She swallowed. “Ten years ago. I got caught in a gang war.”

“Mmm.” The unemotional acknowledgement somehow let her breathe. She looked down, watching how his thumb traced small circles on the back of her hand. Slowly her muscles unknotted.

“Does a man taking control bother you?”

“No. It all happened in the past, and I deal with it okay. That’s why I didn’t put anything down on the questionnaire as a problem.”

He made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Don’t lie to me, Darlin’. Look at me now.”

She tried not to flinch from the intensity of his blue gaze. I don’t want to talk about this; I just want you to hold me.

“When does being dominated cause problems?” And as if she couldn’t understand the question, he nodded toward the stocks.

Okay, so maybe sometimes she didn’t do so well. “I never thought about it.” And I never want to.

Even as he kept her gaze trapped, he stroked her cheek gently, and as always when he mixed all that power with gentleness, everything in her melted. His eyes softened, and he murmured, “Little sub.” He kissed her forehead. “Think about what you felt in the stocks…and tell me about the last time you froze.”

She said lightly, “Well, seems like once—”

“Don’t be acting up, Gabrielle.” His fingers took her chin in an all-too-effective control. “I want to hear about the last time something made you sick and scared.”

No sidestepping would evade his insistence on answers. “I dated a guy for a while. He’d pull my hair and fuck rough, and I liked it. A lot. But he called me names once…” Her hands turned clammy, and she tried to look away.

His hand tightened on her face. “Stay with me here, Gabrielle.” His sharp eyes cut through her fear like a knife. “Tell me the words he used.”

“Slut.” The word reverberated in her skull, and her pulse filled her ears like breaking waves in a storm. She swallowed, forcing nausea back. “Whore. Cunt. Stuff like that.”

“Ah, there we go. It’s all tied to the words.” He was silent a minute, thinking, then frowned at her. “You’re still shaking, Darlin’. We’re going to sit a piece while you take a bit of rest.” His hand slid to her nape and pressed her head against his shoulder. As the noise in her brain diminished, she could hear the slow beat of his heart, and each thud somehow settled her world.

She heard him speaking off and on… Coaxing the rough-voiced dom to give a construction job to a teen with a bad rep. Someone with a light Hispanic accent talked him into joining a poker night the following week. The techno music changed to classical—Rachmaninoff.

He held her firmly, his arms never loosening. Sometimes he’d drop a kiss on top of her head as if to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her. And she felt more content right there, right then, than in just about forever.

Eventually he sat her up, laughter in his voice. “You falling asleep there, sugar?”

She shook her head and remembered to answer. “No, Sir.” A second’s pause and she risked looking up. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, but we’re not quite finished, Darlin’.”

Oh dear.

“First, and I mean for you to remember this: verbal humiliation is a hard limit for you. You tell any dom that before you start a scene. Do you understand me?”

A hard limit meant a definitely won’t do that. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good enough. Now I want to use a few of those words and see how you react.” As he waited for her nod, he took her hand.

To brace herself, she gripped his wrist. “Okay.”

“Slut,” he said softly, his eyes watching her closely.

She winced, then took a breath.

“Dirty slut.”

Same reaction.

“Cunt. Fuckhole.”

She’d heard them before, could hear the nasty voice as—she pushed the memory aside. “I’m fine.”

“You’re brave, Darlin’, not fine. There’s a difference.” He kissed her forehead. “So rough sex or force doesn’t bother you—only the words?”

That didn’t make sense, did it? Staring at the scars on his knuckles, she tried to think. “I… When…it…happened, other stuff had happened first”—Danny and Rock dying. The slicing pain down her face, blood everywhere, and—“and I was numb, I guess. Not feeling anything at all, but…I couldn’t shut out the voices.”

“Voices.” He rasped the word, emphasizing the s that made it plural. Under her fingers, his wrist muscles flexed to iron.

If he had directed that icy fury toward her, her heart would have stopped—instead his anger made her feel as if she wasn’t alone in an unpredictably violent world. She stroked her hand over his forearm, ruffling the golden hair.

After a few seconds, he took a long, slow breath and kissed the top of her head. “All right. Just the words. I do like knowing you wouldn’t freeze if someone attacked you”—he smiled slightly—“so long as they didn’t call you names.”

Her laugh sounded like a hiccup, but better than nothing. “I can guarantee that.” A guy had jumped her three years ago, and she hadn’t frozen at all. Apparently a man’s knees only bent one way.

“Good girl.” His brows drew together. “I do not like that a few words can paralyze you so badly. You didn’t even think about a safe word. What if you weren’t here but playing somewhere in private?”

“I…” She’d known from her date’s reaction that she’d scared him. The thought of blanking out like this terrified her. And all because of a few nasty words. “I didn’t lose it with you.”

“Little trainee, if you didn’t trust me with your body and with your emotions to some degree, you wouldn’t have returned after the first night.”

“Oh.” She’d have tried to return for Kim’s sake but might have failed if he’d truly scared her. Even now her body seemed to sing, safe, safe, safe. “Good point.”

“From your reaction to Holt, having someone else say the words is too risky.” He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers absentmindedly. “But you don’t react enough if it’s me. Of course, you knew I’d say them. Maybe I should surprise you.”

She huffed a laugh. “I don’t think the other doms would like you ruining their scenes.”

“No. But we might could find a different method.” He frowned. “Still, you should get some professional help, Gabrielle. Talking through this with someone—”

“I did have counseling afterward,” she interrupted. “This didn’t come to light then.” Or during job evals. Of course, I didn’t want to believe I had a problem. “But now… Well, if I can’t fix it myself, I’ll get help, but there’s no way I can do that at this time.” Sorry, Agent Rhodes, but I need to visit a psychologist. I’ll go back to playing decoy later. Tempting. Nonetheless, she’d stay. For Kim.

But God, what if someone—a killer—called her names? Her skin chilled. She needed to get over this now. “You said „a different method." What do you have in mind?”

He hesitated. “This might be too realistic, might raise more demons than we want to deal with right now.”

His use of we wiped away the chill. She wouldn’t have to face her fear alone. “Go on.”

“The Shadowlands has a yard for people who want to play outside. Sometimes Master Z closes it down and sets up”—she saw him reject the r word and choose another—“capture games. Submissives are given a head start and then chased by their doms. They might get punished for their escape or fucked or both.”

Marcus grabbing her. Pushing her to the ground. Holding her hair and… Heat slid through her, hot enough to liquefy her lower half. Until she imagined a man—any man—forcing her, and she chilled.

“I will be damned,” Marcus said slowly. “I wouldn’t have thought the idea would excite you, but it did. For a moment. Tell me what turned you off after that.”

The sharing came easier this time, maybe because he listened so carefully. “A stranger grabbing me and holding me down.”

His brows drew together. “What excited you?”

She looked away, a flush of embarrassment heating her face. Yeah, tell the nice dom that he turns you on.

His warm hand cupping her cheek, he forced her to look at him. “Talk to me, sugar.”

“You,” she whispered. “You grabbing me.”

“I see.” He stroked the underside of her jaw with his thumb. “Most women want to choose the man who stars in their fantasy, Darlin’. Especially ones with a history like yours. But acting out a capture fantasy wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Then what?”

“A game of hide-and-seek. And when I catch you, I’ll call you nasty names.”

“Get real.”

“I am. The gardens feel dangerous, especially with others acting out their chase games. If you are sufficiently nervous…I think it might work. For tonight, all I want is for you to say a safe word rather than freeze. That will, at least, make you safer if you’re in a BDSM scene.”