His fingers slipped away but he murmured to her to stay in that position, her head tilted away, chin pointed to her shoulder, as he fixed the corsage to the straight neckline of the dress. He caressed the curve of her breast beneath the fabric, exploring the edge of the strapless bra. As her lips parted at the stimulation, she felt his eyes on her. “I love how you respond when I touch you,” he said.

  He guided her face back to him so she could meet his eyes. When he took her hand to lift her to her feet, he kept her next to his chair.

  Sending a pointed glance upstairs, he winked at her, a reassurance that he was staying conscious of Elaine’s whereabouts. He slid a hand under the light skirt, up the length of her thigh to trace the lace top of the thigh high, then the elastic of her panties. With him leaning close, his scent, a clean masculine aftershave, filled her senses. She bit her lip as he found the satin-covered point of her sex.

  “Widen your legs,” he said, and she did, eyes fastened to him as he caressed her between them, a fingertip sliding over her clitoris as she bit back a little sound. “Thin bra,” he said, eyeing her. “I can see your nipples becoming little points.” He lifted his other hand to cup a breast, run a thumb over that area. “I like how you submit to my commands, Daralyn. I like it very much.”

  He’d taken things up a notch tonight, she realized. He was fully embracing the Dominance and submission between them with no apologies, no worries that she wouldn’t trust his lead. She liked that very much, too, and wanted to tell him how it helped steady her. So she did, in the way she could and that he understood, with her eyes, the sway of her body toward him, her trust.

  Maybe he was also being so assertive to help steady her. He seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing when she needed additional structure. But even if that was true, he was also doing it because it met a need and desire of his own, exercising that kind of control toward her, observing how it aroused her. That was something she particularly liked.

  Drawing his hand from beneath the skirt, he claimed one of her hands, lifting it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles.

  “You’re with me,” he said. “Don’t worry about a thing tonight.” His free hand caressed her face. “Are you going to worry?”

  “I’m going to try not to.”

  “Good. Are you going to trust me?”

  “Always. It’s me I…”

  She stopped. They both knew it was herself she didn’t trust, but she wished she hadn’t started to say it.

  Rory brought her down onto his lap so he could brush his lips against her temple, her cheek, then moved to her mouth. He tasted her there before easing back, his eyes dominating her vision.

  “One day, I hope you’ll know that they’re one and the same. Trusting yourself with me.”

  The organizers had debated having the reunion at a fancy hotel ballroom, but ultimately had decided on the nostalgic locale of the high school auditorium. With a bigger budget than school functions had, they’d impressively decorated the space with a creative array of drapes, standing pole lights, strung lanterns and other glittering decorations. It looked like a ballroom.

  When Rory and Daralyn arrived, they’d been greeted warmly by neighbors, by friends, by his former classmates. Daralyn stayed close to his chair, slightly behind it, her hand on his shoulder.

  Rory knew she was spun up about tonight, and not just because his mother had told him so earlier in the evening. Elaine had brought Rory the shirt she’d insisted on ironing for him. “She’s extremely nervous, son, but trying to hide it.”

  He’d watched that anxiety build over the past several days. With Daralyn, there was a delicate balance between addressing an issue and not giving it too much attention. But seeing her suffer bothered him intensely, so he’d made a call to touch base with Dr. Taylor. The doc had given him a less than satisfying answer, even if it made sense.

  “Daralyn is in a very good place right now, Rory,” the psychiatrist had said. “She’s built a lot of positive things to keep her from regressing, but for someone like her, the temptation is to completely enclose herself in that space, which also keeps her from going forward, addressing the hardest things of all, those buried the deepest inside her. Following you into new situations is going to take her toward possible confrontations with those things. Which she needs if she’s ever going to break them open, heal them.”

  She paused. “You love her deeply. When she seems happy, the idea of exposing her to experiences that could make her unhappy is difficult. But that’s when you have to question what love truly is. Is it keeping that person cocooned from the world, or standing beside her, living through the good and bad together?”

  “Doc, anyone tell you that your ability to make good sense is annoying as hell?”

  He’d startled a laugh out of her. “All the time. Usually from my husband. If he ever murders me, it will be right after I say something that makes perfect sense.”

  After that conversation, a resolve had grown inside him. All the Dom stuff he’d been learning these past few weeks, including the party in Florida and talks with Marcus, were all good. But there came a moment, just like with what Daralyn was facing, when a person decided to be all-in on what he knew he was, what he wanted to be, and how he wanted to express it.

  When she’d come down the stairs with that pale face and the slight tremor to her hand on the banister, that resolve went into full lock. So, though a few weeks ago it might have felt like a shirt he’d just tried on and was figuring out the fit, tonight it had fit as perfectly as the suit Marcus had made him get.

  These past few weeks had been the measuring, the trying on. Tonight he wore the mantle of a Master, and he wasn’t backing away from it.

  Daralyn was his heart and soul, his submissive, his woman, his best reason for being his best self. As he introduced her to people she didn’t know, he met her gaze frequently, and whenever he was stationary, he kept his hand firmly upon hers on his shoulder.

  There were things he didn’t have as much power over, because he was in a chair. But with his voice, his will, when he fully embraced the power of being a Dom, it was something true and real a submissive recognized, that didn’t have a damn thing to do with his mobility. He knew it in his heart, and it was reinforced by how Daralyn reacted to him.

  She knew he was with her, every step of the journey.

  As Rory had to introduce her to too many people she didn’t know, Daralyn reminded herself there were a good many she did.

  Like the one in front of them now.

  “Well, look at that. When you hose the horse manure and turkey feed off him, he manages to clean up right nice.”

  Brick had extricated himself from a gaggle of women Daralyn assumed might be former female classmates, eager to reacquaint themselves with him, and made his way over to Rory and Daralyn. He swallowed Daralyn in a warm, easy hug before pumping Rory’s free hand.

  “I’m betting you still had to pay a woman to be your date,” Brick observed, shooting Daralyn a wink. “Charge him double, Daralyn. I know what a pain in the ass he is.”

  Though Rory had grumbled it defied the laws of anatomy, Brick had filled out even more since he’d been the high school team linebacker. His friend had steady gray eyes, dark hair he kept short, and a close-cropped beard. Before he’d gone away to college to major in fire science and engineering, he’d been a town volunteer firefighter. He was currently working in Richmond as a deputy fire chief and arson investigator.

  Les said he’d traveled to California and Australia to help fight fires as well. Rory’s sister always claimed to have no interest in him, that her crush on him had been short-lived, a schoolgirl thing over one of her brother’s idiot friends. However, she always seemed to know what Brick was up to, something the irrepressible Julie never failed to point out.

  Rory made a show of looking around Brick’s large bulk. “Apparently there wasn’t enough money in the world to convince a woman to put up with you, even for one night.”

  “The spot on my arm stays open for one very special woman. I’m sad she couldn’t make it tonight.”

  “Yeah, she was, too.” Rory shot him a look. “But that was because of missing the award thing. Had nothing to do with you.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  As the men teased one another, they moved toward the table that had been assigned to Rory and his family, close to the awards stage. Daralyn was relieved to take a seat next to Rory that backed up to the wall, while he flanked her on the outside. She could listen but not have to constantly engage as she managed all the stimuli around her. Fortunately, Marcus and Thomas arrived with Elaine shortly thereafter, and Thomas sat on her other side, completing the reassuring sense of being enclosed by family.

  As usual, Marcus made women, servers and guests alike, turn to stare, risking tripping over their feet or running into tables. Especially tonight, when he wore a tailored suit, his dress shirt open at the throat.

  Thomas was a good-looking man himself, just like his brother. With Elaine in her blue evening gown, they made a handsome group. But as Daralyn looked at all of them, she saw family. And the man who could make her trip over her own feet was sitting by her side. Ready to catch her if she stumbled.

  The awards ceremony would kick off the evening. Older community members attending primarily for that reason could depart before the more boisterous schedule for the high school reunion began, which would include music and dancing. So as the time came for the ceremony to commence, the remaining chairs at their eight-person table were filled by Brick, Amanda and Marty. Johnny and his date, as well as more of Rory’s school friends and teammates, were at nearby tables.

  As Fran Potts, the reunion organizer, took the podium and began an introduction, Daralyn noted Rory studying the stage. The relaxed set of his shoulders had tightened. When he felt her regard, he sent her a slight smile, reassuring her.

  But she noticed Thomas looking at the stage, too, and then he murmured something to Marcus. A frown creased his husband’s brow. When Thomas leaned forward, catching Rory’s eye, Rory shook his head, lifted a shoulder. “Not a big deal,” he murmured. “I’ll figure it out.”

  The opening remarks were done, and the handful of awards began to be introduced. From a glance at the program that had been given out, Daralyn knew Rory’s was last. It would be introduced by the mayor of their small town, emphasizing it as the most important of all the awards being offered.

  He might be uncomfortable with it, but she could tell his family was swelling with pride, the closer the time came for the award to be presented.

  Mayor Wilma Bergin took the stage. A distinguished looking figure in her fifties, she’d softened her brisk look tonight with an elegant green suit, a spray of white flowers pinned to the lapel. Daralyn wondered if the mayor’s husband had given her a corsage as well. She liked that idea.

  The mayor discussed the history of the store, how Elaine and Robert Wilder had started it, and how it had become an anchor in their community. She was respecting Rory’s request that the award should honor his entire family, not just him. Only as she drew to a close did the mayor turn her attention to Rory’s part of the legacy.

  “Many of our young people leave here to do amazing things,” she said. “They go with our blessing, our gift to the world at large. But when one of them chooses to stay, give his time and energy to the community, show his love of it, we rejoice in the chance to acknowledge his value and contribution. So Mr. Rory Wilder, would you please come accept your award, for you and the whole Wilder family?”

  That was when Daralyn realized the problem. So did Elaine.

  “Oh no,” Elaine murmured. “Rory…”

  In all the planning that had gone into the evening’s elaborate event, someone had forgotten. The stage had no handicapped access, only four steps up to the platform on either side.

  However, whatever initial tension Rory might have had about it seemed to have disappeared. He shrugged, gave the table a “not a big thing” smile and casually pushed himself from the table. Instead of heading for the stairs, he moved toward the front edge of the stage. Daralyn realized he was going to take the award from the mayor’s hand, let her reach down and give it to him.

  Any tightness she detected in his smile, the set of his shoulders, was likely him steeling himself for the embarrassed pause that would result when the presenters realized their oversight.

  The chair across from her scraped the floor as Brick rose. With several ground-eating strides, he intercepted Rory at the front of the stage.

  The way Brick positioned himself reminded Daralyn of those yearbook pictures from their pep rallies. Him and Rory and the rest of the team hamming it up for cheering students wearing school colors. Now Brick’s voice boomed through the auditorium, as easily now as she was sure it had then.

  “Hold on there a moment, Flash. You remember those few times you scored us a touchdown? When you weren’t fumbling the ball, that is.”

  Laughter swept the tables with his former teammates and rippled through the crowd, covering Rory’s good-humored retort. Brick grinned, but then he looked toward the audience, particularly those at the front tables. “When he took the ball across the line for the win against the Jaguars, we carried him off the field. Let’s give him a lift again, right here and now.”

  Cheers broke out, chairs scraping in unison as a half dozen men rose. Daralyn saw Brick tilt forward, say a quiet word to Rory. Making sure it was okay.

  Rory’s expression had shifted from amusement to a wealth of deeper emotions. He managed a quick nod, which Brick answered with a hard shoulder squeeze. Then Brick and three of the men had lifted the chair, two on each side, the extra two as rear escort. They put him on the stage in a move as smooth as a chair lift.

  During that few handful of seconds, Daralyn thought Elaine had Marcus take a dozen pictures with his phone. Rory’s mother made a tremendous effort to stay composed, though her face was suffused with emotion as strong as her son’s. Daralyn suspected when Brick came back to the table, he was going to get a rib-cracking hug from her. If she could get her arms around that much of his massive chest.

  Right now, Brick and the others had arranged themselves to the right of the stage. Daralyn had lingered over Rory’s pictures in the yearbook more than once. Now she recalled a much younger Rory, a high school junior, standing at the mic, his teammates in this same, almost military precise line nearby, hands clasped before them.

  Rory had moved to the podium. The mayor had the plaque in one hand, her other extended. Daralyn could tell she was offering a sincere apology, distress and regret in her dark eyes. Rory gave her a reassuring smile, the one capable of making any woman’s toes curl. Including Daralyn’s.

  Wilma handed him the mic, stepping back behind the podium while he turned to face the audience from his position next to it. As far as Daralyn knew, he hadn’t prepared or agonized over a speech. She’d asked him, on one of their lazy evenings in the hammock, if he was preparing one. He’d shrugged. “Nope. If anything needs to be said, it’ll come to me at the time.”

  He gave calm and appropriate thanks to the presenters, to the town that he called home, the neighbors and friends who supported him, naming several in particular. He said he was proud to support all of them.

  Then he paused, gaze sweeping over the audience and coming to their table. He let his attention rest on Daralyn a lingering beat before moving it to his brother, to Marcus, and finally his mother.

  “I’m thankful for my life,” he said, shifting his gaze back to the listening audience. “It’s a funny thing. After my accident, like anyone going through something like that, there were a couple moments I wished the tractor had finished me off.” He sent his mother a regretful look. “It was tough. But now I know I didn’t know what tough is. I had every gift in the world, all the love and family support I needed, to get through it. And I have those gifts still.”

  His gaze shifted to Daralyn. “Tough is going it alone in the world when everything seems against you, and surviving anyway, with your soul intact, and a heart bigger than anyone’s I’ve ever met.”

  She could feel eyes turning her way. This was a world who knew her story. The local customers who came through the store, the people she saw at church, whose houses and farms she passed when she rode her bicycle to work. It was a quiet awareness, though, nothing they brought up or dwelled upon in her presence. Rory had put her in the spotlight, but only for the moment, just long enough to make her heart pound harder beneath their regard and his. Then he smoothly moved onward, drawing their attention elsewhere.

  “When I was told I was getting this award,” he said, “I didn’t want it. Not because of false modesty or because I’m uncomfortable with that kind of thing, but because to me, it was obvious that there were two particular people who deserved it more. The two who taught me everything that’s important. My parents.”

  His gaze touched Elaine, came back to the silent crowd. “As we move through our lives, our parents are not only trying to guide us, they’re trying to figure themselves out, too. And whether they realize it or not, when they give us a front row seat to that journey, they’re influencing us in ways that can literally save our lives, put us on the paths that make life something better than we ever could have imagined.”

  Now when he turned his eyes back to his mother, he held there, so the words went directly to her. “I’ve had that front row seat, watching my mother deal with losing her husband, the love of her life, my father, way too soon.”

  Daralyn could see Elaine hadn’t expected this. She also wasn’t surprised to see Marcus and Thomas’s arms overlap on her chair behind her, giving her support. Rory’s gaze moved to them.

  “Then she faced a challenge to some of her deepest held beliefs. She had to change course on her thinking about what love is. What it looks like. It was really tough for her. But because she taught us from the time we were born what love is, deep in our souls, Thomas was able to gift that lesson back to her.”