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them into play and enjoy making you happy, meeting your needs. This…this person you’ve been involved with used you for his own ends. I’m sorry if that hurts, but I can’t allow you to go along thinking he was correct in what he did. It also sounds to me that he’s naturally controlling, because to strip away your identity, to manipulate things so you’re only reliant on him… That’s a dangerous man to be involved with.”
    He looked at her to gauge her reaction, to see how much he could say without tipping her over the edge. Who knew what she had in her mind, what images played over and over, what emotions roiled inside her, set to send her crazy the moment she let down her guard and allowed herself to remember? She appeared awed, not devastated, though—the latter being how he’d thought she would react. It seemed she was more resilient than he’d given her credit for, although he wasn’t fool enough to think she wouldn’t suffer from the horrors she’d been through. It would take time to fully cherish this tiny woman, to have her totally believing what he said and understanding that she hadn’t been the one in the wrong.
    He found himself admitting he rather relished the idea of being the one to bring her out of herself, to watch her blossom under his tutelage.
    Don’t, Harry. It’s a big undertaking. And who’s to say she’d even want that?
    As though she’d read his mind, she said, “Tomorrow, I want you to show me. I want us to do some mock play where you instruct me on the way it goes, what happens.”
    He opened his mouth to protest, disliking the squirm of nerves in his belly that he would be taking advantage of her.
    “No,” she said. “I might be hurting, I might have things in my head I shouldn’t bloody well have, but I want to learn. Just pretend I’m someone from that club you told me about, someone you’re taking on—you the teacher, me the pupil. It’ll be all right, honest. I just want to see how it’s really meant to be, because then it’ll help me get over this shit. Then I’ll understand and no bastard can hurt me ever again.”
    “But you hardly know me,” he protested, thinking her mad to want to succumb to another Master so quickly.
    “Doesn’t matter. I can tell you’re not a prick.”
    He bit back a laugh but couldn’t prevent a smile twitching one corner of his mouth. “All right, but first I want to remove that collar. Would that be all right?”
    She nodded, and he was pleased to see she didn’t touch it. He stood and walked to his sideboard, opening a drawer and extracting a large, sharp pair of scissors. He had no idea how else to remove it.
    He returned to the settee and sat beside her. “I don’t think I have anything else I can use to take it off. I can only hope me sliding these between the collar and your neck won’t cause too much distress.”
    She eyed him, then tilted her head. “Do it. Take the fucking thing off.”
    She closed her eyes—so much trust there—and he gently eased one blade of the scissors beneath the collar. It indented her neck, but thankfully, with the leather being thin, he was able to snip it quickly. He let it fall into her lap, and she opened her eyes to stare down at it.
    “Get it off me?” she asked, hands held up as if it might taint her if she touched it again.
    Harry pulled it off her lap. “Would you like me to dispose of it?”
    She nodded, closing her eyes again, and he stood, walked over to the wicker waste bin and dropped the collar inside.
    To take the sting from the monumental thing she had allowed him to do, he said brightly, “How about tomorrow I take you out, get you some new clothes?”
    She snapped her head to face him, widening her eyes.
    He raised a hand to stop her saying anything. “We’ll go shopping in another town if that makes you feel better, have a nice day out, and then, after we’ve eaten dinner, we can begin your first lesson. How does that sound?”
    She blew out a breath,