The silence was killing her.

Sasha swallowed hard, concentrating every inch of her body on not wriggling. Which was difficult, because when she was nervous she liked to wriggle. And pace. What she wouldn’t give to pace. And make dramatic hand gestures—something to expunge her excess energy.

But this was not a time for wriggling, pacing or dramatic hand gestures. It was definitely not the time for the insecure, braces-wearing, acne-sporting geek to emerge in all her unsexy glory, because that would make this even worse.

By her count, a full sixty-three seconds had ticked by.

That was a long time to not say something.

Sasha inhaled deeply, counted to ten, then released. It didn’t help.

“It’s weird, right?” she blurted at last, unable to stem the way her insides kept twitching. Like her skeleton wanted to run away and leave her body behind. “It’s too weird. I’m too weird. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Walker held up a hand, and she immediately lost her confidence. Sasha slipped deeper into her seat.

Yeah, this had been dumb. Weird and dumb. And she might have driven a permanent wedge into the foundation of her most important relationship because of it.

At last, Walker seemed to return from whatever out-of-body experience her request had prompted. He cleared his throat and straightened, his skin regaining some of the color that had drained out of it.

“Do you understand what you’re asking?” he said finally, then resumed what he’d been doing before the question had so inelegantly sputtered from her mouth—that was, forking up a mouthful of lo mein.

Well, that was somewhat insulting.

“What do you mean, do I understand?” she snapped, perhaps more harshly than necessary, but she couldn’t help it.

Walker chewed thoughtfully, holding her gaze with that air of lethal control that had always unnerved her. She couldn’t maintain eye contact that long without blinking, flushing or finding something on the floor of immediate, intense interest. Not so with Walker. He possessed a state of calm assuredness through every interaction, giving nothing away and more often than not making her feel completely unglued.

Which wasn’t fair.

“What I mean,” he said at last, setting his carton of noodles on the desk between them, “is have you thought this through?”

“You mean because sex changes things.”

A muscle in Walker’s whiskered jaw seemed to flex, causing her pulse to spike.

Sasha inhaled deeply and shrugged, going for casual but knowing she wasn’t pulling it off. “Sure. I thought about that, but I try to make a habit not to believe every cliché I’ve heard.”

“A cliché becomes a cliché for a reason,” he replied.

“Or because of Nora Ephron.”

At that, Walker’s mouth twitched as though he were fighting off a grin. “Regardless,” he said, “that wasn’t what I was referring to.”

“No?”

“This isn’t something you do because it’s trendy or because you read some book—”

“That’s not why I’m here!” Blood pounded in her suddenly throbbing head. Her cheeks felt hot, and her heart had taken off at a gallop. “Could you be more insulting?”

“We both know the answer to that.”

Walker leaned back in his chair, apparently done with lunch. His eyes, a deep shade of brown that had always fascinated her, remained on her face, revealing nothing. She envied that control, and resented how effortless he made it look. Walker had been her closest friend for twenty years, but the relationship had always felt somewhat one-sided, in that he seemed attuned to her in ways she wasn’t to him.

Once upon a time, that had bothered her, but it didn’t anymore.

Not really.

Still, it wasn’t as though Sasha couldn’t appreciate his hesitation. She’d come prepared to convince. It just so happened that making a compelling case to her reflection was easier than articulating her feelings to a friend, especially over something so personal.

If she couldn’t convince him, she didn’t know what she’d do.

Sasha swallowed hard and steeled her spine. “I’ve been…researching this for a while now.”

A thrill of victory seized her spine when his eyes widened in surprise.

Ha-ha, gotcha there.

“Have you?” he asked mildly. “How long is a while?”

“A little over a year.”

There was that surprise again. Sasha somehow refrained from dancing in her chair.

“That long?” Walker leaned forward, clasping his hands on the desk. “You never mentioned it.”

“Well, it’s weird.” She frowned. “No, that’s not right. Or it is. I wasn’t sure at first. It was after… You remember when you first signed with Horizon?”

Walker dipped his head in a single nod.

“That night, when I brought the contract over…” Sasha couldn’t help it—she looked down, heat stealing up her throat again, stretching across her face and seeping into her scalp. “I took a look around before I came in here.”

She paused, hazarded a glance to Walker. His eyes were darker now, his jaw clenched.

“I just wanted to know,” she continued. “You’ve always been so private about this and I wanted to get a sense of… I thought I’d know you better if I saw what goes on here.”

Walker said nothing. His silence was deafening.

“I ended up in the… I saw…”

“You decided to watch.”

His tone was deceptively neutral. Still, she couldn’t help but feel like she’d confessed to something shameful.

“Yeah.” Sasha drew in a breath. “For… I don’t know how long.”

“You were forty-five minutes late to that meeting, if I recall correctly.”

“So I guess around forty-five minutes.” Sasha inhaled again and held it. The embarrassment, she knew, was out of place, and something she had promised herself she’d work on. It was difficult, even after all her research, practically applying an enlightened mindset over a lifetime of hard conditioning.

“If they were in the ballroom, they wanted to be seen,” Walker said, his tone softer now, almost gentle. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know.” And she did, really. “But it was after that. The things I… It affected me more than I thought it would.”

“You mean it turned you on, watching.”

She nodded. “I thought it was that at first—that I was seeing something that I had always thought was so private being, well, out and about.”

Walker chuckled, the sound warm and soothing, and enough to convince her to look up. For the first time since she’d entered his office, he looked somewhat at ease.

“Puritan,” he muttered.

Sasha stuck her tongue out at him. “Shut up.”

His eyebrows flickered, and, for just a moment, his gaze went to her mouth, and something else shivered down her spine—something foreign and strange, but at the same time, oddly comfortable.

Sasha fought a frown and cast the thought aside. Trick of an overly stimulated mind.

“Like I said,” she continued, straightening, “I thought my reaction was just because I’d seen people doing bedroom things outside of the bedroom.”

Walker laughed outright at that.

“This was when I was seeing Darren. Remember?”

He nodded.

“I’d been having a hard time having a good time with him, if you follow me.”

“Sash, you’re here asking me to fuck you. I think we’re a bit beyond euphemisms.” Walker arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

Sheesh, that was blunt. Sasha swallowed, nodded and fought against every impulse that screamed at her to look away. “Fine,” she said. “I had trouble orgasming.”

“You mean he couldn’t bring you to orgasm.”

“It wasn’t him—”

“Yes, it was.” Walker shook his head as though disgusted, his nostrils flaring. “Do you have any idea how many women I’ve met who have told me what you just told me? Do you know how many accept the blame? Past lovers have convinced them that they’re the ones with the problem. If Darren couldn’t make you come, that’s because he didn’t really try.”

The fire in her cheeks had taken on a life of its own, beating out a steady pulse. “Anyway, I was in a hurry by the time I got in here, because Darren and I had a date.”

“I remember.”

“And…that night… Well, I was able to climax,” she continued, hating how hot her face felt. “I thought it was because I was so…stimulated already and dismissed it. But a couple nights later, when I was struggling again, I started thinking about what I’d seen. It helped but didn’t quite get me there. So then I pictured me in that girl’s—”

“Sub,” Walker corrected. “She was a submissive.”

Sasha swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Ah, when I pictured myself in the sub’s place…that got me there. That trick helped for a little while, but soon it wasn’t enough. I’d try to simulate being tied up, but Darren would always ask what the hell I was doing, and I couldn’t tell him. Eventually, he got frustrated and I was already frustrated, so…that’s when we called things off.”

“Why couldn’t you tell him?”

“I was embarrassed.” Sasha looked away again. “Ashamed, like I’d done something wrong.”

Walker frowned, and she couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t been forthcoming about this part of himself with her until college, when she’d discovered the toys he kept under his dorm-room bed, alongside a stack of magazines and DVDs that left little to the imagination. She hadn’t reacted well then, and it felt as though she’d been trying to make up for it ever since.

And now…

“I don’t think it’s wrong anymore,” she said softly. “I didn’t even then, with him, but it’s hard when you know one thing and feel another. I started doing research. I read a lot of books, visited several sites.” She paused, her lips quirking. “I even went to that dungeon outside of town—”

Walker jumped up so fast she nearly had whiplash following him. “You did what?”

Sasha blinked at him. Every muscle in his taut body was pulled tight and rigid, his expansive chest straining under the black T-shirt seemingly plastered to his skin. God help her, Walker was a sexy man, which was entirely inconvenient. While she had done her best to ignore him aesthetically, there were times when she’d see him at a distance and find herself at a complete loss at how gorgeous he was. From his powerful legs to his defined arms, the perpetual scruff smattered across his jaw and neck—which somehow never matured into a beard—and his dark hair, Sasha constantly took for granted that normal people didn’t look like him. And as she’d known him since she was ten, it was easy to forget that others weren’t accustomed to seeing him, hence the occasional gawking.

However, when he was angry, like he was now, it was damn near impossible to dismiss his size.

“I visited a dungeon,” Sasha replied, doing her best to keep her tone calm. “Dark Haven, I think it’s called?”

“Do you have any idea what could have happened?” Walker demanded. “Other places aren’t like this one, Sash. You could have been hurt.”

She narrowed her eyes, her spine straightening. “Calling bullshit. You don’t have the market cornered on safe BDSM clubs. They are just as cautious as you are.”

“No one is as cautious as I am.”

“Again, bullshit.” She shrugged. “Sorry, but that was one of the first things I asked when I went over there, because I’m not a moron. Sure, they’ve had a few incidents here and there, but—”

“A few too many.”

“Anyone in violation with club rules was tossed out,” Sasha said. “And they notify other clubs in the area. I know you know this, because I saw their email list. I wasn’t born yesterday—I asked for all this stuff. They were all too happy to provide.”

Walker grunted, stared at her for a few long seconds, then finally sat again. His posture remained rigid, his jaw clenched, and Sasha experienced a pang of something between remorse and affection. Escapade had been established on the foundation of safety, security and authenticity. There was no one in the business who was more devoted to the care and comfort of club members and guests than Walker Wilson, but that often bled into prejudices about other places. He’d secret shopped various other BDSM clubs and dungeons before he became locally recognizable, and always returned with several tomes of so-called hazards. Most were minimal, some were imaginary, and, though a handful had been serious enough to warrant further investigation, the bulk of it came down to Walker’s high standards.

Which was why she’d known it had to be him.

“I want this,” Sasha said. “I want to see if what I feel…what I’ve been feeling for months…if it’s something I need. And I need to know before I get in with someone else, because I don’t want to start a relationship with someone and find out too late that I was wrong about this. And I need a relationship in order to develop trust. I won’t compromise on that, and I don’t think I should.”

Walker stared at her, swallowed, and said nothing. Which was good, because she needed to get through this.

“I trust you,” she continued. “You might be the only person in the world I trust. I know this is weird and… Well, weird covers it. And, yeah, it might be a bit awkward between us for a while, but I’ve tried to tackle this from other angles and I know—I know I won’t be able to really give myself over to it unless it’s someone I absolutely trust.”

“I’ll do it.”

The words were so soft she thought at first she might have imagined them. “What?”

Walker leaned forward. “I’ll do it. But on my terms.”

“I—”

“Do not argue with me on this, Sash. You know what I am. If you’re going to submit to me, you’re going to have to start now. Trust that I know how best to take care of you.”

Sasha glared at him—or tried to. The part of her used to calling him on his bullshit was screamed down by the part that found his domineering attitude unnervingly sexy, which in itself was both frightening and liberating.

Because she knew he was right. If anyone could take her through this, it was Walker.

“Just promise me one thing?” she asked.

The hard lines that made up his face softened a bit in response.

“Don’t treat me like glass,” Sasha said. “I’ll let you know what’s too much.”

Walker studied her for a moment. “Have you chosen a safe word?”

She nodded. “Onomatopoeia.”

His lips twitched and his eyes lit up. “Onomatopoeia,” he repeated. “That’s…so entirely you.”

“That’s the idea.”

Walker grinned at that, and damn, if his grins weren’t devastating. There were people who physically transformed under the power of a simple smile, and he was one of them. A rush of something pure and sweet took hold of her body, and her heart lurched in response.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Be here by nine.”

Sasha blinked, and her momentary high plummeted hard and fast. “We’re…doing this here?”

“Where else?”

“I thought…your place.”

Walker shook his head. “Home is personal. Things might be awkward after tomorrow, but there’s no need to make it more so.”

That made sense, but Sasha’s inner prude had yet to stop bleating her alarm bell. “Ahh…I get that. But I don’t think I’m ready for…” She made a general motion to the door behind her.

The grin powered up again, doing more funky things to her heart. “I wasn’t thinking the ballroom, Sash.”

“Oh.” Fresh heat singed her cheeks—first relief, then embarrassment. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know Escapade’s layout. Walker had gone over every inch of the building in full detail the moment he’d brought his marketing plan to Horizon. The private rooms were as much a highlighted feature as the space allotted for those members into exhibitionism and voyeurism. ‘A corner for every kink’ was Walker’s tagline.

“Sasha,” Walker murmured, drawing her attention back to him. When she met his gaze, she found his eyes had softened. “Relax. You’re calling the shots here. I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

She wasn’t sure whether it was his voice, his words, the look on his face or a combination of all of the above, but the second the assurance was off his lips, she felt the tension seep from her body.

He was right. He would take care of her. That was why it had to be him.

“Where will we go, then?” she whispered.

“The Underground.” He flashed his teeth in a full smile. “New marketing ploy.”

“You’re going rogue.”

“What can I say? I like to experiment.” Walker held her gaze a moment longer, then exhaled and looked away. “It’s a private playroom a hundred feet below us. Away from the noise, completely isolated. And I haven’t broken it in yet. I’ve wanted to see how much interest I could generate.”

Sasha arched an eyebrow. Marketing was familiar—her territory. At once, she felt much more in control, which was both a burden and a blessing. Control was a heady thing to balance.

“So how are you getting interest in it?”

“By denying it exists, obviously,” Walker replied. “Drives the intrigue up. Good for business. And it’ll give me an idea of how steep a price to put on it should I ever decide to rent it out.”

“You think you might not? Rent it out?”

He shrugged. “Probably. Someday. In the meantime, I like having my own hideaway. Just for me and my guests.”

At that, he looked back at her, and Sasha’s spine went rigid.

“Tomorrow,” he said again. “Nine o’clock.”

She nodded and, understanding that the conversation was over, forced herself to rise onto wobbly legs. “Nine,” she repeated, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Should I…wear anything in particular?”

Walker shook his head. “Dress for comfort.”

Sasha wrinkled her nose. “You remember that my comfort is yoga pants and a tank top, right?”

“What you wear doesn’t matter. I’d tell you if it did.” He paused. “If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

“I don’t think you will,” Walker replied. “But if you do, just text me onomatopoeia. Understand?”

Sasha opened her mouth to protest again, but thought the better of it. He was right. For all she knew, she might wake up tomorrow morning in a cold sweat and decide to bury herself under a stack of blankets. It didn’t seem likely, considering how much she wanted this, but there was a difference between wanting and having. Now that she all but had it, her nerves might decide to go on strike.

“Understood,” she said.

“Good.” He looked back to his desk. “See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

She was almost out of the door when his voice came from behind her—loud enough to carry, but soft enough to feel like a whisper.

“And don’t interrupt me again, sub.”

Sasha almost stumbled to a halt. The part of her she was most familiar with, most comfortable with, reared at once, demanding that she march her ass back in there and tell him exactly where he could shove that sanctimonious tone of his.

The other part, the part that had prompted her to come, damn near cooed.

She waited, stranded between realities. The newer part won, as it so often had of late, shoving the old, familiar Sasha to the back.

She relaxed, straightened her shoulders, then called back, “Yes, Sir,” before stepping outdoors.