Chapter 29

“What?” Bear said.

Before he could turn, he heard the snap of a whip, and a voice said, “Kneel, penitent. Tonight you pay for your sins.”

For all his intelligence, it still took Bear moments to realize this wasn’t a game they would play, it was a message. “That was you in the voudrais.”

Arms slid around his waist from behind, and Dane laid his head on his shoulder. “Yes, it was me. After the mountain interlude, wanting to be intimate with you again was eating me alive, but you’d shut me out. Shut me out even from simple friendship. I thought I could live with only friendship, but you were smarter. You knew we could never be satisfied with that, didn’t you?”

“I did. I still do.”

“You’d confirmed what your friendship with Celeste was, provided her name and that she lived in Vegas. I was desperate. It was easy to reach her and share what I felt about you, and what you were doing to me. She suggested the voudrais.”