Cole was fumbling, trying to keep the kitten from falling. “I thank you for your offer to help, little one, but this cat’s feisty.” He raised an eyebrow. Her bulky jeans and slouchy shirt couldn’t hide the too-thin frame and the dark shadows around her eyes. “With all due respect—”

“I said give him to me,” Sasha repeated in a firm voice. I didn’t know about anyone else, but I didn’t know Sasha could be that forceful. She motioned with her hands again.

Cole must not have known she could be that forceful, either. His eyes grew wide with shock and he nearly lost his grip on the wiggling creature in his arms. “Sasha,” he said in a low voice.

But Sasha was determined and without waiting for him to offer or agree, she simply reached for the kitten and took him. Gathering the frightened animal tight to her chest, she dropped her face into his fur and whispered things I couldn’t make out.

Cole didn’t move from where he stood, though I wasn’t sure if it was because he was still in shock over her actions or if he wanted to be close in case she needed him.

After a few minutes she lifted her head and Cole laughed. “Bloody hell, he’s purring.”

Sasha only beamed in response as Cole reached out and stroked the kitten’s dirty fur. “How did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I just saw him struggling and then he was free, but he didn’t know it. I think it’s because you’re a bit intimidating, Sir. And I thought to myself, ‘I know exactly how that kitten feels,’ and I just had to hold him and tell him. I had to let him know he was safe and everything was going to be all right.”

“Damn,” Nathaniel whispered so they couldn’t hear. “I didn’t know she could speak that many sentences at one time.”

“You and the kitten are kindred spirits, little one. That was good thinking,” Cole said, and locked eyes with Sasha. The look that passed between them was so intense that for a second I couldn’t breathe and my skin prickled with gooseflesh.

“Wow, I’ve never heard him call anyone ‘little one’ before,” Daniel said. “Wonder what that means.”

“Nothing,” Julie whispered. “It means nothing. He called her that the first time he met her. Right before you whipped Peter.”

We’d been whispering so Cole and Sasha wouldn’t hear, but watching them, I thought we could have been yelling and they wouldn’t have paid us any attention. They were speaking softly, the kitten held between them. Then Sasha suddenly looked our way.

“He’s a stray, right?” she asked, looking between me and Nathaniel. “He’s not yours?”

“No,” Nathaniel confirmed. “We only have our dog, Apollo.”

“I can keep him?” She was no longer the determined woman who’d confronted Cole, but once more tentative and unsure. “I’d like to have someone to care for.”

“I know the feeling,” Cole mumbled behind her.

“Of course,” Nathaniel said, and then smiled. “We just won’t tell the kids. Elizabeth would love a kitten, but we can’t have one with Apollo around. He’s too old and set in his ways.”

“Thank you,” she said, and dipped her head into the kitten’s fur again.

“I think,” Nathaniel said in a soft voice so Cole and Sasha couldn’t hear, a slow smile covering his face, “I’ve just decided who I’ll recommend to have retrain Sasha.”

Julie and I spoke at the same time.

“Oh, hell no.”

“That might be the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

But Jeff was nodding and Daniel’s head was tilted in thought.

I looked once more to the couple bonding over the bundle of fur. The tentative submissive who’d stood up to someone intimidating in order to calm a kitten. And the man I knew to be ruthless who’d looked on her with kindness and a hint of something more.

“He’ll break her,” I whispered.

Nathaniel shook his head. “She’ll heal them both.”

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She was going to have to book an extended session with her therapist.

Sasha Blake closed her eyes and tried to take deep cleansing breaths like she’d been told to do when the familiar panic started to take over. But the sharp claws of fear and dread grabbed onto her chest and the simple act of inhaling took more strength than necessary.

“Sasha?” Nathaniel asked. “Are you okay?”

She cracked one eye open. The Dominant in charge of running the meeting looked at her with concern. She focused on him and did her best to ignore everything and everyone else.

“Yes, Master West,” she said. “I’m fine.”

Fine. Her pat reply to everything. She was fine. Work was fine. Her back was fine. And being told the Partners in Play senior members had decided she could rejoin the BDSM group after a retraining with Cole Johnson?

Abso-freaking-fine.

She was sitting in a small room off to the side of Daniel Covington’s playroom, where group meetings were held. Only the senior members were present, which meant there were only about ten people sitting around the oval table at the moment.

The side of her face tingled as if someone was staring at her and she slipped her hands under her thighs to keep from rubbing the spot. She used more discipline than what should be necessary to keep her gaze directed on Nathaniel and not to let it wander just a touch to the right where he sat.

Items numbered one through five hundred twelve to discuss with her therapist: Cole Johnson.

Based on conversations she’d had recently with Nathaniel, his wife, Abby, and her own best friend, Julie, and Julie’s Dominant, Daniel, she’d expected to be offered a retraining. She’d even looked forward to it: experiencing the thrill of letting someone else take over, rediscovering the peace that came when she knew her Dom would do anything to protect her and—she wasn’t even going to pretend otherwise—having earth-shattering orgasms.

It’d not once crossed her mind—not even in her wildest, craziest, never-gonna-happen-might-as-well-fantasize-about-it dreams—that the group would pick him.

Cole.

Sasha shivered just thinking his name. An alien spaceship must have transported her to an alternate universe because that was how hard it was to believe Cole was going to retrain her. He was an altogether intriguing man, one who had quickly captured her attention. But though he was usually laid-back and easygoing, talk among the group’s submissives pointed toward a hard and unyielding Dominant in the playroom.

She didn’t have to glance to Nathaniel’s right to know who she’d find watching her. She pictured him all too clearly in her head. Dark tousled hair, devilish blue-green eyes, and a body that seductively hinted at sexual pleasure with every carefully controlled move. And then he’d speak in that oh-so-smooth British accent.

Yes, she’d call her therapist tomorrow.

“Are you okay?”

Sasha jumped at the sound of her friend Dena’s whisper.