Afterlife (20 page)

every part of her felt she was doing

the wrong thing. But

when she couldn’t trust herself, that

was the whole point,

right?

So though it was exponential y more

difficult, she looked

straight at him and spoke. As she did,

her fingers closed

into tight, cold bal s and her voice

shook. “I came to thank

you for last night,” she said. “And t-

to bring you the name of

another yoga instructor. You’re…at a

more advanced level

than I offer…can offer.”

She sounded harsh and abrasive,

even to herself, but his

expression didn’t change. She had to

imagine her practical

heels embedded into the floor to keep

herself stil .

Jon glanced to his left. “Lucas, can

we continue this later

this afternoon?”

Her stomach gave a precipitous

lurch. Now she thought

about jumping out of her shoes and

running. She hadn’t

even noticed the other man. Thank

God she hadn’t said

anything less circumspect. But then

she latched onto the

name.

Lucas.
He’s spent a great deal of

time studying the way

to pleasure a woman with his mouth.

He’d thrust his

tongue deep into your pussy, do

things that would make

you mindless…

“Sure.” The masculine voice was as

confident and

commanding as Jon’s, though not as

velvet-toned. It stil

was capable of running a shiver up

her spine. Now that

she’d been proven right at least three

times, she couldn’t

deny her ability to detect a Master

from a straightforward

alpha male. She could modify The

Weather Girls’ one-hit

wonder.
It’s raining Doms…
She

was a safari tourist, come

to glimpse a lion, and had instead

walked into a ful ,

ravenous pride of them.

The anxious humor didn’t help her as

much as she’d

hoped. Having seen the photos, she

nevertheless wasn’t

surprised they didn’t minimize his

impact on her senses.

Lucas Adler moved with the grace

and control ed power of

an athlete, and the sculpted lines of

his handsome face

could have graced an Egyptian prince

in a previous life.

Though she tried not to look, she

couldn’t help focusing

on his mouth. She’d worn a trim

bolero jacket over her

blouse, and she was glad for it. His

direct, steady glance,

combined with the memory of Jon’s

words, the idea that he

might let Lucas put his clever mouth

on her, had her nipples

drawing tight. She shifted her

attention back to Jon before

she made a fool of herself by

lowering her eyes in

automatic deference before both of

them. The speculative

look, the hint of a feral, humorless

smile on Jon’s sensual

lips, told her he knew exactly where

her thoughts had gone.

Lucas was headed toward the door,

where she was

standing. She should step out of the

way, but she couldn’t

move. Literal y couldn’t, because

panic had frozen her in

place. A brush of Lucas’ jacket was

fol owed by the touch of

his strong hand on her lower back,

gently but firmly moving

her farther into the office so that he

could not only get past

her but close the door after him.

She was alone with Jon, and an acre

of glass windows

overlooking the river.

He was stil looking at her, but

instead of meeting his

gaze again, she moved to those

windows. Ten feet of

carpet and weighted silence lay

between them, but in

reality, there was so much more than

that. Just like that, al

the false constructs she’d used to get

herself here, the

anger and rationalizations, al the

games she played with

herself, were beyond her grasp.

There was only the sad

truth. Too much truth to give to him.

“You shouldn’t have done that this

morning,” she said. “It

means nothing. Can mean nothing.”

He didn’t say anything. No

interruption, no argument. She

didn’t know if that made her feel

desolate beyond measure

or apprehensive. She didn’t want to

feel anything. She

should turn around and leave. She’d

delivered her

message. But of course she kept

talking.

“When my husband left me, he said,

‘The way to your

heart is through your…cunt.’” She

swal owed, hating how

ugly that word sounded now. It had

been much different

when Jon said it last night. “And he

said he couldn’t read

the road signs anymore.”

Jon shifted. His proximity was a heat

against her back,

like the sun coming in on her front,

but she crossed her

arms over herself. A reflex, a sign

she didn’t want to be

touched, even though he hadn’t

moved toward her, hadn’t

closed that distance. She kept her

back straight, chin up,

eyes on the moving water, the

skyline. “I was so hurt and

angry, I lashed out, something I rarely

did in our marriage. I

told him he couldn’t read them

because he wasn’t brave

enough. He said no. It was because

he wasn’t interested.

Not anymore.”

She drew a shaky breath,

remembering the lancing pain

of that final strike. “People are cruel

when they’re hurting,

and somewhere inside him was the

man I married, who

didn’t real y mean those words. But it

doesn’t mean it

wasn’t true. It wasn’t in his nature. I

could have lived with

that, even been happy, if we were

friends, or he loved me

for whoever I was, even though he

couldn’t understand it.

When true love exists in a

relationship, it can overcome

pretty much anything. Isn’t that what

we tel ourselves? It’s

what we have to believe to stay

sane.”

She gave a faint smile, though it hurt

her face. “But

whether it was girlish fantasy or not,

the reality was that I

mistook selfish, lazy and overbearing

for protective and

alpha. And what I was looking for…I

couldn’t even define it

in the first years of my married life.

As the world became so

sophisticated, I understood it more,

but it was already too

late, even then. I just didn’t know it.”

She shook her head,

looked down at her hands.

“Nowadays women are strong,

outspoken. They bristle with outrage

at the idea of a man

looking at them as a possession.

Those kind of women

would consider me a freak…weak,

stupid. Maybe mental y

unbalanced.”

The chuckle she attempted now came

out sounding like

a strangled sob. “They’d cal me a

coward too, but it wasn’t

fear that kept me from leaving him,

tel ing him off. Al I

wanted was to take care of him, and

be loved for it. Even if I

couldn’t have anything more, I could

have accepted that.

The submission is…it’s far more than

sex. I know you know

that. I see it in your eyes.”

Her voice quavered again, and she

had to pause,

compose herself. She was a mature,

single woman. She

would get through this. But the truth

was it destroyed her,

knowing she’d final y found someone

in the world who

understood, and not just intel ectual

y. His Dominance was

as innate to his blood as her

submission was to hers.

Though it was too late for anything

else, there had to be

comfort in that validation, right?

“Sometimes I tried to

pretend he was the man I needed him

to be. I had this

picture of him in my head, and

everything he did, I

interpreted it as something else. If I

tried harder, if I just

loved him enough, it would be

okay… The worse he treated

me, the harder I tried. Until even he

was so disgusted with

me, he left.” She pressed her lips

together. “They say life is

a journey, and you should savor

every moment. I was

always a submissive, initial y with

no words to describe it,

or a husband who could understand

it. The frustration and

confusion of it nearly drove me mad.

There was a time…I

didn’t want…I couldn’t see any

reason to go on.”

She couldn’t stop at that marker,

because if she did, she

would truly fal to pieces. She put her

mental weight against

that door, before she could hear the

report of the gun, see

the flash of fire, feel the wet blood on

her neck… Or think

about the most important reason for

it, the straw that had

brought her to that terrible moment.

She didn’t want to

share that now, not here. Couldn’t do

it.

“That was when I started taking

yoga.” Sensing somehow

that he’d shifted closer to her, she

blurted it out, pressing

her palms against the glass to steady

herself. “Something

about it…it told me I could find

peace there. I immersed

myself in it, became an instructor. It

helped me find the

balance I needed.”

She turned then, faced him, and it

was so hard, for so

many reasons, to meet that steady

gaze. “I can’t have what

you’re offering, Jon. You’re too

young, too late and I’m too

fragile. It took me too long to pul

myself back off the cliff

edge and…” Her voice trembled

once more. Closing her

eyes, she steadied herself, spoke the

desolate truth to that

black space. “I won’t survive going

there again.”

“I’m not offering anything.”

He moved then, closing the space

between them. She

wanted to shrink back against the

glass, but managed to

keep herself stil . He had such a

smooth way of moving,

gathering an energy around him that

would always turn a

woman’s head. Her gaze latched onto

the tie. His tie tack

was a Japanese
kanji
symbol, one

she recognized,

because it was on a tapestry in her

yoga studio.

Perseverance.

Her palms tingled, wanting to reach

out, touch it, flatten

against his chest, feel his heat and

heartbeat. When he laid

his hands on her tense shoulders, she

had another brief

spurt of panic, but before she could

wrench away, he’d

pushed her against that panel of glass.

It had absorbed a

considerable amount of the sun’s

heat, such that it burned

through the fabric of her bolero and

the thin blouse beneath.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“No.” The resolve beneath the

deceptive mildness was

terrifying to her. Gentle, thoughtful

Jon, so interested in the

philosophy and spirituality behind

yoga, yet he also

understood the strength of it as wel .

A mountain could be

placid, but it didn’t make it less

immovable, less capable of

demonstrations of utter power.

However, while he could

easily overcome her physical y, he

didn’t need that. His

voice and manner alone arrested her.

“What I left you this morning wasn’t

an offer, a suggestion

or a proposal, Rachel. It was a

command. I’m not going to

give you a choice. Not right now.

Because you’ve been

given far too many. That isn’t what

you need, is it?”

The ache low in her bel y was

becoming that spinning

wheel she knew too wel , a wheel

with blades that were

going to cut her insides to pieces.

“Please…don’t.”

“Keep your eyes down, Rachel.

You’l meet my gaze

when I give you permission. You

understand?” The

implacable tone shut that wheel

down, made her knees

weak. He leaned in, until his lips

were at her temple, trailing

down her skin in a highly distracting

way until he reached

her ear. “Tel me you understand.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she realized

she’d latched onto

his shirt at the waist, digging her

fingers into the cloth as an

anchor. A hard shudder ran through

her body.

“Ssshh, girl. At the end of the third

class I took with you,

you told me you saw an old soul in

my eyes. We talked

about how we both believe in

reincarnation, the idea that

the physical body isn’t the sum total

of a human being. You

remember?”

She nodded. He tightened his grip.

“Wel , when I look in