Linger

by Lauren Jameson

  Scarlett studied the building, running her fingers over the boards at the base of the glass. “So this is still yours?” A light went on in her eyes, and Logan watched as the wheels started to turn.

  “It is.” He replied slowly, his gut clenching. “Why?”

  “How do you think a veterinary hospital would fare here?” She mused out loud, sending a skitter of panic through Logan’s veins. “There are lots of surrounding towns. More animals than people.”

  Needing to deflect before she went further into her idea, Logan tried for a jovial tone. “Trying to put me out of business already, huh? Should have made you sign a noncompete contract.”

  Scarlett started, her skin flushing. “That’s not what I meant. I was just curious. Ignore me.”

  But now the picture was in Logan’s head, too, and it stuck there as they continued toward Maxine’s.

  Of a woman—Scarlett—who didn’t want to leave. Who could—and would—make a life here, with him.

  It was a pipe dream. He’d never ask her to give up so much. Still, he was far enough into the fantasy that he didn’t notice the crowd of people streaming out the front door of the movie theater across the street until they were on him, around him, in his space.

  Stealing his air.

  “Hey, Dr. Brody!” A young woman of perhaps nineteen smiled flirtatiously at him, swinging her blond ponytail as she brushed past him. When she looked back over her shoulder, she seemed uncomfortable with what she saw, because she hurried on, moving away from him.

  They were all moving away—the crowd couldn’t have been surrounding him for more than a few minutes. But it was long enough. Logan felt himself freeze into place, limbs locked, voice caught in his throat.

  Shit. He didn’t want Scarlett to see him like this, his breath starting to rasp in and out, faster and faster until it was out of control. But, of course, she chose that moment to turn back around, those expressive gray eyes narrowing in on him with laser focus.

  “Logan?” She took a few steps back as he bent, placed his hands on his knees, tried to get himself back under control. Then she was moving faster, had her arms out to embrace him, to offer him comfort.

  “Don’t touch me!” He flinched away, throwing his hands up in defense. “Not now!”

  Mortification was hot on his brow, at odds with the cold sweat that beaded his skin.

  He gasped for air, thought of his house. Of the acres of land, of the bright blue sky in the morning.

  Finally, his breathing slowed, and he was in control of things once more. He stood slowly, awkwardly, shame stabbing him painfully.

  These panic attacks—this loss of control—he hated them with every fiber of his being. And he’d learned how to control them, for the most part, without the little blue pills he kept in his bedside drawer just in case.

  Yes, he’d learned how to control them. When he was alone.

  “Can I get you anything?” There was her voice, soft and cool and always so damn calm. She didn’t have panic attacks, no, not the always-in-control Mistress Scarlett.

  Though it wasn’t fair, he snarled at her and shrugged her hand away.

  “Just get back in the truck.” Pulling the keys from his pocket, he tried to swallow back the anger and misery and even guilt from the flash of hurt in those wide gray eyes.

  Well, what had he expected? He should have anticipated his loss of control and her reaction to it.

  Scarlett’s jaw set firmly and she followed him to the driver’s side.

  “What are you doing?” Irritable, he tried to step back out of her reach, but she was like a mosquito, pecking at him until she captured the keys.

  “You’re in no shape to drive. Get in the passenger’s seat.” Planting her feet, Scarlett simply stared at him, and he saw it written all over her face that he wasn’t going to win this one.

  Fighting back another snarl, he did as she said, pressing his forehead to the cool glass window the second he was seated inside. He closed his eyes as she started the truck.

  She left him alone after that.

  She’d seen part of him that he hadn’t wanted her to see—a big part, a dark part—and he’d handled it badly. And the truth was, now that his anger had started to fade, he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to put his head on her chest and feel the comforting beat of her heart. Lose himself in the comfort that she offered and that wasn’t usually here when he went to pieces.

  He couldn’t get used to it. But maybe he could have handled that differently.

  What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  • • •

  She caught up with him back by Loki’s stall, where he was hauling a sack of grain so heavy that his biceps burned.

  She seemed to understand that he was battling personal demons, not speaking, not pressing him to tell her.

  Logan watched from the corner of his eye as she made her way to Loki and trailed her fingers over the stallion’s snout. He wanted to yell, to get out his anger that she’d seen him so vulnerable.

  He hadn’t known her long, but he already knew that she wasn’t going to stand for that.

  But maybe . . . maybe she could help take his mind off of it. With that in mind, he dropped the sack of grain with a thud and leaned up against one of the stall doors, watching her with fresh hunger in his eyes.

  “Care to tell me what that was all about?” Scarlett’s voice was casual, but Logan knew she was anything but.

  “No.” He kept his answer short, to the point. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to lose himself in her body and forget the feelings that were tearing him to pieces. “I don’t.”

  In the blink of an eye, she morphed from a sweet veterinarian into his Mistress, and he couldn’t seem to do a damn thing to keep his traitorous cock from hardening as he watched the transformation.

  “Looking for trouble, are we?” Scarlett sauntered to him, brushing the palms of her hands over the thighs of her jeans. Damn it, she shouldn’t have been so beautiful, with her hair a mess, with sweat on her brow . . . from running after him, he realized, and though he wanted to cringe, he held it inside.

  This couldn’t work. Working together, being together.

  Screw it. He wanted to lose himself in her. And he wanted it now.

  “I’m looking to be inside you.” Logan took a step back when Scarlett moved toward him, the gleam in her eyes making him nervous in the best possible way.

  She didn’t stop in her slow pursuit. He could keep deflecting, but it wasn’t what either of them wanted.

  After so many years of being solitary, stoic, after endless empty couplings, it felt so damned good to hand over the reins, to let someone else take control, more than he’d ever let anyone before.

  He might question his decision the next morning, but right now, he needed her to do whatever she wanted, to aid in emptying him of the painful feelings and fill him up with pleasure.

  “Is that right?” Rising to her tiptoes, Scarlett exhaled, and Logan felt the warmth of her breath fan out over his chin. Her breasts were pressing against his chest, and he thought of that morning, in the bathroom, when she’d dropped her towel and he’d gotten to see all of her—

  Snap.

  “What the—” Something hard and cool had snapped around Logan’s wrists. He shook his head to clear it of his little fantasy, looked down . . .

  And saw that she’d snapped a cuff around his wrist. No matter what he actually wanted, instinct kicked in.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He jerked back before she could attach the second cuff.

  He shouted out loud when her hand slid down the front of his pants. There was a sizzle of heat as her warm palm brushed over the rigid length of his cock and then—

  “Oh.” Logan held his breath as she grabbed onto his balls and squeezed, just hard enough to get his attention.

  She h
ad it. He froze in place, the cuffs circling one wrist dangling in the air.

  “Easy, now.” Scarlett used her body to press him in the direction she wanted him to go. He scowled down at her. She was talking to him like he was one of the freaking horses.

  She nudged him into an empty stall, turned him to face the back. Then, with one hand still holding his family jewels, she used her free hand to guide the arm with the cuff up to the large metal loop fastened at the back of the stall.

  The loop was meant for tying a rein, or a lead, but Logan saw immediately where she was going with this.

  “Scarlett.” He wasn’t sure if the way he said her name was a plea or a protest as she guided the free cuff through the loop. “Please. I just want to be with you.”

  “I’m taking my hand out of your pants now,” she informed him. “And I’m going to cuff your other wrist. You will behave.”

  A woman who was over half a foot shorter than him, who was a slender little reed compared to him, had just wrangled him into place. Other men might have found it demeaning, but Logan . . .

  He thought it was hot as hell.

  When the cool metal closed around his other wrist, Logan felt need work through him.

  He wasn’t looking for something permanent—or even something that could last for one year. But he still couldn’t stop from wanting whatever Scarlett would give him.

  • • •

  A gorgeous man with his arms chained in front of him, bent slightly and waiting for her touch . . . Scarlett couldn’t think of any visual that could possibly be sexier.

  If only he didn’t have that haunted demeanor surrounding him. It was because of just that, that she didn’t just acquiesce to his demand, that she wouldn’t let him pull her down to the hay and make love with her.

  Though it nearly killed her to not offer the kind of comfort he sought, she reminded herself that she should give him what he needed instead.

  And what he needed was to feel overwhelmed, to be pushed until his mind was blank.

  But sometimes . . . and this was a surprise for a woman who didn’t care for vanilla sex . . . sometimes she thought she might let him just pull her down and have his way with her, no toys, no power exchange. Just Scarlett and Logan.

  But they weren’t ready for that now.

  “I wonder if you know what you look like when you submit,” she said quietly as she ran her hands over his chest, then under his T-shirt. “If you could have any idea what that does to a woman, having a beautiful beast like yourself waiting for her command.”

  Logan shuddered beneath her touch but remained silent. Something had changed in him while they’d been in town. Something that, no matter what she was pretty sure he actually wanted, was making him now cling wildly to the last shreds of control.

  She wasn’t going to let him. She wanted all of him.

  “Are you fond of this shirt?” she asked, reaching into her pocket for the knife she’d placed there earlier. It had been a going-away gift from her roommate in Vegas. It had all kinds of fun things that she might need out here “in the wild,” to quote Beth . . . but it was pink.

  “My shirt?” She could hear the puzzlement in Logan’s voice. “Not really.”

  “Good.” Flicking the blade out of her knife, Scarlett fisted his shirt in one hand, then slit the fabric down the back.

  She was careful to not get the blade anywhere near his skin, but excitement surged inside of her at the sense of danger.

  It was just so fucking hot that he would let her do something like this and not use his safe word. Trust—the ultimate aphrodisiac.

  “Christ,” Logan muttered, shifting as she peeled the cotton over those broad shoulders, then cut it the rest of the way off. When it fell to the floor, she dropped the knife, let her hands slide into his pants, where she felt the slickness of precome on the head of his erection.

  He clearly thought it was pretty hot, too.

  Quickly, Scarlett unzipped the front of Logan’s jeans and urged them down over his hips. He was naked beneath the coarse denim, and she purred as her fingers caressed his smooth skin, savoring the muscles she felt in his legs.

  “Step out.” She helped him the rest of the way out of his pants, then took a moment to admire the sight in front of her before reaching for her toy bag.

  Six feet, four inches of hard, tasty cowboy chained up, waiting for her to play.

  Her nipples tightened beneath the sports bra she’d worn for work. She was a lucky woman, to have ended up here, with him.

  Now, if only she could make him see that.

  Opening the soft leather bag she’d carried into the barn with her after a quick detour to the house, Scarlett pulled out a flogger. Again surprised that she yearned to just lose herself in him, she forced herself to focus on his needs and establishing their roles.

  This flogger was similar to the one she’d used on his ass at Veritas, but it carried a bit more of a bite.

  She flicked it once, warming up her arm. The slender tails cracked through the air, the noise satisfyingly loud, and Scarlett shivered with anticipation.

  “Brace yourself.” Pulling back her arm, Scarlett let the tails of the flogger fly. They rained down over his back in a handful of biting kisses, reddening the skin they touched.

  Logan’s broad, muscular back tightened, and a soft moan escaped his lips.

  “Are we still green?” She was referring to the code used almost universally in the lifestyle, modeled after traffic lights.

  Green was good to go. Yellow—wait a minute.

  And red, or in Logan’s case bunker, meant stop.

  “Green.” The word was quiet, tense.

  Inhaling deeply, Scarlett lifted her arm again, flicked her wrist, let the strands snap down on Logan’s back. He jerked, snarled. She landed another blow, and he gave the same response.

  Pausing, she cocked her head to one side, tried to gauge his mental state. As she waited, he looked back over his shoulder. She’d pushed him out of his head, for sure, and right into that mean place he went to, that knee-jerk defense against submission.

  “That’s all you’ve got, baby? Let me go and I’ll give you more.”

  Heat licked along Scarlett’s skin from the temper rising inside of her, and she glared, even as she reminded herself to be gentle. As she watched, Logan’s eyes focused in on the supple ribbons of tawny leather, and his gaze sparked with heat.

  “I like a bit of pain with my pleasure.” He curled the corners of his lips upward. Teasing her. Taunting her.

  The way he’d reacted to her paddle back at Veritas had already told her that. But here, now . . .

  She thought that he might like pain because it made him angry, brought out the animal in him. And he used this to keep himself from getting too close to a Mistress.

  To keep his secrets to himself.

  She needed to force him past that. Needed to close that distance.

  The easiest way to break down defense is to overwhelm the senses. Pleasure is the gateway to emotion.

  Luca hadn’t led her astray yet.

  “If you think that’s all I’ve got, you weren’t paying attention the night we first met.” Scarlett was amused to see a trickle of apprehension work its way down Logan’s face. Smiling to herself, she moved back to her bag, sifted through the contents, and considered her options.

  Chains rattled as Logan tried to turn, to see what she was doing, so she made sure to remain just out of his line of sight.

  If he had time to brace for what was coming, to think about it, to get angry over it, he’d use that anger to shore his walls right back up. So she had to take him straight through to release, one that overwhelmed him, in order to make any headway.

  Her body ached to strip him bare, to strip herself, to press up against him.

  She ignored it.

  Decision m
ade, Scarlett carefully laid her chosen toys out on the scattering of straw that covered the floor, then rose with the two things she needed first.

  Next she dragged a small stool over to bring her closer to his height. At five six, she wasn’t that tall, but Logan still loomed over her.

  The heels of her boots clicked sharply on the worn wood of the stool as she stepped up. Logan craned his neck, trying to see what she was doing, his entire body jerking in resistance when she placed the soft silk of the blindfold over his head.

  “Take that off,” he snapped at her, shaking like a dog trying to shed drops after the rain. “I want to see.”

  “We’re not doing what you want right now.” Scarlett was out of breath by the time she managed to get the blindfold securely fastened. “We’re doing what you need.”

  “And you get to decide what that is?” Logan’s voice was full of bravado, and if Scarlett hadn’t been listening for it, she might have missed the slight tremor that lay beneath the bold words.

  Whatever kept him from submitting fully, it haunted him, and her heart melted.

  He’d asked her for this tonight. He’d turned to her for help. Which was why she had to ignore what she wanted and give him what he needed.

  So yes, she was in control. He’d given his to her.

  Steadying herself, Scarlett placed the noise-canceling headphones over his ears, holding them in place while he again cursed and shook. After selecting a Coldplay album, she clipped the attached iPod to the silk of the bandanna that was secured snugly behind his head.

  Logan’s body went rigid as she climbed down off the stool, and she knew that he understood the enormity of what she’d done. He couldn’t see, could hear only what she wanted him to. He couldn’t reach out to touch, could feel only what she gave him.

  Kicking the stool away, she again took up the flogger. Now he wouldn’t be able to see it, to hear the telltale hiss it made before landing. He wouldn’t even be able to focus on the coming blows, because his mind would be occupied by the music playing in his ears.