He lowered his head, his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. She tilted her face, needing to be kissed—that need was scorching her. But he only held her there, inhaled her breath, then another, and another, until she sank into the rhythm of it. Her limbs relaxed into his hold on her. Safe. Familiar.

Mick.

This was Mick. Finally. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not in any way she didn’t want him to.

“Good girl,” he whispered against her mouth, and her knees nearly buckled.

He held her tight, just breathing with her—it was the only sound in the room. She raised her gaze to his, found his eyes dark and stormy, but with desire or some other emotion she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that his eyes looked right into her, through her, in the way they always had, yet even more intense with all the life he must have lived in the intervening years.

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he said. Commanded.

“I . . . I’m warm all over,” she answered quietly. “Loose but filled with tension at the same time.”

“What’s the tension about?”

“Being with you. Knowing we’ll play tonight. That we already are. Needing you to kiss me, Mick.”

She felt his chest heave as he drew in a long breath. His hold on her didn’t change. She waited.

The angle of his chin shifted. His mouth drew closer to hers. Held there. She didn’t dare do what she so desperately wanted to—to lift up on her toes, tilt her chin, claim his lips.

His grip on her wrists tightened painfully, his gray eyes going dark. She didn’t care. She waited while she measured the sharper cadence in his breath, the gleam of stark desire in his eyes. Felt glad to see it there, to know he needed her in the same way she needed him.

Why wouldn’t he kiss her?

Unbearable.

He twisted his crushing grip, twisting the skin until it pinched, and she gasped. She lifted her chin, the need too powerful, but he moved away just enough to avoid her seeking lips.

No!

But she remained silent. Waiting. Just as she’d been taught. She would wait for him. Be good for him. Please him.

“We’ll go now,” he told her, releasing her so quickly she almost fell. He caught her with an arm around her waist, stood silently while she regained her balance, asked, “You good?” and waited for her affirmative nod before letting her go.

Her mind was emptying already, beginning to float as he put her purse into her hands and led her onto the porch, closed the door behind them.

The change in air brought her back to the surface a bit, but not too much. New Orleans air was always a bit magical, after all. The night was soft and sultry, like scented oil in a warm bath. Like she knew his skin felt at the small of his back.

Mick wrapped his palm around her waist and led her down the stairs, careful of her in her high heels, the black pinup-style stilettos with the peep toe and the small velvet bow she’d worn just for him. He led her to his big black truck parked at the curb, the sleek paint shining in the moonlight. He helped her up onto the high seat, buckled her in with careful hands and closed the door before going around to the driver’s side and getting in.

The drive to the club didn’t take long from her house in the lower Garden District to the Warehouse District, just south of the French Quarter. There was some jazz playing on the stereo, just loud enough to fill the silence. But it was comfortable that they didn’t talk. Natural. Meditative.

They turned onto Magazine Street and passed a few blocks of warehouses—some of them actually used for that purpose, some housing galleries or nightclubs. Mick pulled into a parking lot and came around to help her step down from the truck.

The big warehouse in front of them didn’t look any different from the others on the block, except for the red light over the doorway. Mick led her up to it, and they went up the short flight of stairs. He nodded to the doorman, a wall of a man in a leather vest, before opening the door and ushering her inside.

She blinked in the bright light. They were in a small room filled up by a large antique desk. Behind it sat a small woman in her sixties, Allie would guess, who watched them over a pair of blue-framed bifocals worn low on her nose.

“Evening, Mick,” she said. “You must be Allesandra. Welcome to The Bastille. I’m Pixie—we chatted online.”

“Yes, we did.”

“You’ve already read and agreed to the house rules and sent in your paperwork, including your membership card from your club in San Francisco, so all I need is a copy of your ID and you’re good to go.”

Allie fumbled in her purse for a moment, found her ID and passed it to Pixie, who disappeared through a door for a few moments, then gave it back to her.

“Enjoy your evening. Cell phones off, dears.”

“Of course, Pixie,” Mick said, pulling his out of his pocket and smiling at the tiny woman as he shut it off. “Allie, give me yours.”

She handed it to him, and he powered it down before returning it to her.

A small part of her mind was screaming at her that she wasn’t behaving normally, and another part was reminding her this was the way things happened when a Dom shows up at your house and practically brings you to your knees before taking you to a haven for kinky people who were just like you were, even in all the myriad variety of kinks and personalities. She breathed a long, sweet sigh of relief as Mick took her through a door and into the club.

The lighting was dim, shades of red and purple, with a few spots of soft amber gleaming from the lamps set here and there at the cleaning stations, supplied with bottles of antibacterial spray and paper towels, small first-aid kits and bottled water. But she could see that inside The Bastille looked like anything but a warehouse. The walls were finished in a highly lacquered black, with heavy wooden posts polished to a high sheen every few feet. She could see the eyebolts, some with the occasional lengths of chain attached, set into the wood. Placed around the edges of the room were couches and chairs and ottomans upholstered in red velvet, large tables in carved wood, everything oversized and luxurious and slightly ornate in what she thought of as Bohemian gypsy style. Here and there, high on the walls, were paintings of naked women in seductive and often wanton poses, some bound in rope or chains or leather straps, corseted or cuffed. There were people in the room in the same state of undress, many bound, corseted. Wanton.

She immediately felt a sense of home.

Beside her Mick whispered in her ear, “What do you think of our little club?”

“It’s beautiful. And it’s not little at all.”

“There are private and semiprivate rooms, the themed rooms. The school room. The Victorian boudoir. The medieval torture chamber. The medical room. Do you see the curtained areas off to the sides? Those are aftercare rooms, full of pillows. And in the back there’s the kitchen and an outdoor patio. But I’ll give you the tour another time. I don’t want to break this space inside your head too much. I like where you’re at.”

She turned to him. “Do you?”

He stroked the underside of her chin with his finger. “I do. I think we’re going to play very well together. Come.”

He took her hand and led her across the floor of the main room. The music was a low throb of ambient tones as they passed a row of spanking benches: two floating, padded tables suspended from the ceiling by heavy chains. They moved past an enormous wooden frame in the middle of the room. A woman was bound in heavy leather cuffs, her arms stretched over her head and attached to the frame by carabiners clipped to hooks set into the wood. She wondered vaguely where he might be taking her, but that sinking sensation was beginning to ground her in the moment, in her body, and she was content for now to simply follow him.

They reached the back of the room, where long couches and a few overstuffed chairs made cozy conversation areas. He stopped in front of one of the couches, set his play bag down on a table, nodded at her, a sharp lift of his chin that made her focus on the chiseled edges of his features, all pure masculine man.