Chloe tucked her tongue in her cheek and shepherded the noisy children toward the side entrance to the gardens. Tina hung back another moment, touched Marguerite's arm.

"I am so sorry," she murmured. "Please be sure and add it to my bill."

"It's fine." Marguerite patted her hand, the warm, professional hostess. "You stop worrying and go enjoy them. We'll settle things later." She sent her on her way and turned to meet Tyler's shrewd look.

"And just how much is that tea set worth?"

Marguerite shrugged. "I bought it at auction for six hundred dollars."

"And yet you trusted it with a dozen children."

"Yes, I did. And they're generally very careful, as careful as adults, because I emphasize the special nature of the tea ceremony. One moment of perfection can last a lifetime. That's what the tea parties are about."

"Just as one thousand imperfect moments can make a perfect life," he suggested.

She inclined her head. "So you understand why I used it, as well as why I'm not upset about it."

The door opened and an elderly man stepped in, bearing a basketful of flowers on one arm and a wooden box in the other. He wore a pair of comfortable brown slacks, a striped dress shirt and a baseball cap on his bald pate, which he dipped his head to remove as he crossed the threshold.

"Mr. Reynolds, it's wonderful to see you. I didn't realize it had gotten so late."

"Is this a bad time?"

"Not at all. Come sit down over here and you and I will do our business while Mr.

Winterman finishes cleaning up the tables. If he doesn't mind?" As she sat down with the man and explained the girls' birthday party, the kind of warm chatter indulged when the vendor was a fond acquaintance, Tyler delivered all the silverware and tea sets to the kitchen. While he helped Gen, he listened to the cadence of Marguerite's voice. She reviewed the samples Mr. Reynolds had brought, discussed with him his recent attempts to combine tea types with different flower and fruit flavorings and listened to his description of the conditions in which he'd produced this latest group of flowers for her. When Tyler came back out she was putting a pinch of tea leaves on her tongue. She closed her eyes, inhaled, frowned.

"This is flat, bakey."

"Try this. You'll like it better." Mr. Reynolds, apparently undismayed by her criticism, put another pinch in her hand, watched her bring it to her nose. Rinsing out the taste of the last tea from a water glass, she then put that sample into her mouth.

Tyler took a seat within their line of sight but a table over, taking out his pocket organizer to appear occupied so he would not give the impression that he was hurrying her with her guest.

"Mmmm. Better." Marguerite nodded, her eyes closed. "This one has a lovely aroma. We'll use the clay pots to brew that, bring out that onion and ginger seasoning marvelously." She cracked open an eye. "And did you write down how you put it together?"

He laughed. "You know I just potter with it, Miss Marguerite."

"Mr. Reynolds." She tapped her fingernail on the table. "You must keep a journal, every detailed step of how you do this so you'll know how to reproduce it. What if my customers fall in love with it so much they want more?" He smiled at her. Tyler saw grandfatherly affection mixed with a bit of a nostalgic crush. "At my age, Miss M, it's not about whether I can do it again. That's the beauty, in a way. Doing it different every time, never sure what to expect." He pinched up the excess leaves, placed them carefully back in their container so none of it was wasted.

"Once you do it right once, you don't need to write it down anyway. Your feet will go toward that path again if you don't worry about it or force it." He folded the top, handed it over to her with a beaming look. "Ready for my mystery tea of the month?" At her nod, he produced a thermos from an insulated carrier and a tiny teacup.

Pouring a portion for her, he pushed it across the table and sat back with an expectant look on his face.

She raised the cup to her mouth, inhaled the contents through thin nostrils, her lashes fanning her cheeks, her brow furrowing. Her soft lips parted to press against the cup edge and take in a sip.

It was absurd that he could get hypnotized and hard just watching her drink tea.

Tyler had no problem believing what she'd told the girls, that even her hair held magic.

The white strands were scattered down her back and over one shoulder, brushing her forearm. He wanted to wrap himself up in them, in her, tangling them together until there was no way to unknot them again.

"It's a Ceylon," Marguerite said at last. "You've added an Assam, just a touch...and rose, I think." She took another sip, then her expression cleared. "You've also added a fruit. Peach, I believe."

He shook his head. "You're uncanny. I've never seen more discerning taste buds.

Do you like it?"

"I do."

"Can you guess the color of the rose I brought you today?"

Her eyes warmed upon him. "You know I can't do that. It's beyond even my powers."

"I don't think anything is beyond you, Miss Perruquet." He put the basket on the table and removed the light linen cloth covering them. On top of the carefully arranged group of cut flowers was a yellow rose, the bud not quite open. He extended it to her.

"Here you are."

Accepting it with a gracious nod, she rose. "I'll get your check and a bud vase for this."

When she vanished behind the kitchen door, Mr. Reynolds turned his chair, scraping it along the floor, squaring himself with Tyler. For the second time that day Tyler found himself being shrewdly assessed by a protective friend. She was well-fortressed, he reflected. Within and without. Pushing aside the organizer, he gave the man his full attention.

"You know, it doesn't matter what I mix. She guesses it dead-on, every ingredient, every time. None of this, 'I think' or 'I can't quite get that'. Until today." Tyler met the man's penetrating look. "Was what she told you accurate?"

"Missed the fruit by a mile. It's a mango."

"Shouldn't you tell her?"

"She'll figure it out herself and call me to find out why I didn't tell her right off. I figured she was flustered enough, though. Just like I figure you're the reason."

"I think Marguerite is accustomed to having admirers." Tyler indicated the basket of flowers. Mr. Reynolds shook his head.

"It's not me making her forget her good sense. I assume you have enough to keep her out of trouble until she remembers it."

"Yes, sir." Tyler provided the only acceptable answer under the man's expectant look.

"If I was thirty years younger, I'd squash you like a bug on my way to her, son." Tyler inclined his head. "You could try." Mr. Reynolds chuckled and Tyler relented with rueful smile. "In truth, I'd say I've already been flattened. She just spent the last half-hour with you, totally ignoring me."

"Ah, son. You're old enough to know women. It's the ones they pretend to ignore that they want the most. That's the way their evil minds work. I don't think that flush in her cheeks is because of me, though for one delusional moment I enjoyed thinking it might be."

Marguerite returned with a check and a suspicious glance between the men.

"Just talking with your fancy-looking busboy here," Mr. Reynolds explained, rising.

"He does more talking than working. I'm afraid his career here is short-lived." The old man snorted. "That's what my wife said about me. But she kept me around for about fifty years."

Marguerite picked up the tea he'd offered her, took another sip, frowning. "Mr. Reynolds, this... I think I was off - "

"You were," he admitted. "And you were quicker to realize it than I expected." He sent Tyler a significant look. "It's been my experience that women lose their good sense only in temporary spurts. But they can make a man lose his mind forever." He turned his bright eyes back to a nonplused Marguerite. "You call me when you figure it out, Miss M, if you want. But don't fret about it. Some of my best days came when I couldn't figure out the answer to anything. I'll pick up the basket next trip." He collected his thermos and cup, made his goodbyes. Marguerite saw him to the front door and waved him to his car. As she watched him drive off, Tyler studied her from his table. The set of her shoulders, the tilt of her head that said she was thinking.

The yellow rose sat in its vase on the table, alone, perfect. In a day or two, with the magic that was beyond human comprehension, it would begin to open. Minute by minute it would show a hundred different faces of beauty, inspiring wonder in anyone paying close enough attention to appreciate it.

"Tables all done, boss," he said lightly.

She turned on her heel halfway toward him. The sunlight filtering onto the porch limned the outline of her slender figure. His attention covered all that and more. The length of her forearm, the silver glint of her hair.

"Tyler, what are you doing here?"

"As I said. Missing you."

"I wasn't expecting you."

He stayed where he was though everything about her made him want to go to her.

"I owe you an apology. And I have an offer to make, as I said." The pale blue eyes were wary. "You don't owe me anything, Tyler. You've made it possible for me to continue my membership at The Zone. Thank you for that." He put the organizer back in his jacket, stood up, watched her eyes gauge his intent.

"You know, you have this way of making me feel like a knight riding up to an ensorcelled castle. Guarded by dragons, a deep moat and damn near unscalable walls.

But it's those sorceress's eyes that are the most impenetrable fortress of all. It's like you're standing on the top turret, daring me to find a way in."

"Perhaps it's not a dare. A dare implies a desire for the dragon to be fought, the moat to be jumped, the wall breached. Sometimes the message is as simple as it seems.

'Don't go past this point. I don't want you here.'" Oh yeah. He'd been right. She'd not only recreated her shields, she'd reinforced them to the point the Great Wall of China looked like it had been made out of Tinkertoys in comparison.

She simply looked at him, waiting.

"In all the readings I've done," he said, "there's often this part in the story where a Goddess comes in, full of power and calm. Who has astounding beauty without glamour, the beauty of Nature, all the things that are so powerful in their perfection.

And she makes everything better. I look at you and the names come to my lips. Athena, Isis, Freya, Niuka..."

"Tyler - "

"Hush and let me finish."

She subsided, pressing her lips together. He took a step forward, his eyes steady on hers. "I haven't honored you as a Mistress as you deserve. I want to give you the gift you've given me. Please allow me the privilege of serving as your slave for one night." A charged stillness fell over the room. For several moments, her eyes did not waver.

Did not even blink. No part of her moved but he sensed how much was going on in her head. Possibilities, motives weighed. He made sure he was her mirror, waiting for her response with no change in his expression.

Then her gaze moved. Slid down his neck, over his shoulders and chest with the thoroughness with which he suspected her hands could or would. He felt her power roll over him and immediately understood why a sub might feel as if he faced the simultaneously most terrifying and pleasurable experience of his life. This she knew, was familiar with. Excelled at. His cock hardened and he thought of closing the two steps between them to pull her against him, make her feel his need. But he knew how to play poker. He waited.

"At The Zone."

"Wherever you wish, angel."

"I wasn't asking."

A smile tugged at his lips. "Name your day and time. I'll be there." A car door slammed somewhere outside. Something in her eyes shifted. He felt like he was witnessing the turning of a dial that shuttered away one face and produced another, but in that brief moment before the Mistress disappeared those tempting lips formed words.

"Tuesday, eight o'clock."

The same time she always played with her subs, perhaps to underscore that he would be no different. She was carrying around a grudge. With rueful resignation he realized he'd just handed her the means to exercise it.

But when she moved past him, he inhaled her scent and saw the pulse in her throat.

He couldn't miss it because it was pounding hard just below that lovely jaw. Without another glance at him, she disappeared behind the swinging kitchen door.

* * * * *

She used a precise method when she washed out the teacups and pots made of glass. Using her fingers instead of a cloth, she worked the soap around the rims and into the cup itself. Then rinsed them under a water spout that came on by sensor.

Finally, she turned the cup over on a soft cloth on the counter. She immersed herself in the process, shutting out noise and anything beyond the scope of the square sink full of water. She wouldn't allow her mind to go anywhere beyond the immediate task. She certainly wouldn't allow herself to wonder if he'd joined the children outside. Or if he'd left altogether, his mission accomplished. She gripped a teapot, lifted it.

"Your friend says the more a woman ignores a man, the more it's a sign of her interest."

His breath was on her neck. Marguerite hadn't heard a sound. Not the swinging door, not his footsteps.

"Did he?" The words came out rough and strange. His fingers caressed her shoulders, then came forward, slipped the frogs of the diagonal front-closing neckline of the cheongsam. One...two...three. The fold of fabric dropped forward, half exposing her breast. With a deft hand, he unfastened her front-closing bra. He was methodical and decisive about it, while she was paralyzed.

"We're where people could see us. What are you - "

"Yes, we are. But I haven't given you permission to speak." She should have been startled, infuriated. Instead, she was starting to shake.

He'd opened her dress like he had every right to do so. Like a Master who wanted to fuck his slave. His hands, capable of sending currents of pleasure up and down her nervous system, were pulling up the skirt on either side of her hips. She heard him mutter a sensual expletive, an explosion of breath as he saw the garters, the thong underwear. What he might have commanded her to wear when she was under his mentoring. A mentoring that was supposed to be over. A lie that apparently was fooling no one, not even herself.

"Why did you dress this way?"

She wanted to deny it. His breath was hot on her skin at the point of her neck again.

And oh, God, his teeth were lightly holding her, his tongue now stroking the sensitive bone.

"Speak to me."

"I...liked putting it on, thinking about you seeing it." She'd been her own worst enemy, increasing her sexual frustration by doing things that only reminded her of how much she wanted to be near him. Then he had to appear and discover this.

His thumb slid under the thong, caressing her anus as his other finger gently dipped into slippery heat between her legs. He rubbed his knuckle through her wetness, apparently enjoying the feel of it. She shuddered, her hips rocking.

"Be still. Be very, very still. You're a statue in my garden, every curve kissed by sun and moonlight." His lips followed the crescent line of her shoulder. Her hands were clenched on either side of the English teapot with yellow daffodil patterns and she could not let go, could not move. All her senses were riveted to his voice, every muscle aware that it existed to serve his Will. Her logical mind and her control were both gone as if they'd never been. In the space of a heartbeat, she'd given everything to him.

All great Masters and Mistresses knew instinctively when the gates fell. When they held in their palm the most fragile part of the sub's soul, beating frantically like a heart.

She now understood the look she'd always been unable to fathom in his eye at The Zone, why she'd always avoided him. He'd known he could have this from her.

"Think about those bronze sculptures..." His voice soothed her surge of panic.

"How the artists focused on the lines of the body, keeping the lines simple to bring out the life in the art. It's in their very stillness they burst with the power of sensuality. Like you, Marguerite. Absolutely still like this, by my command, you're a Goddess." He caught the teapot trembling in her wet hand with one of his, eased it down to the counter. Then he brought the skirt up, bunching it at her waist. When he unfastened his trousers, he gave her no time to think before he tore the tiny strap at the leg of her panties, making them drop uselessly to the floor. Cupping his hand over her front, over her mound, he pushed her back into him, into a cock that eased as naturally into her as the knife had sunk into Natalie's moist birthday cake.

"Caress your cunt around my cock, Marguerite. I want to suck your taste off your fingertips."

She reached down, found her wetness between his fingers, the wonder of the velvet hardness of him penetrating her body. When she caressed them both, she heard his groan against her neck, felt the eager shove of him deeper into her body.

She couldn't help the guttural sound of pleasure from her own lips, the admission that her body ached for him. Clamping down on his cock, drawing him in, she welcomed each stroke as he slowly drove into her, withdrew, drove in again. His hand over her mound stroked her clit while the other glided up her body. Palm flattened against her sternum, his thumb traced the crease beneath one breast that felt heavy with need in his hand. Two fingers played in the tender pocket at the base of her throat. His thighs were hard and sure against the back of hers, lean muscle and heat pressed from her ass to her shoulders.

When she reached up, his mouth seized her fingers, sucking the arousal off them.

Once he freed her fingers, she caught his shirt at the shoulder, her other hand around the side of his neck. She felt the rasp of his jaw against the baby-soft skin on the inside of her forearm as he bowed his head alongside hers. His breath was hot on her shoulder, her neck, the upper slope of her breast. His fingers and cock worked together in single purpose so she could not deny the man that commanded them. Commanded her.

"Come for me, angel."

As soon as the words came forth, before she could thrust him away, her body exploded, the climax tearing through her, relieving the ache of not having him for the past several days, the thing Chloe had described as summer love. This felt more like fulfillment for all the seasons, including something to warm her in winter.

As her pussy rippled along him, she felt his own release. His fingers dug into her, his strokes sure and strong, driving her down to her elbows on the counter. His body bent over hers, covering her, holding her as his hips pumped against her sensitive buttocks. Her thighs widened, soft whimpers coming from her lips as aftershock after aftershock drove her hips up against him.

At length he slowed but he did not pull away or out. His large hand brushed over her damp back. Stroking her hair off her left shoulder, he laid his lips on that spot.

Tasted her, caressed her with his mouth, his hands running down her sides over her bare hips and breasts, their tops unencumbered by the bra. When he drew out, the pressure of his hand brought her up with him. She felt him fasten his trousers before he took the damp cloth from the counter sink, pressing it between her legs before she could protest.

"Ssshhh," he said. "Just be still and lean back against me." Her arms somehow found themselves back up around his neck as he stroked between her legs, cleaning his seed and her climax off her thighs and the smooth folds of her sex. She pressed her face against his throat, watching him bend his head to the task, the facets of his burnished gold eyes, the sensual set of his mouth.

"I've never had a boyfriend."

"Haven't you?"

She hadn't even realized she'd spoken aloud. "Well, I mean, a lover."

"Mmm." He laid the cloth on the counter again and moved her back a step with him, helping her skirt fall back into place. Bringing the bodice back up, he kept her turned away from him as he re-fastened each frog, adjusted the shoulder seams and smoothed the fabric over the curves of her breasts. When he turned her in his arms, desire still glowed in his eyes. "Well, I think you do now." Glancing toward the floor, he bent and retrieved her torn panties, put them in his pocket before she could take them.

"I owe you a pair," he said.

"So you owe me a shopping trip."

"That sounds suspiciously like you just invited me on a date, angel." He smiled at her discomfiture, stroked a wisp of her hair over her ear. "Tuesday night, eight o'clock.

Anything special I should do to prepare? Which room?"

"I'll leave instruction with The Zone staff as to how I want you prepared and where. I typically don't tell my subs what to expect. It's none of their business what I'm planning, just that they be there on time and submit to it." Why were the words making her shake, as if the ground were about to open up beneath her under that unreadable gaze? "The rest is a surprise."

He nodded. Before he could step back, she caught the front of his ironed shirt and yanked hard. Buttons clattered across the floor. He made an involuntary movement toward her but otherwise held his stance as her gaze coursed down over the muscled chest, the fine mat of hair, the tapered waist.

"Now we're even, on clothing at least." The physical act helped her find her Mistress voice. Deliberately she raised her gaze back to his face, taking time to enjoy the territory in between. "All you owe me is Tuesday."

"A promise that's a privilege to pay." His eyes burning, he took her hand in a firm grip, raised it to his lips and turned it so they brushed her palm. "I'll see you then, Mistress Marguerite. Don't forget me. I'll be waiting for you." She watched him move out the kitchen side door, which would allow him safe passage to the parking area without the children seeing his state of dishabille. It intrigued her that he'd scoped out her exits in so little time. Then she discovered that the other entries to the kitchen, the one to the garden and the swinging door, had been quietly secured when he came in. Even the blinds on the garden door were closed so no little people could have surprised them in their very adult moment.

He was considerate, giving and courteous in all the important ways. Passionate, demanding and ruthless about getting what he wanted, also in all the important ways.

She bent and picked up every button, lined them up on the counter, stared at them as if they were jewels that had fallen into her lap. She had no idea what she was doing anymore. For some reason, that didn't really matter at the moment.

Placing the tip of each of her fingers on five of the buttons, she moved them across the counter idly as if they were tiny skates, making patterns. Spoke his words aloud, thinking about them.

"A thousand tiny imperfections can make a perfect life."