“She goes and on the second day is kidnapped. I get a Red Cross call—the line family members can use to inform you of an emergency—and fly twenty hours home. When I get to the ranch, my momma looks like she’s aged fifty years and can barely rise from the chair to greet me. My dad doesn’t want me to even step foot on the porch of our house. He tells me to find her and not come home until I do.”

“Oh, Daniel,” Regan leans over and starts rubbing my upper shoulders, which feels far better than I deserve at the moment. “Have you been saving girls for the last eighteen months?”

That and killing people.

“Every time I walked into one of those houses or pulled over a truck carrying fucking kidnapped girls I didn’t know whether I felt relief or disappointment at not seeing her face. Until a few hours ago, I believed she was dead.” I hunch over my knees, using my hands to cradle my head. “And now I’m feeling so much fucking relief, I can’t even tell you, Regan.”

“Do you need to cry it out?” she murmurs.

“What?” I crank my head around.

“Cry it out? You know, let it go. That’s how my, I guess, ex-best friend Becca and I used to deal with things.”

“I hope you know I’m not Becca.”

She smiles, a bit sadly. “I hate that you found me in that house. I hate that I’m a fucked-up victim.”

Turning swiftly, I grab her by both arms. “You are not a victim. You are a fucking survivor. You have more life in you than half the people walking around living their normal lives.” I shake her a little so she gets this. “You are not a victim.”

I don’t think this penetrates because she continues. “Earlier, in the alley,” she gestures in some vague direction behind her, “I freaked out because you were pressed up against me. I felt like I was back in that room.” Her breath catches as if she’s holding back some tears, but I don’t encourage her to cry it out because I don’t know if I can deal with her tears at this moment. “What if I can’t have sex like a normal person? What if all I can do is mutual masturbation?"

Her words are conjuring up wild erotic images which I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate. Swallowing hard, I push my lust away and attempt to speak normally. "I think you’ll move past that."

“I wanted you this morning,” she admits. “I mean, you saw me. I really wanted you. I was fantasizing about you touching me, you rubbing me, your dick inside me.”

Oh Christ. This sex talk is making my dick stand up. But what if . . . ? A thought occurs to me. A really selfish thought. One generated by my dick, but I can’t help myself. Standing up, I say, “Then take me.”

“What do you mean?” She sounds bewildered but intrigued.

I unbuckle my pants and then lie on the bed. “Why not come over and use me? Do what you like to me. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. If all you want me to do is lie here while you feel me up, then that’s what we do. If you want to climb on top of me and ride me, that’s cool. Shit, you can even tie my hands up.” I shiver at the thought. “Use me.”

“But what if I get upset and leave you hanging?” She’s up off her feet and standing right at the edge of the bed, fiddling with the bottom of her shirt like she wants to whip it off. Do it, baby.

“So I have to jerk it myself. You’re okay with that, right?”

She nods.

“Then it’s all good.” I spread out my arms. “I won’t move unless you tell me to.”

“But what if I get on top of you and then I’m like, on you but have to, um, disengage?” She’s placed a knee on the side of the bed.

“So you’re saying you’re riding me, and your wet pussy juice is coating my dick, and then you decide, nope, this train rides too rough or I’m feeling queasy?”

Her head bobs and her breathing is a little more rapid, a little louder. “Then I guess you climb off and I take myself in hand, and I either jerk off with your hot little eyes watching every move or I go to the bathroom."

“But that seems so unfair to you.” This time she’s fully on the bed, kneeling right beside me. My dick is so hard I could hang a fifty-pound weight off of it.

"Making you feel good is a privilege, not a chore. You hear me? No matter what happens, you tell yourself that getting close to your pussy is a goddamn fucking privilege. Got that?"

I only get a nod, but this is important shit so I make her repeat it. “Say it. Say ‘making me feel good is a motherfucking privilege.’”

She giggles but repeats my words. “Making me feel good is a privilege.”

“No, ‘a motherfucking’ one. Say it again.”

She screams it. “Making me feel good is a motherfucking privilege.” Then she collapses on the bed beside me and we both laugh. It’s stress relief or maybe actual humor, but I can tell we both feel better.

“Wouldn’t it be hard not to want to keep going?” she asks, rolling onto her side. Her head rests on one of my outstretched arms. I’m careful not to move like I promised.

“I’ve gone without for a long time, baby. I can last a few more days,” I say wryly, knowing her next question is going to be how long. Because that’s Regan: always asking the follow-up. She should’ve been a reporter or investigator or something instead of an accountant.

“How long?”

I grin. “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

She smiles back and shakes her head. “If you knew I was going to ask, why didn’t you offer it up?”

Shrugging, I sink into the bed a little more. She draws closer to me, her head now resting on my shoulder and her left hand absently stroking my chest. “It’s been . . .” I squint into the distance. “A couple of years? My last leave I was in a bar in San Antonio. Some cougar propositioned me, and I took her up on her offer to teach me some moves. And yes, before you ask, she did teach me a couple of things.”

“I don’t know what to ask you first. Like, why has it been that long and what is it that she taught you?”

“She taught me to listen to my partner and that making her happy was going to end in good times for me. As for the other . . .” I scrub my free hand across my mouth. “After my sister was taken and I started learning more about what happens to these lost girls, I kinda lost my appetite for it.”

“But with me, it seems like . . .” she trails off.

“That I’m always hard?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Don’t know how to explain it. You turn me on like no one else has ever cranked my chain.”

“Would you really let me tie you up?”

All I hear is genuine curiosity, and I want to feed it until it turns into desire, want, and unrestrained need that she fills at the fount of Daniel.

“Yeah, but I’m going to be honest: I'd be able to get out of any restraint you could think of, so tying me up will be illusory. You trust me?” I hold my breath because none of this is going to work unless she’s fully on board. Regan’s got to be able to embrace her own reactions—but even more, she has to believe that she is safe with me.

Her gaze is downward, and she’s silent. All I can hear is my own heavy breathing that sounds like harsh static on a radio airwave.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she says finally. “That’s the issue for me. I don’t know what I’ll be able to take or not until I’m there.”

It dawns on me that Regan doesn’t need to trust me; she needs to know that I not only trust her but I’m okay with everything that she does. I need to give myself over to her fully and let her do what I asked—which was use me, take me. I force my breathing to calm. “Here’s my promise: I’m not ever going to get angry for anything you do or don’t do in the bedroom.”

She bites her lip and then passes a hand over the surface of my body, and it’s more erotic than if she had performed a lap dance.

“I’m not sure what I should do. Like, should I take my clothes off?”

Yes please. But this is her show. “Whatever you want.”