawyer about worker standards and listening to the appropriate report from the Japanese team on the other side."

When Cass shrugged her shoulders, it felt as if they were weighed down by the ropes of tension drawing taut in her stomach. "I know that. Are you proposing to liven it up?" Her alarm mounted at his expression. "You're joking."

He moved to the door, closed it. "Go over to my desk. Put your hands on it and spread your legs."

She told herself she hadn't heard him correctly, though the way the corset's boning constricted over the trembling of her lower belly told her there was at least one part of her anatomy that had heard him, loud and clear. "No."

Lucas left the door, but while she tensed, he simply passed her, giving her a tantalizing whiff of cologne and male heat, before going behind his desk. He removed a blue velvet box from his desk drawer, a box with a white satin ribbon around it. The color of surrender, she thought.

"You know what I remember about that day in the forest, Cass?" His voice was doing insane things to her nerve endings, stroking them, arousing them, making her want to go to him, do anything he said. She forced herself to hold her ground, latching on to an absurd anchor. A children's book she and Nate had read together, of all things. The young peasant heroine had overcome overwhelming trials and tribulations to rescue her brother from an evil witch. But that witch had a donut-hole-sized wart on the end of her nose and a harsh cackle, not the patrician features and velvet voice of a golden Egyptian prince.

"I remember how you put your hand under the pack cords. It was uncomfortable, the way they cut into your flesh. You don't mind a little pain. It all increased your excitement. The moment I restrained your hands yesterday, you went from hot and wet to full flood, trembling on the edge of climax. You crave dominance, but you don't think you can allow it in your life and protect what you're responsible for protecting. Or honor what you've made of yourself. You couldn't be more wrong."

Lifting his gaze from the box, he locked it with hers. "The strongest women in the world have the hardest time surrendering. They don't realize when they do it with the right man, the one who cherishes them, it's the most beautiful gift she could ever give him. Her trust.

Trust me, Cass, and do as I say."

The last thing she wanted to do was capitulate to this, whatever this was. Yet it hadn't stopped her from goading the situation with her provocative walk around his office. He got her so charged up. If she put a hand over where his mouth had been on her throat, she was sure she'd feel a resulting contraction between her legs. Her body trembled in reaction to her thoughts, and she could tell his shrewd eyes saw it, the way he'd already seen so much. Somehow, she managed to raise her chin anyway. "The answer is still no."

"Okay, then." When he came around the desk, she wondered if she should bolt or hold her ground. Then he startled her by dropping to one knee, so close it brushed the outside of her leg as he ran his hands down her calves, his palms whispering over the nylon silk of her sheer stockings. He set the box beside him. "Stay still for me."

As she tried to think of a way to respond, her eyes full of his broad shoulders, the crown of his head almost level with her breasts, his hands glided back up her legs, past her knees, along the outside of her thighs and right under the hem of the skirt. She bit her lip at the welcome heat of his hands, all the more unsettling because they moved with swift precision up to her hips, his thumbs hooking into the thong panties beneath the molded edge of the corset and bringing them back down over the lace thigh high.

Black satin, a simple design, no embellishment. As he ran them down to her ankles, his thumb stroked over the wet crotch panel. He looked up into her face. "Step out of them."

Cassandra let him guide her hand to his shoulder, nudge her into lifting one foot, then the other. She should be saying no, refusing him. When he slid the panties into his coat pocket, she wondered if he'd ever give them back. Or if she wanted to imagine him with them, like the handkerchief.

"Men like to sniff women's clothing as well," he informed her. "Just different items."

Then he untied the ribbon on the box and lifted out what also appeared to be some form of thong, only this one appeared to be of latex.

"Keep holding my shoulder."

"Lucas, I can dress—"

"I'm doing this part. Hold my shoulder so you don't break your neck on those killer heels, and hush for a minute. Your only responsibility is to let your mind go wherever I want to take it."

She might have pretended affront if she hadn't just allowed him to remove her underwear.

Stepping into the new garment, she had to press her lips together hard as he slid them up the same track again, barely able to stifle an aroused gasp as he adjusted them in the crease of her buttocks with shocking intimacy, fingers brushing her rim, then over her clit, making her hips jerk.

He rose, taking her hand from his shoulder but holding it against his chest. When she curled her fingers into the soft linen, she felt the shape of the man beneath. "What you're wearing is a type of vibrator.

There's a bullet against your clit. It has an adjustment that can drive you to climax in a matter of seconds, as well as multiple other speeds to keep you wet, building you up slowly for a deeper, more satisfying release, depending on how patient I am." His forefinger stroked hers, just a slow glide from the nail, up over the knuckles, back to the hand again. Amazingly, her pussy was reacting to just that motion, throbbing in rhythm with his finger's movements. "There are also sensors in the back strap. It will feel like my fingers are teasing your rim, adding to the sensations."

His gaze lifted. "Knowing your propensity for form-fitting clothing, I didn't bring the nipple teasers. They cover your nipples, and through a combination of oil, heat, and tiny electrodes, simulate a man's mouth, suckling you. I'd love to see you wearing them under this sweater, nothing else, and then take them away when your nipples are large and erect, pushing against the fabric. When you walked toward me, your breasts would move with that firm little quiver from every slight movement, your thighs rubbing the lips of your cunt together. I'd have you so worked up, you'd come, just from that walk. But I'd make you keep walking while you came, and if your knees gave out, I'd catch you."

As he kept up that torturous, teasing stroke of her one finger, she thought she was going to come just from that, the seduction of his words.

"So you're going to turn this on during the meeting." She was proud of her ability to say it in a reasonable tone, even if her attempt at incredulity sounded to her own ears a bit breathless.

"Yes. Different amps, different times. It's silent." He took a small ear wig out of the box and settled it in the shell of her ear, sweeping her hair forward to cover it. "And I know you're too proud, but this is where the taking care of you part comes in, when you submit to a Master. If you can't stop yourself from coming, if you're afraid you'll reveal what you're experiencing to the others, just shake your head at me and I'll stop."

Why hadn't she locked her bedroom door last night and taken care of this edge, about fifty times or so? Maybe because Nate and Talia had been sleeping with her, Talia having another of her nightmares, Nate's asthma acting up a bit.

"Master? What does that mean?" She tried for sarcasm this time, even as her body seemed to know exactly what it meant. Because it had shifted into defensive mode, backing up without her permission to do so, her limbs trembling. If she hadn't been wearing the corset, he would have seen her nipples as large and proud as he'd suggested.

"And I thought your intention was to make me come, not sexually frustrate me."

When his hands closed on her hips, just below the tight cinching of the waist, gripping her hard there, it drove the breath from her. Despite herself, both hands ended up on his chest, curled into the shirt, her forehead pressed to his shoulder, trying to get a grip on herself. What was the matter with her?