Nibbling on bruschetta and melon, she fed Logan small bites more often than she bothered to take them herself. She had been certain that he would balk at eating his meal from her hand.
But while he still vibrated with tension, glaring at Bren every so often, he seemed content enough so long as her attention was focused on him. And when he brushed a hand over her ankle, a small sign of affection, her stomach pulled tight with a needy tangle of feelings.
“You’ve behaved very well, sub.” The meal finished, Luca reached for Scarlett’s hand, unifying them as the Dominants in the room. Tilting Bren’s chin up with the toe of his boot, he nodded, his expression pleased. Scarlett tilted her head to one side, observing the pair of them . . . Something was off in their dynamic, just a bit.
“Thank you, Sir.” Bren looked up at Luca, but his eyes strayed for a second—just a second—to her, and she saw what it was.
She’d never seen Bren anything but utterly focused on his Dominant. But though he had still been far more disciplined tonight than most of the submissives she’d ever come across, his attention was being drawn elsewhere.
To her.
In a rush she saw what was about to happen and swallowed down the words that rushed to her lips.
“I think you deserve a reward, slave.” Luca grinned fiendishly over at Scarlett, and her heart sank.
“You’re stirring the fucking pot! Stop it!” she hissed to him, but it was too late.
Bren turned his attention to her, inclined his head gracefully. Against her leg, she could feel Logan tense.
“If Sir permits it, I would like to serve Mistress Scarlett. However she will have me.” Bren’s eyes flashed with desire, and though she tried to control her facial expression, Scarlett felt her lips part with shock.
This—she would never have expected this from mild-mannered Bren. He had expressed interest in her before, yes, but she’d always thought that he was the kind of submissive who simply obtained pleasure from serving his Master or Mistress—whoever that Master or Mistress was.
Frantically trying to phrase a response, Scarlett felt the tension in Logan’s body, still leaning against her leg, pulling tighter and tighter. Finally, his self-control seemed to snap, and he jumped like an attack dog on a chain.
“Hell no,” Logan whispered, but in the sudden silence of the room, it sounded like a shout. “You don’t touch her. You don’t ever touch her.”
Heat spread throughout Scarlett’s midsection as realization washed over her.
This was exactly what she’d been searching for, a man who might let her lead in the bedroom, but who was strong enough to stand up for what he wanted without her.
A man like Logan. No, not even like Logan—just him.
Only him.
The realization hit her like a sledgehammer—she loved him.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she struggled to focus. She was trying to accomplish something big with him tonight.
But at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to send Luca and Bren on their way and to lose herself in Logan.
Focus, Scar. Discipline—he needed some, or he was doing them both a disservice.
He wasn’t fully submitting to her. And neither of them would be happy—could be happy—until he did.
“Sit down,” she told him quietly.
He looked at her, eyes narrowed. “You can’t be serious.”
Shifting in her chair, Scarlett placed one booted foot delicately in his naked lap. She didn’t press—she didn’t have to.
He flinched, but when he sat tall despite the threat, she was proud.
“You do not accept me as your Mistress, so you do not get a say.” She felt a pang as she spoke, but her gut told her that this was the right thing to do.
“The hell I don’t.” Logan ground out the words, but she saw the flicker in his eyes, the hint of confusion.
It almost killed her to turn away from him, but she did. Luca caught her gaze and nodded slightly, the movement almost imperceptible.
She needed to get control over her hormones, because this was the perfect moment to push Logan further, to break him down.
“Follow me.” She didn’t look at Logan as she spoke, instead pushing away from the table.
Logan started to climb to his feet, and she froze him in place with one steely-eyed stare.
“On your knees.” She licked her tongue out over her suddenly dry lips. “Subs who don’t show proper respect don’t get to stand tall.”
From the corner of her eye, Scarlett saw Luca nod in approval, and her confidence grew. Sauntering across the room with no set plan in mind, she led Logan to the padded bench that Luca had had Bren bring in from his car earlier.
Logan clenched his jaw when she gestured for him to climb up on the bench, but to her pleasure, he did it without comment.
“Very nice.” She spoke quietly as she arranged him on his front, then knelt down in front of him. Starting at midthigh, she slid her hands down his legs to his ankles, her fingers making tiny circles over the solid expanse of his flesh.
“I’m going to secure your ankles to the bench.” Scarlett massaged the sensitive skin of his instep lightly. Her heart thudded rapidly, knocking against her rib cage so hard that she thought it just might bruise. “And then I will bind your hands behind your back. What color are we at?”
Securing his ankles in the leather cuffs at the base of the bench with sure fingers, she looked up, waited for him to reply.
Though a muscle in his cheek twitched, he nodded easily. “Green.”
“All right.” Rising, dusting her hands off on her thighs, Scarlett circled behind Logan, admiring the view of his taut, naked ass as she reached for her toy bag and pulled out a pair of supple leather cuffs with a short length of chain behind them.
After tonight . . . maybe she wouldn’t have to reach for her toy bag so often. Maybe she wouldn’t have to use the symbols of dominance.
But tonight she did.
Scarlett secured his hands behind his back, ran a finger beneath each loop of leather to ensure that they weren’t too tight.
Then, with her pulse accelerating to the point where she thought she might explode, she moved to the center of the room, meeting Luca’s gaze.
It was time to push Logan’s limits.
“Bren.” The other sub, still kneeling at Luca’s feet, looked up eagerly when she gestured to him. “I’ve decided how you may serve me.”
“Anything you wish, Mistress.” When she gestured for him to come to her, he crawled, though she would have let him walk.
She didn’t like his complete and easy submission. She wanted Logan’s fire.
Deciding not to make an issue of it, she crouched before him, looked into his face. “Bren, has anything changed on your limits list since the last time I saw it?”
“No, Mistress.” A small smile curled the edges of his mouth—he clearly saw where she was going with this.
“Good.” With her hands, she turned him to face Logan. “Do you think that my sub is attractive, Bren? Your honest answer, please.”
“He cannot hold a candle to Mistress.” Bren’s lips twitched with amusement. “But he has a certain rugged appeal. If you’re into that kind of thing.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.
Doing her best to keep a straight face, Scarlett nodded, as soberly as she could.
“What about his cock? Do you think you might want to suck it?” The mental picture hit her like a sledgehammer, and she clenched her thighs together against the thought of Bren with his head between Logan’s legs.
“No!” Logan’s words were full of panic. “I don’t want that. I don’t want him to touch me.”
“In your file at Veritas, I saw no mention of homosexual touching as a hard limit, sub. Has that changed?” Scarlett waited. In truth, there hadn’t
been much of anything on Logan’s limit list.
He would let her push him; of that she was certain. But she would have to keep a close eye on him, to gauge how far was too far for her stubborn sub.
When they’d first met, he’d been proud of the fact that he had never used his safe word. But Scarlett was certain that he’d used his charm and his clever brain to keep all of his Mistresses from delving so deeply into his secrets that he would ever need to.
She was going to take him beyond that point. But she would have to make sure that she didn’t take him too far.
Waiting for Logan’s response, she watched his body language, the rising tension in that long, lean frame of his.
He didn’t care for the idea; that was easy to see. But he wasn’t panicking, wasn’t showing any signs that this was a hard limit.
As she waited, he pressed his lips together mulishly. Scarlett nudged his ankle with the pointed toe of her shoe.
“Answer me, Logan.”
His eyes spat fire, and he shook his head. She knew he wasn’t going to use his safe word.
“Green. I’m green.” But if looks could kill . . .
What he needs, not what he wants.
“Bren.” Scarlett nodded at the sub kneeling at her feet.
“Whatever pleases Mistress.” His tone told her that he had hoped she would command him to serve her more intimately, but he did as he was told.
A triumphant glare on his lips, Bren took Logan’s cock in one hand. Scarlett swallowed her moan as the submissive fisted the shaft, then stroked up and down, his thumb swirling over the fat head, catching the moisture that beaded under his touch.
“Don’t tease him, Bren,” she chided gently, though in truth she could have watched him stroke Logan’s cock all day. The sight was terribly erotic, all hard muscles and lean planes. But then, she’d always enjoyed watching two men together. “I want him as excited as you can get him, as fast as you can do it.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Bren looked up at Logan again with a wicked grin; Logan looked at Scarlett with panic.
“Mistress, please. Not like this. I’ll behave.”
Then Bren swallowed the head of his cock, and Logan let out a low moan, part in protest and part, Scarlett recognized, with pleasure.
He might not have chosen another man to bring him pleasure, but she was confident now that he wasn’t as opposed to it as he would have her believe.
Slowly, Scarlett positioned herself behind Bren, so that she could watch what was happening. Placing her hands on Bren’s shoulders, she looked at Logan’s tortured expression and felt herself weaken.
Then she thought of the way he’d broken down after she’d pulled that first orgasm from him, that very first night they’d met. How he’d opened up once the control was taken away from him.
Steeling herself, she squeezed the hard muscles of Bren’s shoulders with her fingers and nodded her approval.
“I’m not looking for you to simply behave, Logan, and if you don’t understand that by now, then I’ve failed somewhere along the way.” Below her, Bren slid the entire length of Logan’s cock into his mouth, moving up and down, running his tongue over Logan’s glistening shaft.
Logan bucked his hips, pushing his pelvis forward into Bren’s mouth. Scarlett fought the urge to drop to her knees, to join that tangle of wild male flesh.
Her own needs had to come after those of her sub.
Logan strained against his bonds as Bren worked him with his tongue, his lips, both pressing forward, urging Bren on, and pulling back at times, trying to get away from the onslaught of stimulation.
“Why are you doing this?” His words were a groan as Bren took his testicles in hand and squeezed gently. God, but the pair of them made quite a sight, all that muscle and sweaty skin and sinew.
“Logan, you know that you can stop this at any time. You have your safe word.” But he was a damn stubborn sub, and in this particular instance, she was counting on it rather than cursing it.
Bren’s clever mouth was taking Logan to the peak—and knowing that it was happening because Scarlett had commanded it and that there was nothing he could do about it unless he used his safe word . . .
It was a strong reminder of what she wanted from him.
Everything he had to give.
He would do what she asked, to prove that he was strong. And when he found pleasure at Bren’s hands—and mouth—it would break down far more walls inside of him than if Scarlett had been the one to do it.
“Bren, I want you to bring him to the brink of release. Just the brink, but don’t you dare let him come, or Luca will use his bullwhip on your ass.”
The muscles of Bren’s ass clenched at her words, and from behind her, Luca chuckled, the sound full of malicious intent.
Bren kept sucking, focused anew on his task. His cheeks hollowed as he worked Logan’s cock, and Scarlett wondered again why it wasn’t him, this obedient man, who made her want him so desperately.
But then she was caught up in the barely banked fury, panic, and need that swirled through Logan’s eyes, and she knew.
She’d never believed in love at first sight, and furthermore, at certain times in her life—when she’d been fostered with families who seemed to be in it for the paycheck more than anything—she’d wondered if love existed at all.
She knew that it was way too soon to have fallen in love, really in love with Logan, especially since there was the very real possibility that he wasn’t going to be able to give her what they both needed—that she wasn’t going to be able to pull it out of him.
But she knew that she would fight for it. For him. For the potential future that lay between them.
Logan groaned and closed his eyes, breaking that intimate point of contact, as Bren sucked faster and faster, his head bobbing up and down vigorously. Scarlett watched Logan closely, noted the tightening of the muscles in his legs, the way his fists scrabbled at the padded leather of the bench.
“Stop. Now!” Clasping her fingers in Bren’s hair, she pulled him bodily off of Logan, his mouth releasing the cock with a sound of wet suction.
Bren sighed with disappointment, but Logan—Logan’s groan was a noise of pure frustrated agony.
“Son of a bitch!” He opened his eyes to glare at Scarlett. His cock was thick and deliciously swollen, the head purple and wet. After nudging Bren out of the way, Scarlett ran a delicate finger up and down the underside of the shaft, and Logan pulled against his restraints.
“You can be as pissed at me as you want.” Bending, she pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss, eyes narrowing in warning when he tried to force his tongue past the seam of her lips. “But you need to remember. Your pleasure, or the lack of it, is my decision. My responsibility. If I want you to come with my finger up your ass, you will, no matter how vulnerable it makes you feel, because I have decided it for you. You can come in the mouth of another man and stop fighting the fact that it feels good, because I have told you that it’s okay. Don’t you see it yet?”
Suddenly frustrated, Scarlett curled her fingers around the base of Logan’s shaft and squeezed, just enough to make sure that she had his full attention.
He shook his head, his body beginning to quiver. “I’m trying.”
Scarlett squeezed a bit harder, and a flush from pleasure-pain spread over Logan’s chest and neck.
“Until you give me control of yourself willingly—all of your control—then I will take it by whatever means necessary. Until you tell me to walk away.” She gestured to Bren, who was still kneeling at her feet.
“Bren, go in my toy bag, please, and get me the cock harness. The one with the leather straps.”
“No.” Logan’s voice was hoarse.
“No, or red?” Scarlett stroked him up and down, a gentle reminder—whatever you won’t give me, I will take. You don’t have to worry about wh
atever hurts you, because I will take care of it for you.
Logan remained silent. Scarlett hesitated.
She’d heard of subs who couldn’t be trusted to use their safe words when they needed to. But Logan—it wasn’t that he was too far gone to use it. More that he was too stubborn for it, that he felt he could continue to hold on to that thin edge of control if he didn’t admit defeat.
Tonight she needed to push him to give his troubles into her care.
If it didn’t happen tonight, she wasn’t sure it ever would.
“The harness, Mistress.” Bren returned with it, a sleek fall of wine-red leather that Luca had given her as a gift for passing the submissive portion of her training.
“Thank you, Bren.” Scarlett took the leather straps in her hands and began to unbuckle the metal fastenings.
“I don’t need that,” Logan said quickly, eyeing the leather that would fit around his cock. “I won’t come.”
“I know you won’t,” Scarlett said, then, despite his protests, eased forward and wrapped the first of the leather bands around his waist, buckling it into place. “Consider this a symbol. A sign that you can’t come until I give you permission.”
That I am the one patient enough to break you down. To care for you, to nurture you.
A low moan escaped his throat as Scarlett wound another leather strip through his legs, then cinched the buckle at the base of his spine. Then, her touch exquisitely careful, she secured another loop of the supple leather around the shaft of his cock, another at the base of his testicles, taking extra care to make sure that neither was too tight.
Stepping back, she admired her handiwork.
God, but he was magnificent, bound to the bench, cock jutting magnificently out of the red leather that bound him.
Arousal was a tight knot in Scarlett’s belly, but tonight wasn’t about sex, apart from its use as a tool to pry Logan open.
Tonight was about emotion. About the power exchange and what it could bring to them both, if Logan would just finally give in.
Linger Page 17