Linger

by Lauren Jameson

  Logan looked at her, anger and misery twined tightly together in his expression as he watched her back away.

  “I’m doing this for you,” she reminded him. “What you need, not what you want.”

  Turning her back on him when the air between them was so charged that she could feel the sparks crackling in the air, Scarlett retrieved a chair from the dining table, pulling it halfway across the room.

  Luca caught her eye as she moved. His expression was cautious, watchful, and a pang of apprehension worked through her.

  She was going past the point where even her mentor had experience. But then again, she doubted that even Luca had ever encountered a sub as stubborn as hers.

  She owed it to Logan to press onward.

  Slowly, making a show of it, Scarlett sat down in the chair. Bending over far enough that both Bren and Logan could see down the front of her skintight dress, she extended one leg out in front of her.

  “These boots are gorgeous, but they’re killing my feet already.” Her fingers found the side zipper and inched it down in a mini striptease. “Bren, there’s a bottle of massage oil in my bag. Fetch it, please, and then come kneel in front of me.”

  “I don’t want him to touch you.” Logan’s expression was fierce, but this time he didn’t pull at his bonds. “Please, Mistress.”

  “If you had been a well-behaved sub tonight, I would have let you pull these zippers down with your teeth.” Easing her foot out of one boot, Scarlett started on the other. “Just to remind you that you are mine.”

  If he could have broken out of his bonds, Scarlett knew that Logan would have in that moment. And he even would have done just as she asked, inching the zippers that fastened her boots down with his teeth, bit by bit, just to show Bren that it was Logan’s privilege to serve his Mistress.

  And it would push him further still, make him want even more of a claim on Scarlett, if he had to watch Bren touch her—even if the touch was fairly innocent.

  “The oil, Mistress.” Bren returned and knelt in front of her, his expression eager.

  “Would you like to massage my feet, Bren?” Scarlett forced herself to look at the sub at her feet rather than at Logan, though her attention was caught by her own man.

  “Very much.” Bren was beautiful in his submission, but yet it came so easily to him.

  What would Logan be like, in the same position? Always testing, always pushing at her.

  Always making it that much sweeter when he did finally give in.

  Closing her eyes, Scarlett extended one foot to Bren, knowing that he would consider it an honor to serve her. She let out a true sigh of pleasure when firm fingers found the ball of her foot and pressed, hard. If there was a woman alive who didn’t enjoy a foot rub after spending a few hours in sky-high heels, she didn’t believe it. And more than that, she was grateful for a moment in which to center herself.

  Logan was acting as she had expected him to, for the most part. But there was an edge of desperation to his demeanor, and she just didn’t know if the evening was going to end as she wanted it to, or if it was going to blow up in everyone’s faces.

  Finished with her right foot, Bren set it gently onto the floor, then took her left into his hands. Scraping his nail over the pad of her big toe, he worked in circles down the length of her sole, drawing a moan of pleasure from her.

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair when she heard Logan’s grunt of frustration. She was as aroused as he was, and it was all directed at Logan. Stretching her arms above her head, Scarlett allowed Bren to work on her feet for a few minutes more, ever aware of Logan just feet away, watching her every shift, her every breath.

  When she deemed that she’d gotten him worked up enough, she pushed herself upright and pulled her foot from Bren’s grasp.

  “Thank you, Bren.” Deliberately turning away from Logan as she opened her eyes, Scarlett looked sidelong at her fellow Dominant. “Luca, I do believe that your sub deserves a reward for obedience.”

  “I agree.” Luca rose fluidly and fixed his eyes on his sub, a predator scenting its prey.

  At her feet, Bren trembled.

  “You reward obedience.” Logan’s voice was hoarse, rasping against the air, pulling Scarlett’s attention from her mentor. “But is that really what you want?”

  Turning her head slowly, Scarlett allowed her eyes to wander up and down the length of his body, all of those muscles of his highlighted by the crossing straps of leather.

  The head of his cock was beaded with moisture, the shaft stiff and unyielding, and the sight made liquid heat pool between her thighs.

  “You know what I want.”

  “How shall I reward such a good little submissive?” Luca spoke as if Logan hadn’t said anything at all, and Scarlett turned back to him, giving Logan time to think about what she’d just said.

  Luca opened his own toy bag, studying the contents, rejecting item after item until he found something that appeared to meet his standards. He grinned, then stood, looking down at Bren, who was still kneeling at Scarlett’s feet. In his right hand he held a large anal plug; in the other a set of wicked-looking nipple clamps with razor-sharp teeth.

  “I’m sure a well-disciplined sub like you can take both of these without bondage or a gag. Am I right?” He glared down at Bren, who looked both rapt and terrified.

  “No, Sir. I mean, yes, Sir. I can take them.”

  “Mistress Scarlett, if you would assist me?” Luca nodded to his bag, and Scarlett went to retrieve the lubricant that she knew would be there.

  She could feel Logan’s eyes following the scene, taking in the details, puzzling over why painfully sharp nipple clamps and a butt plug that would force a submissive to orgasm would be a reward. And Scarlett knew that was exactly why Luca was setting this scene.

  Logan needed to see that when a sub let a Dom take over, there was peace to be had. Once a sub gave up control—an easy thing for a sub like Bren—that Dom took away the worry, made sure the needs of their sub were met.

  Giving up control didn’t have to be scary or painful. It could be a reward in itself.

  And Scarlett now understood why Luca had let Bren tag along.

  “Hands laced behind your head.” Luca stood tall over Bren as the sub assumed the position. Luca toyed with the clamps as he stood, sizing up the other man, and the flickering light from the candles made the metal gleam, the points wickedly sharp.

  Scarlett knew that this had to be an exercise in restraint for the sadistic Dom. Luca had said that he didn’t mind giving pleasure where he could, and Scarlett knew that this was true . . . but she also knew that her friend found the most pleasure when he could administer enough true pain to release an endorphin high in his submissive—and when the person on the other end of his bullwhip craved the wicked burn.

  He was here solely for her benefit. Scarlett owed him one. Though when she thought back to the way that Luca had neglected to mention to her that her future employer had been in Veritas that first night—the way he’d referred her in the first place . . .

  She wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if the control freak billionaire had planned all of this from the start, thinking that she might be able to help his oldest friend heal old wounds when nothing else could.

  “Very nice. See how nicely he holds that position, Mistress Scarlett? Such discipline.”

  Scarlett murmured her assent, but while she did, she snuck a peek at Logan from beneath her lashes.

  His stare was fastened on her. Always on her.

  Why wasn’t that enough for her?

  Because neither of us will be happy while we’re both fighting for dominance.

  Luca knelt down on the floor, in front of Bren. With a wicked look in his eyes, he dipped his head, fastened a mouth that Scarlett knew firsthand was talented on a nipple, just the way that Scarlett had done with Lo
gan in the barn.

  Bren groaned, shifting beneath Luca’s mouth.

  “Be still.” Scarlett caught a flash of white teeth, heard Bren’s sharp intake of breath, knew that Luca had nipped at the tender flesh.

  Then Bren moaned, long and loud, and Scarlett saw the gleam of the silver metal, all of those tiny, razor-sharp teeth biting into his tender flesh.

  Luca repeated the action, and Bren’s eyes started to glaze over as he embraced the pain, the first sign that he was slipping into the euphoria of sensation.

  Scarlett remembered from their scene together how easily Bren was taken to the edge. There was no challenge, no sense of accomplishment. And there were plenty of Mistresses out there who would be thrilled with a sub of his countenance.

  She found that she liked the ones with fight in them.

  “Now, then.” Pulling his toy bag closer , Luca reached for the bottle of lubricant.

  “Turn around. Cheek to the ground. And don’t you dare make a sound.”

  His color rising, Bren did as he was bid, lowering himself to hands and knees, then down to his shoulders, and finally to press his cheek against the sleek hardwood of Logan’s living room floor.

  He sucked in an excited-sounding breath when Luca drizzled lubricant over the lean planes of his ass and again when a buzzing noise announced that the anal plug in the big Dom’s hand was a vibrating one.

  And then Luca pressed the well-lubricated tip of the plug to Bren’s anus, pressing it in far more quickly than Scarlett would have done with Logan. But then, Bren was far more experienced a submissive than her own man.

  And while she might have preferred Logan to Bren, she still found it arousing as hell to watch Luca begin to move the plug in and out of Bren’s tight flesh, to see the disciplined sub struggle to hold back his moans.

  “Don’t you dare come yet.” Luca began to speed up his movements when Bren’s body tightened, his brow dripping sweat to the floor. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his skin flushed, and Scarlett knew that he was quickly approaching climax—a release that would happen for no other reason than because Luca had decided that it would.

  “Bren, you’re about to have an earth-shattering climax. Why is that?” Luca’s voice held grim pleasure, the sadist clearly enjoying making his sub wait.

  Poor Bren looked like he was having trouble remembering to breathe, let alone pull his wits together enough to answer a question. But his features scrunched in concentration as he seemed to draw on his inner control, after a long moment in which he shuddered and seemed like he was about to come regardless of his Master’s orders.

  “I’ll come because . . . Sir . . . told me to.” Bren sank his teeth into his lower lip so hard that he drew blood. “And that . . . is why . . . I’ll like it.”

  “Very good.” Luca spanked Bren’s ass then, a violent flurry of blows that would heat the skin. “You may come now.”

  Unable to hold back any longer, Bren came with a shudder and a shout, pulling away from the intensity of the plug, then pushing toward it, writhing as Luca relentlessly held the vibrator in place.

  Scarlett kept her peripheral vision on Logan, wanting to absorb every bit of his reaction to the scene that was unfolding before his eyes. His face was a mask of confusion and need as he watched the other man lose all control.

  But it was when Luca cupped Bren’s jaw in his large, skilled hand that Scarlett saw the change come over Logan.

  “Thank you for giving me your pleasure,” Luca said quietly, the words meant only for his sub. “Thank you for trusting me with your needs.”

  In that moment, as the late-evening sky finally darkened into night and the flickering flames of the candles cast tantalizing shadows over Logan’s face, Scarlett saw what she’d worried that she never would.

  There, mixed with the confusion and that stubbornness that she knew would never leave him completely, was desire . . . but not the physical kind. For the first time since they’d met, in that moment, Scarlett was certain that Logan wanted to submit to her fully—he just truly didn’t know how.

  Running her tongue over her lips to moisten them, she inhaled deeply to steady herself. Then she moved to stand directly in front of Logan, blocking his view of the other men.

  Planting her hands on her hips, she did her best to stand tall, despite the fact that she was no longer wearing her heels.

  “Please, Mistress,” Logan rasped.

  Scarlett cupped the chin of her sub in her hand, leaning forward to press the most delicate of kisses to his lips.

  “Tonight you will be mine.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Though Luca and Bren were still in the room, they were absorbed in their own scene, to the extent that it felt like Logan and Scarlett were trapped in their own world.

  Logan’s eyes flashed when Scarlett pulled out a gag.

  “I don’t need it. I’ll be quiet.” He shook his head vehemently.

  Scarlett arched an eyebrow at him before pressing the rubber ball that was centered between two leather straps against his lips.

  He tried to push the ball away with his tongue.

  “Logan, I know that you don’t need this to be quiet if I command it.” She hoped that he would pick up on the confidence that was trying to bestow on him.

  He stopped pushing, and she slid the ball into his mouth, then secured the strap behind his head. His eyes widened as he struggled to shift his breathing solely to his nose, but when she handed him a rubber dog toy, he seemed to calm down.

  His eyes held a questioning look.

  “If you need to stop, squeak this toy, or drop it. That’s all you need to do.” Scarlett’s heart warmed when she saw Logan clutch the toy in a death grip, where he normally would have scoffed at it.

  He knew that something was about to change, as well.

  “And the reason that I have gagged you, despite the fact that I trust you not to speak, is purely symbolic. Like the cock ring, I want the extra reminder that your care is in my hands, Logan. Do you understand? Nod or shake your head.”

  Slowly, Logan nodded it, the golden hair taking on shadows of crimson and umber from the candlelight.

  Scarlett pressed a kiss to his forehead, then set about undoing the buckles that held his cock harness in place.

  “Whatever demons you have.” She started off quietly, her fingers moving efficiently rather than seductively. “You don’t have to be plagued by them when you’re with me. I will take care of them for you. It is both my purpose and my pleasure.”

  And while he had no choice but to remain silent, Scarlett knew, he would also turn her words over in his head, working at them with his busy mind like one would attempt to unravel a knot in a length of rope.

  Eventually, progress would be made, no matter the initial resistance.

  “You have served me well tonight, Logan.” Scarlett reached for her own bottle of lubricant, poured a generous amount in the cupped palm of her hand, even as Logan’s eyes widened and he began to shake his head. “I want to give you a reward, like Luca did with Bren. I’m going to make you come. If it’s too much for you, you will use that squeeze toy.”

  Logan shook his head, and she heard him try to speak, but the words were muffled by the gag.

  His resistance, she knew, wasn’t to the fact that she was about to give him pleasure. That, the mutual exchange, was something they had both signed up for when first becoming involved. He was scared of losing control, so she would make him climax in a way that ensured he couldn’t do anything about it, no matter how desperately he tried to hold on.

  “Did you see how Bren reached for that release, Logan, rather than fighting it?” Moving to stand behind him again, she leaned over and bit his neck, savoring the resultant shudder. “I know you, and I know you won’t embrace that loss of control easily. But remember that it’s me who has you, me who is giving you pleas
ure.”

  Checking to make sure that the rubber toy was still held tightly behind his back, Scarlett slid her fingers down the crack of his ass, then slowly but steadily pressed one finger in.

  “Mmm!” Logan’s exclamation was again muffled by the gag. After a moment in which he pulled against the bonds, he seemed to settle further into her touch, his body opening, allowing her in.

  Biting her lip, Scarlett waited for it. Needing to keep him on edge, she’d chosen a lubricant that heated with friction, wanting to awaken that tight bundle of nerves inside of him instantly. She wanted to pull his climax from him so fast and hard that he couldn’t think.

  The muffled groan and frantic tightening of the muscles around her fingers a moment later told her that the heat was working. Logan’s hips bucked frantically, fucking the air like it was her body, and Scarlett felt her blood heat.

  “Fast and hard, Logan.” Mercilessly, she rubbed in circular motions inside of him, knowing that his body was on fire, nerves sizzling to life every time her hand moved. “Not because you decide to, or because it feels good, but because I want you to.”

  When an intense shudder racked his body and she heard another moan, she slid her finger out, added another, and moved back in, zeroing in on that same spot.

  “Come for me, Logan.” The movements of his hips became ever more frantic as he sped toward the climax she’d chosen as his destination. Grunts and moans came from behind the gag, muffled swears trying to escape as his entire body drew taut against the bonds, turning him into a magnificent specimen of virility at the moment of surrender.

  His fingers held tight to his squeaky toy as he thrust forward once, twice, three times, jetting liquid heat into the air. Sweat shone on his skin from the pleasure that had racked his body, and Scarlett pressed herself against him from behind, absorbing the shudders as he quieted.

  When he was once again still, she pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, then moved to stand in front of him. Though his eyes were tired, his body was still tense, wary from what she’d just forced it through.

  “You please me very much.” He averted his eyes, his brow furrowed, as she quickly cleaned him and the floor, then paused by her toy bag, considering. “But I’m not nearly done with you.”