“Close your eyes. You’re making yourself crazy, staring at the logger.”

He’s right, I am. I shut my eyes. Seconds tick by, and I’m just about to scream “Just do it! Just log me!” when I feel the silk brush my calves. I jump a little. Not much. It doesn’t hurt.

The logger lifts and hits me again. Then again.

The sound of the tails swiping at me becomes almost a song in my head, drugging, seductive, moving in the same rotation as it had on my arm. My skin starts to warm.

As if knowing when it does, Chris moves the tails up to my knees, and lingers there until the same warmth forms. Then he moves to my thighs, and I’m suddenly more than warm. I’m hot, and aroused, and arching my back. I know what comes next, yet when it does, I gasp.

The tails swipe my clit, the swooshing motions biting at the delicate skin and sending a burst of arousal through my entire body. I’m panting, nearly begging for more, not even knowing what I want more of. I just want it.

The tails move up my body, over my stomach and higher.

Sizzling sensations roll through me and I tilt my head back, anticipating what comes next. When it does, I forget to breathe.

The silk slaps over my sensitized br**sts and then bites at my nipples. For the irst time, I feel pain. Another slap immediately follows, and another, and the pain spirals into pleasure.

Suddenly I’m squeezing my thighs together, my sex clenching, so close to coming . . .

Chris’s hands come down on my waist, his c**k brushing my leg. “Oh, no you don’t,” he growls low in his throat. It’s sexy.

He’s sexy. I want him. “Not yet.”

“Yes!” I demand, but he turns me to face the desk, my hands on the glass.

“You come when I say you come. You know that rule.”

I heat at the memory of him spanking me for coming too soon. Please, yes. Spank me. “And if I don’t?” I taunt.

He nips my ear, and his c**k presses against my backside.

“Come with me, baby. We do things together, remember?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “That is unfair. You know I can’t say no to that.”

“Punish me later.”

My eyes jerk open. “Chris—”

“I’m joking, Sara. But you punish me every time you put clothes on.” As he starts to pull away, I reach behind me and grab him. He surprises me by dropping the logger.

“Screw the logging,” he growls, lifting my h*ps as he presses the thick line of his shaft between my thighs. “You want me to f**k you now?”

“I wanted you to f**k me before you ever started logging me.”

He presses inside me. “You’re too damn demanding to be submissive.”

“You taught me what demanding is,” I pant as he thrusts hard into me, and then curls his body around mine.

“You were like this the night I met you,” he accuses, and suddenly his hands are under my knees and he’s lifting me of the ground, leaning me back so that he’s cradling me against his chest.

I gasp. “What are you doing?”

He sits on the couch with me on top of him, his face buried in my hair, his hands cupping my breasts. “Fucking you. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes, I—” One of his hands presses on my stomach and his h*ps arch, his c**k pumping into me. “I, ah . . .” My head turns, seeking his mouth, and somehow we manage a kiss, a caress of tongues.

With that the mood shifts, and the passion turns into something living and breathing, a part of us with demands of its own.

Everything fades into the feel of his hands all over my body, the rhythms of our bodies moving together, the stroke of tongue against tongue. I escape.

And when we inally collapse together, lying side by side, he wraps around me from behind. I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been in my whole life. I’m no longer afraid of the parts of me I don’t understand or know.

Chris understands. He knows me. And I understand him.

Still Saturday, July 14, 2012

I’m in San Francisco. He’s not.

When I landed, I called his cell phone and he didn’t answer.

I rented a car and went to his house. He wasn’t home. I took a taxi to the gallery and called him from outside. He didn’t answer.

I can’t go inside the gallery, or even call there. Not until I decide if it’s a part of my life again. If he is.

So against my better judgment, I drag my bags inside Cup O’ Cafe next door and decide to wait here until the gallery closes.

I don’t like it here. She owns it. She, who was invited into our bed in the past, and hates me. I knew if she knew how to reach him, it meant that she was in his bed now. And she did know.

He’s on a plane to New York, on Riptide auction house business.

It’s a blow to discover that he’s gone. It’s a bigger blow to discover he’s still bringing her to his bed. I wonder if she’s signed an agreement with him. I wonder if she is his, and I am . . . not.

No. It can’t be. She’d have gloated, and he wouldn’t have asked me to come home, either. Is this home? I thought I had all the answers before I came here tonight. Now I’m about to head to a hotel alone.

I hate this feeling. I hate how she reminds me of what he can be and what he was with me. Am I fooling myself? Is our past a relection of who we’ll be in the future?

And if I’m evoking old pain this easily, do I really want to stay and ind out?

Twenty-Two

Tuesday morning starts with a workout and a long chat with Chris’s godmother. By midmorning I’ve muddled through the language barrier of meeting the housekeeper, Sophie. Shortly after, Chris heads to his studio to paint and I ind myself at the island in the kitchen with Chantal. Though the meeting with Sophie had motivated me for my morning lesson, after a rather terrible attempt at several “simple” French phrases—the simple part per Chantal (not me)—my brain is ready to explode. In need of an extra cafeine boost, I push of the stool to reill my mug and groan at the protest of my sex-sore body.

Chantal joins me at the cofeepot, looking adorable in a pair of distressed jeans and a pale blue tank. She seems to be relaxing into our friendship, rather than acting like she’s headed to a cor-porate job every day. “This is enough for today. You don’t seem to be processing another language this morning.”

I feign shock. “No? I thought I was doing so well.”

She grins. “Right. So very well. So, do you want me to help you call around about Ella again?”

I’d managed to keep the Rebecca story under wraps, telling her the investigation was related to my old boss, but she’s been determined to help me ind Ella. “I appreciate what you did yesterday, but Rey said we just called places he’d already called.”

“Contacting the hospitals every day seems smart, though.”

“Rey says he has that handled, too.” I back down.

“Hello,” a familiar female voice says from the stairs.

My surprised gaze narrows on Amber, whose long blond hair is a striking contrast to her black jeans and T-shirt. She holds up her hands in mock surrender as she joins us. “Before you get upset, I didn’t let myself in. Chris took my key. He and Rey were outside talking when I got here and it’s too cold to stand outside.” She shivers. “I left my coat in my car and I really need cofee.” She starts to move toward the pot, then catches herself. “If you don’t mind?”

I’m shocked at her respecting how I might feel about her making herself at home. “Help yourself,” I say, hoping her request is actual progress and not just a smoke screen.

She glances at Chantal irst. “I’m Amber. An old friend of Chris’s.”

“Chantal,” she replies, sounding less than friendly. “I’m a new friend of Sara’s and Chris’s.”

“I’m not sure Sara thinks I’m a friend. We got of to a bumpy start.” Amber looks at me cautiously. “I’m hoping we can change that.” She heads over to the cofeepot without waiting for an answer, as if she knows I’ll need to recover from her statement. She would be right.

She’s being so nice, it makes me suspicious. I glance at Chantal, whose brow is furrowed, a question on her face.

I tell her, “Amber and Chris have known each other since college.”

“Yeah,” Amber agrees, joining us at the island. “It’s one of those ‘if we both get to forty and we’re unmarried, we’ll probably end up together’ kind of relationships.”

I feel sucker-punched, and Chantal purses her lips disapprovingly.

“Well,” she says curtly, “since Chris is going to marry Sara and make babies, I guess that won’t happen.”

I’m not sure if I’m more taken aback by Chantal’s claws coming out, or the baby-making reference. Babies? Chris and I?

He’s good with them, but having our own? The idea of having a child terriies me. A child I would love, who could be stolen away in a blink of an eye, like my mother was, like Dylan was from his family. I don’t think I can do that.

Amber snorts. “Chris with kids? I can’t imagine that one.

Unless some drastic change has occurred, he’s always said he doesn’t want kids.”

Chris picks that moment to walk into the kitchen, and the stormy look in his eyes tells me he heard the exchange. He stops beside me, his arm on the back of my stool, his body angled to mine, his attention on me and only me. And I see conirmation in his eyes. He, too, has lost too many people to risk loving and losing a child.

Chantal says something to Amber in French, and I’m pretty sure she’s trying to give us a moment. I seize it.

I curl my ingers around Chris’s smooth, freshly shaven jaw.

“I don’t think I could bear the fear of losing a child, either.” I say it as if he’s already told me he feels this way.

His eyes soften, and relief loods his expression. “We never seem to have these conversations the right way or at the right time.”

“There is no right way, remember? There’s only our way.”

I’m rewarded by a smile and a kiss on my temple, before he turns and sets an envelope onto the counter in front of Amber.

“That should handle your situation.” She reaches for it but he holds on to it, and her gaze lifts to his as he adds, “Make sure Tristan is okay with this.”

“I’ll deal with Tristan.” She actually looks awkward, when I’m used to more of a gloat or a smirk from her, and I’m curious about what is in the envelope, almost certain it’s money.

Chris releases it and she snatches it up. “I should go.” Amber picks up her full cofee cup and puts it in the sink, then stops beside me on her way to the stairs. “Maybe we could do lunch one day soon.” It’s not a question but a statement.

I’m really not sure what to make of this change of attitude.

I avoid meeting her eyes, knowing that’s what Chris wants.

“Once I get more settled, we can plan something.”

“Sure,” she says. “Right. When you get settled.” Then she glances at Chris. “Thanks.”

He gives her a nod and she takes of down the stairs. Chantal chases her progress with daggers lying from her eyes. and I warm inside at her protectiveness.

“She’s your friend?” Chantal demands of Chris.

I ight a smile. While Chris’s easy charm wins people over, most are too intimidated by that subtle crackle of power he 260

oozes to challenge him. But not Chantal. She boldly goes where others don’t dare. I learned that at the embassy.

Chris drapes a casual arm around my shoulders. “More like a troublesome sibling.” He helps himself to my cup and takes a drink.

“She doesn’t vibe like a sibling,” Chantal replies.

“Vibe?” I ask, unable to hold back a grin at the odd choice of American slang as a description.

“Isn’t that what you Americans say?” She frowns and says something to Chris in French.

“Yes,” he agrees in English, sounding amused. “The word vibe would mean the same as what you said in French, but I’m not sure it’s how I’d phrase it. It works, though.”

She purses her lips. “Well then, like I said. She doesn’t vibe like a sister. She said you two would end up married if you were forty and both alone.”

Chris snorts. “Even if I were alone at forty”—he glances down at me—“and I won’t be, I wouldn’t be with Amber.”

Despite his words, I don’t like this conversation, so I say, “Speaking of Amber, she said Rey was here. Did he have any news on Ella?”

“Good news, I hope,” Chantal adds.

“At least four people around Neuville’s home turf knew Ella by sight when shown a photo, and they’d seen her as recently as a week ago.”

Chantal looks happy. “That’s positive, right? That means she’s okay?”

“Yes,” I agree. And it is positive.

Chris continues, “Rey’s still digging around about when she left and why, to igure out if anyone saw anything strange.

So far, nothing. The witnesses said Ella was very pleasant and seemed happy. They also all seemed to think Neuville was quite taken with her, which stood out because it’s not the norm for him with a woman.”

More good news. But the fact that Ella hasn’t contacted me, and didn’t show up to work or call the school, still isn’t normal.

“On another subject,” Chris says, turning to me, “you remember that I have the boys’ camp at the Louvre Friday night, right? I asked Rey if he could stay with you that night.”