She swallowed hard. It was one night. They’d already done so much—surely a little more wouldn’t make that much difference. It wouldn’t be any harder to walk away if she allowed herself one more round of playtime, and one night of whatever followed that. “I’m out of here tomorrow, though.”
“Understood. No strings. Just playing and sex. And sleeping.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay?” He sounded brashly eager for a second, then seemed to recall himself. “I think you meant, ‘Please, sir, may I have a scene that isn’t just seventy percent blowies and frottage in the spider shack.’”
She giggled, glancing up at him. He’d smoothed his demeanor and was keeping it utterly deadpan. Dom skills, indeed. She needed to get on his level. “Please, sir, may I have a scene that isn’t just seventy percent blowies and frottage in the spider shack.”
“You may.” He nudged her plate a half inch closer to her. “So eat up. You’re gonna need your strength.”
Chapter Ten
He made Mindy wait an hour after eating. He wasn’t that subtle about checking the time while they talked—on the nearest clock, on his phone—and finally she called him on it.
“You have somewhere else you need to be?”
“Nope.”
“Are you making me wait an hour before I go in swimming?”
“Yep.”
“Well, okay then. Sir.”
“When you said that, it sounded like . . . Ladies.”
Mindy chuckled and wrapped the robe more snugly under her feet. She was tucked into the corner of the couch in the office, wedged between the arm of the couch and a big throw pillow with a needlepoint sunset on it, and cuddled down into the oversized robe as though the raging thunderstorm outside had actually made it colder inside, instead of just more humid.
She smirked. “Gentlemen.”
“Makes everything dirtier.” He turned back to his computer screen and pretended to continue casually checking his email. As if he wasn’t pressing the heel of his non-mousing hand against his thigh to keep his leg from tapping.
Behind him, Mindy stretched and sighed. The breathy sound was way too close to a sex noise. He figured she was doing it accidentally-on-purpose, but he was 100 percent okay with that.
The text in front of him swam. He couldn’t process anything but the mental checklist of what he had available to him up in his bedroom. His toy bag was in the closet, but most of his equipment was in secret storage in Houston. He’d told everyone he’d completely committed to the plan to restore Hilltop to its former glory. But that hadn’t kept him from maintaining an escape route. All his furniture, the few pieces of artwork he’d collected over the years, and the vast majority of his kink arsenal were all safely stored in a climate-controlled space near his old house.
He really could have used the hour to catch up on work. He was still building an inventory database for the ranch, and he had a list of point-of-sale systems to compare so Hilltop could start selling things like monogrammed robes and caps with logos and T-shirts and art from local artists. He also needed to research whether or not he could get a liquor license. So many things tugging his mind in different directions. So many concerns, more every day, about whether he could even make Hilltop viable again. But the strongest pull was right behind him; Mindy’s attention was a steady but gentle undertow in the current of information.
She’d already figured out his plan, so when the hour clicked over he gave up any pretense of trying to finish the inventory form he was tweaking, and swiveled his chair around to face her. Crossed his arms over his chest, put his Dom face on.
Mindy bit her lip and raised her eyebrows at him, then lowered her gaze to her lap. “Tick-tick-tick-tick-ding!”
He snorted, then kicked himself for it as he schooled his features back into sternness. Mindy wasn’t a brat exactly, but she wasn’t all that into roles. Usually he wasn’t, either, especially once he got to know somebody, but he’d intended to keep some distance tonight. Pretend it was a club scene with a relative stranger, with everyone on their best behavior.
Brisk. Businesslike. A transaction where everybody was up-front and got their needs met. That’s what was called for here.
“Let’s have the talk. Safe words?”
She glanced up then back down again. “Red for stop, yellow for slow down.”
“Clarify what you mean, with yellow.”
“Oh, well . . .” Playing with the ends of the robe’s sash, she pondered for a few seconds before answering with more hesitation than he’d expected. “Yellow means I want you to . . . pull back on whatever you’re doing and check in with me. So just give me a minute to decide if I want . . . if I can keep going or not? And talk it over. If that works for you?”
Frowning, he unfolded his arms and rolled his chair closer to the couch. “Why wouldn’t it work for me?”
She shrugged, flipping one of the sash ends back and forth over her wrist. Lashing herself with it very gently, Logan realized.
“Some Doms are kind of dicks about that,” she said with another shrug. “They don’t want a discussion, it’s just a chance to talk you into doing what they want. Spare me from people who see safe words as a challenge, you know? I assume you aren’t one of them, but I’ve made that assumption before and been wrong.”
“Jesus. A safe word is a safe word. Hey.” He leaned in, touching her knee gently until she looked up. “There are things I’m a dick about, but that isn’t one of them. If my partner isn’t into it, I don’t want to keep doing it. So obviously we stop and work that shit out.” He sort of wanted to ask who the fuck she’d been playing with in Dallas, but he knew it was none of his business. And he knew that the same things happened all over. People could be horrible; it wasn’t news. It wasn’t unique to kink, either. Dating was a bitch. He sat back and tried to resume his Dom pose. “As a baseline, let’s assume we’re both going to try not to be assholes to each other, all right? And that consent is always the hottest thing.”
She smiled enough to invoke a dimple on one side. “I’ve never been more attracted to you than right now. But at the same time I just realized how low I’m setting my bar? I’m getting it up for basic human decency. I don’t want you to think my standards aren’t higher than that.”
His comfy lounge pants felt a size smaller all of a sudden. “You’re getting what up, exactly? Can I see?”
Mindy giggled, and Logan’s plan to keep things serious started to crumble around the edges. “We haven’t finished having the important talk yet.”
“We can talk with the robe open. Being naked doesn’t keep your mouth from functioning.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fiiiiine.” But the way she slipped the knot and parted the thick terry cloth to reveal herself made it obvious she didn’t have a problem with it. “I’m more concerned about how our brains will be functioning, but fine.”
It was a fair point. He hadn’t really expected her to do it, and the sudden sight of taut pink nipples and auburn bush made all the blood rush straight from Logan’s brain to his cock. Not to mention all that skin—smooth, as-yet-unmarked thighs, a blank canvas. Then he started wondering about the back view, and whether she might not have at least a few marks there already. His marks. Her left breast bore a deep, reddening bruise below the nipple where he’d sunk his teeth into it the day before.
He needed several seconds to breathe before he could remember what they were supposed to be talking about.
Limits. Equipment. Sex. Right. “I don’t have that many toys with me right now, but it’s mostly impact stuff. I’ll use either that or my bare hand.” She gave him a thumbs-up, so he continued, trying to ignore how even that small movement made her breasts jiggle enticingly. “Any areas off-limits? Any injuries I should know about?”
“You can touch whatever you want. For impact, my face and my arms are out. I have mostly T-shirts with me, so nothing that’ll leave marks that could show when I’m wearing a T-shirt.”
“Is sl
apping okay, as long as it’s not on the face?” He tried not to picture what it would feel like to slap the boob with the bruise on it, tried desperately not to imagine the noise she’d make.
Mindy squirmed, shifting her feet from under her. “Yeah. Fine. No humiliation, though, please.” Her voice had gone higher, softer.
The scene hadn’t officially started, but they were clearly in the warm-up. Logan propped one foot on the couch next to her legs. “Got it. Why don’t you take that robe all the way off.” Not an order. But not a question. He wanted to see what she would do with it.
She held up a finger. “Your front door is half glass, and the hall and stairway are in full view of that, where anybody at the door can see if I walk out of this room naked, so . . . no, I’ll wait until we’re upstairs, unless we’re gonna be playing in here the whole time?”
Logan resisted a facepalm. He really was thinking with his little head. “Right, right. Sorry. We might start in here, but you can keep the robe on for now. Ah, okay. Restraints? Gag? Blindfold? Any hard limits there?”
“Restraints are great. No gagging, no hoods. No total sensory deprivation or anything that blocks my nose or mouth, but a blindfold ... is fine.” She quirked her lips and squirmed again. Logan made a mental note to get her blindfolded as soon as humanly possible. “No edge play tonight. Sharps, blood, fire, electro, breath play. None of that.”
A double mention for breath play. It was clearly a rock-hard limit; the rest sounded more situational. The petroleum engineer in him wanted to start plotting all this information into a database, and mapping it onto charts. Figuring out the formulas, the variables, the tolerances. “Allergic to anything? Lube ingredients? Latex? Crap, I hope you aren’t allergic to latex, I don’t have any polypro . . .”
“Latex is fine. I don’t think I have any allergies. One time I got a rash after this thing with capsaicin cream, but . . .” She shrugged. “Oh yeah, please don’t use capsaicin cream.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” But now he was really curious about where that rash had been located. “Are we forgetting anything?”
Mindy studied the ceiling, poking her tongue into one cheek as she considered. “Uh, probably?”
He edged closer and lifted his other foot to the couch, bracketing her. Giving his balls and half-mast erection some breathing room, mostly, but also just asserting himself. “Do you have a scene name? Would you feel more comfortable with that?” He hoped she’d say no.
Mindy blushed—not a coy blush, a sheepish one. “It’s . . . Ariel. You don’t have to use it.”
“Ariel? As in The Little Mermaid?” Another piece of his childhood destroyed, but in the best possible way.
“I didn’t think it up myself,” she said defensively. “Two of my kink friends started calling me that and it just stuck.”
“I love it. But I won’t use it if you don’t want me to.”
“Mindy’s fine. Or . . . Melinda, if you want.”
Logan flexed his thighs inward ever so slightly. “You like the scolding thing, don’t you?”
She nodded, holding up a thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “Little bit. Um, what about protocol? Do you want . . . Logan, or sir, or Master Something, or—uh, am I gonna have to do Gor poses or anything? I kind of suck at that vibe.”
You think? He tried to picture her kneeling like a perfect submissive kajira, serving him tea or cleaning his shoes, and laughed out loud. “Not my jam, either.” It was so not her that the idea didn’t even really turn him on. Much.
“Phew. Okay, so . . . ?”
“‘Sir’ if you feel like it. If it’s not working for you, don’t force it.”
“So I’ll skip it,” she suggested, “if it’s gonna feel like ‘Ladies.’ Good to know. That’s refreshing.”
It wasn’t going to be a serious, businesslike scene. How had he ever thought it could be? But this could be more dangerous than expected, if they were friendly and informal with each other while they played. Because that dynamic was his favorite. More and more, Mindy was turning out to be a walking collection of his favorite things; he had to work to tell himself that didn’t mean she was his favorite.
He caught her shifting her eyes, glancing at his legs on either side of her, a quick look between. She was edgier about the situation than she let on. And it was time to put her directly on edge and keep her there for as long as they could both stand it.
“Okay, then. Last question. What’s your position on brinking?”
“Brinking? It can be hot, I guess?”
“Cool, cool. And you’re good with waiting for permission to come?” When she nodded, he pulled himself as close to the couch as the chair would allow, and reached out to nudge Mindy’s knee. She had scooted off her feet, but her legs were still folded up, her feet peeking out from under the robe to her side. “Open up.”
“Oh, we’re . . . we’re starting?” She looked adorably confused for half a second.
Logan pushed the robe out of the way, slid his hand from her knee to her hip, and gave her a fast, hard swat. “Yes, we’re starting.” He put his hand on her knee again, pushing more firmly. “So open up.”
She lifted her knee, spreading her thighs wide, giving him full access. Her leg trembled a little and he stifled an evil chuckle as he smoothed his hand down her inner thigh to the softest, plumpest part of it, inches from her pussy. When he squeezed there, the movement tugged her skin tight, pulled her pussy wider. Logan heard the soft, wet noise of her cunt lips spreading, just before Mindy breathed in sharply, masking the sound.
He pinched tighter, concentrating his effort on one spot until Mindy gave up a soft whimper. His cock responded to the noise. Mindy seemed to respond to the pain, as well, opening her leg still further and breathing faster.
Patience. Logan eased his grip, soothing the spot with a stroke of his fingers before trailing them down to Mindy’s cunt. She was flushed, hot, and slick. So ready for his exploring fingers as he traced and spread the delicate folds then ringed her clit a few times with only enough pressure to tease.
When she started to relax into it, he pressed his thumb there more firmly, and used his other hand to attack the pinching spot again. “Don’t move.”
She trembled with the effort as the pain intensified, making a distressed noise in the back of her throat. He wasn’t doing anything major yet, and she still seemed entirely present. No subspace to mess with her perceptions or ease her tension. No transition from warm-up to real pain. It just hurt, and she showed that, which made him hard—but he wanted to find out what it did for her.
After another few seconds he moved his thumb, drawing a slow, steady circle on her clit. Her face squeezed in, her brows drew together. . . then she exhaled slowly, shakily, forcing her shoulder down as the air left her. Processing the pain, figuring it out, reaching for the pleasure.
Her next sound was another soft cry, a rising note, almost like music. Really, almost like . . .
Ariel. Oh, fuck a duck. He bit his lip to keep from laughing. But after a second it was hotter than it was funny.
When he took his hands away, she stared after them avidly. Longingly. But aside from that, she didn’t move a muscle.
A bloom of pink spread where he’d pinched her. It was nearly the same shade as her pussy lips. Nearly the same shade, when he looked up, as her mouth—which was starting to curve into a soft, dreamy smile.
Detached. Businesslike. Functional. Practical. Bullshit. Logan leaned in and kissed her.
* * *
Mindy tried to breathe, tried to sort through the sensations. The pain was sharper than she’d expected this soon, but sweeter, too. She’d been ready for a flogging, maybe a riding crop. All the touching was a pleasant shock. Hands were so personal.
Mouths, in a way, were even more so. They’d kissed before, but this felt new. Logan was turned on, she could see his erection in the loose pajama pants, but he kissed her like there was all the time in the world. Like it wasn’t a question of overwhelming
passion, but intention. Why that should be so hot, she had no idea, but it made her even wetter.
Being naked, even partially naked, felt almost too good. It had taken all her common sense and willpower not to yank the robe off earlier when he’d suggested it. Now it was a huge, unwieldy presence around her, hindering her from the exposure she craved. Common sense was leaving her. If he ordered the robe off now, she’d shed it in a heartbeat. In another few minutes, she suspected, he could order her to walk naked through the barnyard and she’d do it, thunderstorm and guests be damned.
She fisted the folds of the plush robe, working to stay still as he plundered her mouth. He’d told her not to move, and she was good at following orders. So good at it.
He drew back, nibbling at her lips, and she didn’t even have to fight the urge to chase him down for another deeper kiss because she knew what her job was here. Not to move.
Her brain made room for that one idea, holding it, pushing everything else back. That single directive shone steady and bright, in a wide-open space ready for more orders to fill it. She’d been resisting this for days—in the barn, around the ranch, in the toolshed. Now the cumulative effect of all that forbearance came into play, hard. A little bit of pain, a little bit of privacy, the knowledge that tonight, nothing was stopping them . . . these were enough to undo her now.
Logan released her lips slowly. A puff of shared air, hot and sweet and redolent of brisket, washed her face. Then he raised a finger to her forehead and ran it down her nose, tracing her lips, pushing slightly inside her mouth. She flicked her tongue over his fingertip, tasting herself on him before he pulled the digit away and continued on his path over her chin and down to her throat.
He slid his hand around her neck and held it there, heavy and warm. Not constricting her throat, just laying claim. His face was thoughtful and stern and beautiful and angelic and she realized she was already falling into subspace a second before he spoke.
“Time to go upstairs.”
“Mm-hmm.”
His gaze shifted to her face and he smirked in a way only sadists knew. “You’re already starting to fly, aren’t you?”
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