“Ouch,” she yelped. When he yanked her up by the front of the shirt, thank God she reacted as he’d hoped. Twisting to break free, she kicked, taking him below the knee. If she’d been in shape, she might have caused him real damage, but in this case it barely registered. Making sure she had her feet under her, he pushed her off him.

She stumbled back and went rigid, stretching her hands out around her, floundering. It killed him, but he forced himself to remain ruthless. “This is what you learned in basic combat training. This weak-assed shit.”

Shock coursed her features, but then her face hardened like a weathered statue. “I haven’t exactly been keeping combat ready,” she snapped.

“Yeah, I noticed. You’ve been sitting on your ever-widening butt—” Her temper didn’t ignite. It exploded, frustration uncapped in a way he didn’t anticipate.

Snarling like a wild animal, she swung and overbalanced. He caught her as she fell into him, but immediately tossed her back to her feet rather than gathering her to him the way every cell of him craved to do.

Despite the disorientation, she whirled, baring her teeth. He saw the flash of fire he wanted and kept pushing, ignoring the ache in his own chest. “You can fight. You just won’t. You’ve given up. You’re lucky—”

“Not the fucking ‘You’re lucky’ speech again. I swear to God, the next person that says that to me—”

“Will what? Get a tap from that little-girl fist of yours? I’m getting a hard-on from it.

Come tickle me some more.”

She screamed and lashed out again, but this time she focused. Her fist landed against his palm, held square in front of his face. His jaw set in satisfaction. There’s my girl. Would have snapped my head back. His fingers closed over her tense fingers, holding them as she quivered.

“Damn it. I can’t . . .”

“Yeah.” He touched her neck carefully, cupped the side of it, then squeezed, hard. “Yeah, sweetheart, you can. But you need help.”

“Not you.” She shook her head, and tears seeped out, destroying him. “Not from you.

Damn it, Peter, I want to have some pride left.”

“You’re pissing it away, every day you sit in that chair. You smell like this room, not a human being. You’re becoming part of the furniture.” He brought her chin up to him, glad she couldn’t see the anguish in his face as he made his voice rough. “And you gave up the choice by not accepting help from anyone else. If you ever make a crack like that about being a whore again, I will fuck you up ten ways to Sunday. You won’t sit comfortably for a month. You’re no one’s whore.”

“I can feel the scars. I look like a monster.”

“No, you don’t.” He moved his palms to her face, to the healing lines at her cheek and forehead, teasing her lashes. “Your eyes are still that pale green, like marsh grass. You’ve got a surgical scar here, and here . . . healing. Your skin is still so soft, your lips so full. . .

.” He placed one of his hands over her heart, cognizant of the rise and fall of her breast, and one against her temple, stroking the short hair there. “Heart and head. That’s all you need to heal, Dana. The rest doesn’t matter. It’s just skin. You’re beautiful to me, inside and out.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“Yeah, I do. That’s what scares the shit out of you. I can bust your comfort zone wide-open. I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to live again.” Her breathing elevated, the tracks of her tears widening. “I want you to leave,” she said brokenly.

“No, you don’t.” He swallowed, hoping it was the truth. “You’ve always taken care of yourself. You hate depending on others. You think you have to run the whole damn world without help. The only time you let it go is when you follow orders or put on a leash and collar and hand it to the right Master. But even that you had to control, and that’s why you never found him, thank God. Until you found me. I’m not going to let you control me. I’m going to help you, no matter how hard you try to drive me away. Starting right now, I’m going to prove that to you.”

“How?”

She didn’t have a comfort zone anymore. She had a big, dark hole in which she lived, the definition of isolation. But his presence seemed to shoot light into that hole, and he was right about that part—it scared the shit out of her. She wanted to cringe in the shadows, stay away from those spears of illumination and the pain they could bring. She needed him to be gone. He was supposed to be her fondest memory, not part of her desolate reality.

Instead, he shoved all her wishes aside when he answered her frightened question with action. He caught her under the arms, pushed her against the wall and put his body flush against her, lifting her off her feet.

Oh, God, he felt even better than she remembered. Those same broad shoulders, corded neck. His smell . . . Oh, she hadn’t savored his smell the way she should have.

Aftershave, soap, heated, angry male. His testosterone was at boiling point, and having someone angry at her felt incomprehensibly good. She wanted to fight with him some more, draw blood, so much rage boiling to the surface. The passive-aggressive anger she spewed in fits and starts at Christina was nowhere near the clean, white-hot fury that Peter drew to the surface, simmering darkly for so long with no outlet.

He might kiss her. The very thought ignited spiraling pleasure in her lower belly, its potential heat capable of burning the rest away like a big trash burn, the shit that had been roiling in her gut for months. Instead, though, he hiked her up against his body so she had to wrap her stiff, tired legs around his hips. She wasn’t sure where he was taking her until he laid her down on her bed. Before she could anticipate him, he’d stripped her of her pajama bottoms and the cotton panties beneath.

Holy shit. She wasn’t ready for this, and she defended herself the only way a helpless animal under attack could. Rolling into a ball, she wrapped her hands in the base of the sweatshirt so he couldn’t take it off. She shook her head, knew she was saying “No, no, no” in that muted, hateful whine that echoed off the inside of her skull.

He was strong enough to uncurl her, so she was braced to lose, panic threatening to make her hyperventilate. But he settled next to her. His fingers caressed her ear, her nape, a soothing stroke. Once, twice . . . until nerve endings stopped cowering and reached for his touch instead. Then his lips were there, teasing flesh that had not forgotten that wonderful, free-fall feeling of arousal, those nerves strumming to life. He reclined on his hip behind her, his large hand stroking down the length of her thigh, his denim-covered groin cradling her bare ass. She stayed still, barely breathing, a rabbit hiding as he went down to her knee, then back up, tracing the curve of buttock as she quivered and a breath escaped her.

She hadn’t been touched by anyone but doctors and nurses for months. They examined, poked, prodded. Even though they made every effort to put her at ease, to be gentle, it was always as if they came from every direction, like an enemy attack. She refused to go back to the therapy sessions to learn “how to be blind.” She pretty much had a grasp of it.

It sucked, and since she could barely hear what most people said to her, being around people at all was exhausting. She’d stopped paying attention. The dark void was quiet and dull, and attempts to draw her out of it made her angry and vicious, as she’d just demonstrated in such an embarrassing way. When she couldn’t see or hear people’s reactions, she’d found she didn’t give a rat’s ass if she pissed them off or hurt their feelings.

Peter’s every emotional reaction was physical and immediate. And they mattered to her, damn it. Whatever decibel he was using, she could hear him without strain. It was good but frustrating as well. He wasn’t going to be ignored.

Curling into a ball had not been a well-thought-out plan, either, for his fingers followed the curve of her buttock to her pussy, teasing the petals with gentle, light but inexorable fingers.

“Peter . . .” She couldn’t help the whimper, the tears that squeezed out at being touched in such an intimate way, after everything else. If her body aroused like a normal healthy woman’s, when she was anything but, she might shatter. “I can’t bear it.”

“Shh . . . let me hold you. I’ve burned to hold you, sweetheart.” His other arm tunneled beneath her, wrapping around her chest so she automatically latched her hands onto his forearm. Because of that, he brought her fetal-curved body farther into the shelter of his body. But he changed that altogether paternal image when he collared her throat with a large hand, forcing her head up and back against his shoulder.

Every nerve ending detonated, and not merely the physical ones. Damn him for knowing a submissive’s mind too well. The shudder went all the way from that point of contact to her toes, and her thighs loosened a little more. His fingers dipped in, found moisture and spread it over those lips like honey. She mewled, gasped some more.

“You won’t call me by my name without permission, sweetheart. You know who I am.

Tell me.”

She couldn’t call him Master. She wasn’t that person anymore, couldn’t pretend she was.

Whatever this moment was, he deserved better, more, and that was a road she could no longer travel with him. She had nothing to give. So she shook her head against his hold, even though she couldn’t change the thundering of her heart, the aching hardness of her nipples, needing his mouth and touch, the ruthless tug of his fingers. Ah, God, she’d thought a million times about the things he’d done to her breasts.

Two fingers entered her pussy, stroked, thrust. One leg shifted over hers, keeping her legs in their folded position, thwarting her desire to open them. His thumb passed over her clit again and she cried out. She wanted to fight this, wanted to shut everything down, shut him out, but he wasn’t letting her. If she could shut down her emotions, maybe she’d dare to perform like a whore in truth. He’d know, and be pissed off enough to leave her alone.