As if she needed another excuse to stay out of Conn’s bed. She stepped outside and his palm settled on her lower back, heat seeping through to her skin. Automatically, she started toward the passenger side of his Mustang, but he stepped ahead and opened the driver’s door for her. “Didn’t you want to drive?”
Pleased but still unsure of his mood, she slid into the black leather seat. She tossed the new white beaded purse—that Miss Belle insisted she had to carry to complete the outfit—into the back seat. He’d already moved the bucket seat up for her.
He shut the door while she tinkered with the mirrors and scanned all the equipment. It was a relatively new car, satellite radio, CD player, gleaming and polished black everywhere.
As soon as he was in and belted, she started the engine, a rumbling purr that brought the car to life. Throwing it into gear, she spun out of the driveway.
“If you get a speeding ticket, you’re paying for it,” he said mildly.
“It’ll be worth it.”
The car was incredible, humming with power as she drove down the one-horse road leading through town. In moments, they were on the freeway heading toward Joplin and she floored it to eighty miles per hour, zipping through light traffic easily. She enjoyed the speed a few minutes but then slowed down to a more reasonable five miles per hour over the posted limit. She really didn’t want him teasing her later about a ticket. “Why Mythos? Joplin’s a good hour away.”
“It’s my favorite restaurant south of Kansas City and very worth the drive. How was your day?”
“Strange to say the least.” Did he know about the ghostly events that happened at the house? “We had terrible news this afternoon that Bill Franklin passed away.”
She filled him in, her stomach clenching with dread. Ugly memories of her own marriage gone bad filled her head.
“Poor Samantha. Was Dick like that?”
Staring straight ahead, Rae nodded. “He could be mean, yeah. Sometimes it was the silent treatment, but usually he exploded, hit something, and then he was fine.”
“Did he hit you?” Conn’s voice suddenly went steely.
“Once.”
“And he’s not dead?”
Surprised, she glanced at him quickly. He was deadly serious. “It was our last big fight, and when he hit me, I kicked him out of the house. I told him if he ever came back, I would shoot him. And I would have,” she whispered harshly, gripping the wheel. “I should have kicked him out years before. Should’ve would’ve could’ve. Shit. I shouldn’t have married him at all.”
“That’s my darlin’; shoot the bastard on sight.” Conn reached over and put his hand on her thigh, his grip firm but comforting. “I made mistakes, too, Rae. Everybody does. It’s how you fix them that matters. You know that, Fix-It Lady.”
“What mistakes did you make?”
“Too many to count.” He sighed and stared out the passenger window, but he didn’t take his hand away. “I learned a lot about myself while you were gone, Rae. I ran through every single thing I’d done with you and realized I should have told you from day one what kind of man I am.”
What kind of man I am.
Wicked, hard, demanding, sexy as hell. She stole another glance at his averted face, wishing she could see the look in his eyes. “I did a little research on my own once I left.”
That got his attention. He turned, his eyes midnight blue. “Research about what?”
“About spanking and…stuff. Kinky shit.”
His mouth quirked, some of the darkness in his eyes turning to heat. “Where did you research kinky shit, darlin’? This is the Bible Belt.”
“Google is my friend.”
He made a disgusted sound and she laughed out loud.
“I know, I know, you hate the internet. But if I’d taken the time to do a little research beforehand, maybe I wouldn’t have freaked out so much after what happened in your office.”
He slid closer, turning to face her and switching to his right hand, sliding his palm from her knee up to cup her inner thigh beneath the dress. “What scares you the most, right now, right this minute?”
“Having an accident because you’re driving me nuts.”
Laughing, he kissed her shoulder and didn’t move his hand up any higher. “I’ll be good, darlin’. No panty exploration yet. What about me scares you the most?”
“The most?” Her breathing sounded loud and ragged to her ears. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell you no.”
“And that’s bad, why?”
She arched a brow at him.
“I’m serious. If you trust me to take care of you, then you shouldn’t ever be afraid I’d hurt you. It’d kill me to hurt you, really hurt you.”
“I don’t have any willpower when I’m with you. I don’t even know what I want. I’m afraid—”
He kissed her shoulder again, just the slow, lazy brush of his mouth, but everything south went on high alert.
“—that I’ll lose myself.”
“Lose yourself in me, darlin’, because I’m safe.”
She laughed with a hard, wry edge to her voice. “I married Richard because I thought he was safe. He was completely opposite you. You’re dangerous, Verrill Connagher. Very dangerous indeed.”
“Now that’s definitely worth a spanking. I hate my real name. Why do you think I’m dangerous?”
“You look at me—”
He nuzzled her shoulder, still gentle and soft, but it was like cuddling a tiger. When would he show his teeth? “You melt?”
“I can’t even think. He didn’t affect me that way. But I still lost myself, day by day. I hated it. It’s taken me a year and more to find myself again, and I’m not giving that up. Not even for you.”
He raised his head, staring into her face. She was deadly serious. She honestly thought…
Irony was a bastard. She’d run from him because she was afraid he’d hurt her, and then she’d married a man who had hurt her more than Conn’s worst nightmare.
Despite the agony of the last five years, he felt a reluctant relief that she’d run. She had so many misconceptions about what he wanted. If she didn’t have the courage to ask, he might have ended up crushing her spirit without even realizing it.
The thought made his chest hurt. “I don’t want you to change or give up anything. I would never ask such a thing.”
“You wouldn’t have to ask me,” she said grimly, tightening her grip on the wheel. “I told you, I was afraid of myself, too. If I thought you wanted me to do something, I’d do it, just to make you happy, whether you actually asked me to or not.”
“You got me all wrong, darlin’. My number one concern is
your
happiness, safety, and especially, your pleasure. Quit worrying about what I might want you to do, and decide what you want. It’s my job to see that you get it.”
She shot a doubtful glance at him and then jerked her attention back to the road. “Really?
I thought…” She gnawed on her lip, obviously trying to decide how much to admit to him.
Settling back in the seat, he smiled. He’d push a little, and not in the way she expected.
Then he’d figure out what secret fantasies she’d had of him. “So you read about control and submission?”
Nodding jerkily, she shifted her sweaty palms on the wheel and very studiously kept her gaze straight ahead.
“Bondage?”
Another nod.
“Masochism?”
“Some.” Her voice cracked. “I’m not really sure we should be talking about this now.”
He smiled despite the fire raging in his blood. Sweet and sexy in that white dress, a siren of innocence, Rae tested his control like nobody he’d ever met in his entire life. It was all he could do not to jerk the wheel over to the side of the road so he could haul her over into his lap and remove that dress. “Now is the perfect time. You said you chose Dick because he wasn’t like me. Do you mean that he literally was submissive, or just not as dominant as me?”
“He wasn’t submissive, but he wasn’t dominant, either.” Her gaze flickered toward him again and her mouth tightened slightly. I never really thought about it with him.”
“Tell me.”
Faintly, she whispered, “I really can’t talk about that right now.”
“Just drive, darlin’, and tell me. It’ll be easier this way; you won’t even have to look at me. Pretend I’m not even here in person. In fact, pretend like you’re writing me a letter.”
“I did,” she said quickly, then winced.
Ah, she hadn’t meant to tell him that, either. “I never received a letter from you.”
“That’s because I never mailed them,” she muttered. “After that first one where I explained why I wasn’t coming back to Drury, I found myself thinking about you and writing you all the time.”
He wanted to read those letters so badly that he tightened his grip on the door and his thigh to keep from putting his hands to use for wooing and coercing. Forcing lightness to his voice, he asked, “Are you going to let me read them?”
Again, she bit her lip, and her voice was trembly when she finally spoke. “Maybe.”
Those letters were obviously very honest and raw if she was so reluctant to share them, which only made him want them more. He wanted to get inside her head, read about her fears and dreams and longings all those years. Pushing to read them would be like salt in a wound, so he backed off. “We’ll negotiate that later, then. Tell me whatever you thought of when I asked you about Dick. How was he in bed?”
The thought of discussing sex with another man—with him—must have been mortifying.
A tremor shook her shoulders and she bit her lip. Mentally preparing himself, he forced his hand off the door and breathed deeply and easily. He didn’t relish hearing about her sex life with another man, but there were too many red flags in her past that he had to understand.
She’d feared him enough to run for five years. He had to know how much worse the bastard had made those fears.
The silence weighed heavier in the car with each passing minute, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t push her, but he knew her well. She’d never been able to sit quietly in his class when he asked a question if no one else responded. It was part of her innate desire to please him, which he would have to be careful not to abuse.
When he was going to sigh defeat and change the subject, she finally answered. “Not bad, but not…explosive. Not like I think it will be with you.”
Now that definitely stroked his male ego. She didn’t know the half of what he wanted to do to her. “Did you want him to do kinky shit with you?”
She clutched the wheel hard, shifting her hands on the leather until it creaked. “The one time he tried…” She fell silent, her jaws grinding, her lips a slash. “It wasn’t the same.”
“The same as…in my office?” He couldn’t help the purring rumble in his voice; he was too turned on. “You mean it wasn’t as good as what I did on my desk? What did he do?”
“He wanted to tie me up, blindfold me. It was…boring. Silly.”
“So you weren’t turned on. You didn’t enjoy it.”
She shook her head vigorously and swallowed hard. “Not until… I… I thought of…
you. Dreams, that night, and—”
If he touched her right now, he’d likely embarrass himself. He’d have to ask her to turn around and drive home so he could change his pants. “You came in your dreams thinking about me? Hell, darlin’, I lost count of the wet dreams I had thinking of you.”
Guilt thickened her voice with unshed tears. “Yeah, but I committed adultery with you.”
His heart hurt for her again. She’d stayed in that unhappy marriage because she’d given her word. For years, all she’d had were dreams of him, which in turn, brought her closer to breaking her solemn oath. He’d been absent from her life for five years, but he’d still indirectly wrought her divorce. God help him, he was glad. Glad that she’d divorced that other man, glad that she was here, now.
“If Dick had satisfied you, you wouldn’t have thought of me. But I’m glad he was a pussy in bed with you, darlin’. I’m glad you dreamed about me.” Wicked satisfaction curled in the pit of his stomach, helping him control the vicious need thundering in his body. “So, in these dreams, what did you let me do?”
Rae shrugged, glanced at the road sign, and frowned. He still had plenty of time to hear some of her forbidden fantasies before they reached Joplin.
“Did you let me tie you up?” She started to look at him, eyes wide, mouth falling open, but he reminded her to drive. “Blindfold you? I did, didn’t I? And you liked it. It drove you wild. There was nothing you could do but scream and beg and cry. And come again and again and again.”
Her foot eased off the accelerator, her hands slackening on the wheel. He reached over and steadied the car, keeping them in their lane.
“Is that what you dreamed, darlin’?”
“Are you—” She gulped. “Are you going to do that? For real?”
“Hell yeah, and about a million other things I’ve dreamed about for five years. Whatever you’ll enjoy. That’s the most important thing to remember, Rae. If you’re not enjoying it, then we don’t do it. Period.”
“Promise?”
The slightest tremble in her voice sliced his heart to ribbons. “On Miss Belle’s Beulah Land, I swear it. The minute you’re not having a good time, tell me. We’ll pick a word that’s safe for you, and everything stops the minute you say it. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens that you don’t enjoy.”
Lightly, he settled his hand on her thigh. She still jolted, jerking the wheel reflexively.
“Shhh, darlin’. We’re talking play. Fun. When it’s not play, we stop.”
He kept his touch light and didn’t slide beneath her skirt or torment her. After a few moments, she relaxed and loosened her death grip on the wheel.
When she finally spoke, her firm, hard voice surprised him. “For five years, I was afraid to think about what happened that day. I denied it. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. I thought letting you touch me like that made me weak, vulnerable, and worst of all, stupid. My mind made up all sorts of excuses. How surely you picked a silly naïve student every semester to ‘break in’ like that. It wasn’t just me. It couldn’t have been me, what I wanted.”