Eyes locked on hers, he pulled her until her hips rested just over the edge of the bed. He watched her every step of the way, silently asking for permission as he knelt on the floor, hooking first one leg, then the other over his shoulders.
He waited one more moment, giving her a chance to say no.
“Please.” Propping herself up on her elbows, Scarlett looked down the length of her body toward where he knelt, his head between her thighs.
“Please what?” He couldn’t help the response, grinning as he mimicked the words she’d said to him so many times.
Scarlett mock glowered, drumming her heels on his back.
“Lick me, slave.” She growled at him, arching her hips toward where his lips waited. “You’ve begged for it often enough. Take your chance before I change my mind.”
“Whatever Mistress wants.” Logan lowered his head, nuzzled his nose into the soft curve of her belly. He could smell her—that spicy hint of arousal that he’d scented every time she’d played with him.
His body tightened with anticipation—he thought he could come, just like this, just being so close to what he’d wanted for what felt like forever.
He heard Scarlett sigh as he parted her thighs, then blew a warm breath over her glistening labia. He wanted to devour her whole, but something inside of him was forcing him to take it slow.
To savor.
“Logan.” He could hear how difficult it was for her to hold back the commands, to let him explore, and he appreciated the gift.
But he also wanted to give her every bit as much pleasure as she had given him. So he lowered his head and put his mouth on her, making sure to keep the caress frustratingly light.
She arched when he used his thumbs to hold her open and circled her clit with his tongue, her back curving up off the bed, a gasp escaping from her lips.
“Logan.”
He couldn’t hold back a smile as he intensified the pressure of his tongue. He knew that this woman would never beg, but hearing the need pulling her voice tight was every bit as satisfying.
Applying himself to his task, he licked, long slow swipes of his tongue, then flattened his tongue and brushed it over her swollen nub with a series of hard, quick flickers.
Scarlett propped herself up on her elbows to watch, her gaze catching his as he slid two fingers inside of her, groaning himself when he felt the snug heat suck at his hand.
He held the eye contact as she began to rock against his hand, surprised that the connection felt almost as good to him as his fingers surely did to her.
Still looking up at her, across that expanse of beautiful creamy skin, Logan intensified the pressure of his tongue and began to slide his fingers in and out. Her lids dropped to half-mast, though she held his stare, and her hips began to rock, pushing her wet heat into his mouth, where he devoured her, his need to possess her rising like a summer storm.
Fuck my mouth, he wanted to say. Use me. But he was afraid to break the spell, to disturb this chance he finally had to take her over the edge.
And he understood now why she’d made him wait.
This was the first time he’d used his mouth on a woman for the sole purpose of pleasing her. He wasn’t using climax as a way to take control.
Above him, Scarlett moaned low in the back of her throat, the rocking of her hips increasing in speed. He continued to slide two fingers in and out of her slick heat, continued to slide the flat of his tongue over the swollen nub of her clit, savoring the taste of her arousal on his tongue.
He slid his free hand across her belly, then up to cover one breast. Catching her nipple between thumb and forefinger, he rolled it tightly, enough to give her a bite of pain, a spark of sensation.
“Aah!” Scarlett cried out, shifting restlessly on the bed. This was the closest that Logan had ever seen her come to losing control, and yet he knew that she was in no way submitting.
Even in this, as he played her body with his hands, his mouth, it was because she had said so. And so Logan was free to channel every dirty thought he’d ever had into driving her higher, ever higher, until her pleasure spiked, and her inner walls clamped down on his fingers and tongue, and she cried out as she shuddered beneath his touch.
Scarlett growled when he eased his fingers out of her, propping herself up again to watch him as he wiped the back of his hand over his mouth.
Her stare was so fiercely possessive that Logan felt his pulse stutter before picking up again to beat double time.
“Condom.” Fisting both hands in his hair, she tugged until he did as she asked and slid up her body. She parted her lips beneath his, her tongue sweeping out to taste, to claim his mouth. “Now.”
He moaned into the kiss, sinking his teeth into her lower lip before pulling away. “I need a minute.”
She nipped at his ear, hard enough for a spark of pain to ignite before shoving him away with both hands. “Hurry.”
Though it nearly killed him to take his hands off of her, Logan hurried to the closet—he stored the one piece of luggage that he owned in the spare room. The small bag he’d taken to Vegas with him lay on its floor, empty now save for the one thing he always brought with him. Even though a Domme usually supplied them, he always brought a backup.
Condoms.
Pulling the small box from the bag, he turned to find Scarlett watching him with a smirk on her lips.
“Were you just ogling my ass, Mistress?” Grinning, he sauntered back over to her, enjoying the way she could make him feel ten feet tall. Standing beside the bed, he tore into the box, extracted a condom, and ripped open the small foil packet.
“No, I was ogling my ass.” Pulling the ring of latex from his fingers, Scarlett pinched the tip, then slowly rolled the condom down his length, causing Logan’s eyes to roll back in his head. “This ass belongs to me.”
The woman had wicked fingers. And when she trailed those fingers lightly through the crease of his behind, then smacked him hard enough to sting on the hip, he felt his cock stiffen to the point of pain.
He wanted to climb onto the bed, to cover her body with his own, to possess her.
He needed her to tell him that she wanted that, too, and so he stood by the bed and waited.
Their gazes met, held, and Logan felt everything inside of him stir, aching with need. And then her beautiful lips curled into a smile, and catching his fingers in her own, she tugged him toward the bed.
“Take me, Logan. However you want to.”
However you want to. Downstairs, while she’d been teasing him, torturing him, deliberately stirring all of those forbidden feelings inside of him, he had wanted nothing more than to let his passion explode, to come together with Scarlett hard and fast, a mating explosive in its intensity.
But now he found himself climbing onto the bed, kneeling between her parted thighs. He bent to lay a kiss to her belly, then clasped her hips and pressed the head of his cock to her pussy.
“Oh.” Scarlett sighed when he slowly eased forward, rocking back and forth, a little further each time, until he was immersed inside of her, the heavy weight of his balls pressed against the tight curve of her ass.
Beneath him, she shifted restlessly, arching her pelvis up to meet his.
Settling his elbows on either side of her, Logan brushed his lips over hers.
“I just want a moment. Just one moment like this.” A moment to savor the way she felt around him, her muscles working to accommodate his cock, her slick heat embracing his erection.
Both the softness of her body and the steel of her will voluntarily yielded to him for this one perfect moment in time.
Catching his face in her hands, Scarlett pulled him down until they were nose to nose. “Mine.”
And then her nails were digging into his shoulders, his back, and the bite of pain made it hard for him to breathe. Logan pulled back, pushed forwar
d again, wallowing in the pure pleasure of being inside her delicious heat.
“Yes!” Scarlett was no passive bed partner beneath him, her body arching and bowing and demanding that he service her, demanding more. “This. More.”
Bracing his weight on his hands, Logan moved inside of her again and again. He wanted to stay this way forever, to be lost in her.
“You’re so beautiful.” Though by that point he couldn’t have stopped his hips from moving, he slid one hand in her hair, brushing it away from her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes half closed, her lips slightly parted.
No matter what happened between them, the mental picture of her, like this, would be burned into his memory forever.
“Isn’t that my line?” Scarlett smiled at him, and the utter trust in her eyes—trust in him now that he’d reciprocated—nearly undid him.
“Mistress.” Burying his face in her neck, Logan began to move harder, faster, craving that delicious friction more and more.
He could have called her by her name—he knew in that moment that she would have allowed it.
But here, like this, there was only one true title for her.
Sliding his hand between their bodies, he worked his way down over her belly, through her folds, to find her clit. She cried out when he worked his thumb back and forth, and in turn he heard a roar building at the back of his throat when his climax began to gather in his toes, his testicles, the base of his spine.
“No.” He didn’t mean to speak out loud, but he couldn’t help it. He fought desperately to stave off his release, just long enough for her to come. “You first.”
“Together.” Then Scarlett wrapped those long dancer’s legs around his waist, arching up to meet him, and he felt the shudders begin to work through her body. When she called out his name, he felt everything inside of him drawing tight, felt the erotic pull of her body demanding his release.
He exploded with the intensity of a runaway train, jetting inside of her so hard that he saw stars. He came, and shuddered, and pulsed again, emptying himself, giving himself to her.
It wasn’t until that very moment, his entire being wrapped up in Scarlett, that, despite having returned home from overseas and moving to Montana a decade ago, he finally felt like he had come home.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
An incoherent cry woke Scarlett from a deep, delicious sleep, the kind that comes only when both body and mind are exhausted and empty.
Opening her eyes, she blinked into the weak, pale light of dawn, momentarily disoriented.
She was in Logan’s room in Montana, not back in Vegas. The events of the previous night flooded back in, and with them came a bone-deep satisfaction.
Her stubborn sub had finally surrendered. She wanted to wallow in the bliss.
But then another cry sounded, and she came fully awake, remembering what had pulled her out of her dreams in the first place.
The mattress rocked beneath her, and hands reached out against her skin. Lurching upright, Scarlett squinted into the dim light, discovered Logan thrashing in agitation on the bed beside her. Sheets were entangled around his legs, binding him in place, and while restraints might have brought him a certain kind of peace while he was awake, they certainly had the opposite effect when he was sound asleep.
“Let me go. Let us out!” His voice was hoarse, raw. He turned toward her, and Scarlett jolted when his wide-open eyes met hers, unseeing, a quick glimpse of him before he rolled away again.
He was asleep, locked in the throes of a nightmare. And judging by the sweat slicking his skin, the convulsive movements of his body, he wanted out of it, desperately.
“Logan.” Scarlett placed a hand on his shoulder, then just as quickly pulled it back. She’d heard that it was bad to wake someone while they were sleepwalking or dreaming. But she couldn’t leave him to ride out this dream, not when he was clearly so miserable.
Helplessness washed over her, and she detested it, rejected it. Moving on instinct, she lay back down in the bed, shifting so that her front pressed along the length of his back.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held on tight, leaving his arms and legs free to move. “You’re not alone.”
She continued to whisper soothing words to him even as his long, lean frame jerked and shuddered in her arms, initially resisting the embrace.
When she pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, he stiffened. She did it again, and the first hint of tension began to melt from his body.
“I’m here,” she whispered again, holding him close. “Give all of this to me. I’ll take care of it.”
It could have been five minutes or it could have been an hour, but finally, the big, hard body relaxed, melting into hers. Scarlett could hear her pulse pounding in her ears as the threat passed and her body started to come down from the adrenaline high.
What the fuck was that?
Slowly, the man in her arms shifted, rolling over to face her. His lids were open but at half-mast, his eyes sleepy.
“Scarlett?” Though he wasn’t fully awake, she still saw the shame reflected in those pools of deep blue—shame that he had lost control, even in his sleep.
“Don’t.” Though she whispered, she made her tone sharp. She didn’t elaborate, but saw the shadows in his eyes start to drift away under her command.
She held him until at last his breathing was deep and even, and it was clear that he’d fallen back to sleep.
Scarlett was surprised to find herself shaking a bit as she eased out of the bed, pulling the quilt back up, tucking it in around Logan so he wasn’t subject to the early-morning chill.
Knowing she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, she padded back to her room and quickly dressed in jeans and a thick woolen sweater. A Saturday, there would still be chores to do, but not as many.
Scraping the mess of her hair back into a bun, she blinked at herself in the mirror, startled by how vivid and alive she looked, even in the early dawn hours.
She’d thought she had a pretty good handle on who she was when she left Vegas—had thought she’d known what she wanted. She’d always had an innate confidence, a belief that she could handle whatever life threw her way.
She’d had to, or she never would have made it through the foster system in one piece.
But as she turned from the mirror, headed down the stairs in search of coffee, Scarlett contemplated the fact that being with Logan was showing her that she might have facets of herself that she didn’t know yet at all.
Until now she’d thought she had all the answers, that she could be the rock for him to lean on as he learned how to give up control.
“Christ.” Scrubbing her palms over her face, Scarlett entered the kitchen to find a half-empty pot of coffee. Pouring a mugful, she chugged it black, burning her tongue in the process.
But it cleared her mind enough to think.
She hadn’t spent a night in Logan’s bed before. She hadn’t known he suffered from nightmares. And the dream she’d just helped him escape told her that his demons were far darker than anything she’d ever anticipated.
She was a twenty-four-year-old woman. She wasn’t sure she had the tools to do the right thing faced with such deep-seated pain.
But she also knew she would do everything within herself to try, to be there for him. Still, the intensity of the scene the night before, his ultimate surrender, and the events of that morning had left her more than a little shaken.
She couldn’t handle any more caffeine. Setting her empty mug in the sink, she pulled the kettle out of the cupboard, filled it with water from the tap, and set it on the stove to make some tea.
“You’re up early.”
Scarlett heard the quiet click of the back door before Luca spoke. She turned with a fresh mug and a packet of chamomile tea in hand, not bothering to smooth
out the troubled crinkle that she knew furrowed her brow.
“Let the dogs out into the dog run.”
“Thanks.” She smiled tiredly at Luca before opening the paper packet, extracting the tea bag, and twining the string around the handle of her cup. After Logan had fallen asleep the night before, she’d tiptoed downstairs to make sure that Luca and Bren had found everything they needed. She hadn’t been worried about them making themselves at home—Luca was close enough to both her and Logan that she’d known he would feel comfortable. “Couldn’t sleep anymore.”
“Do you need to talk about last night?” A Dom to the core, Luca touched others like he had every right to, and while she might have bristled if another Dom tried it with her, when he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, she simply sighed and settled back into the hug.
“No,” she replied honestly, placing her hand over Luca’s much larger one where it rested at her waist. “Last night went better than I’d hoped.”
He squeezed her waist, and then Luca lifted her onto the counter, turning her as he did so that their eyes were nearly level. “What has you so troubled this morning, then?”
Looking into Luca’s dark chocolate eyes, Scarlett was tempted to lean on him, to beg him for help, to let him take away some of her burden. And he would let her—entirely apart from their friendship, the Dom in him wouldn’t be happy unless he gave her the support she couldn’t give herself.
But she was a Domme, too. And by pushing Logan until he’d surrendered to her, she had said without words that his burdens were hers to share.
Hers, not Luca’s. And as the minutes passed, taking her farther away from that awful moment upstairs, when she had seen her long, lean alpha male writhing in agony on the bed, she felt stronger, more able to handle it.
So rather than accepting the implied offer, Scarlett smiled wryly and reached out to cup one of Luca’s cheeks in her hand for a quick squeeze. The dark shadow of his stubble tickled her palm.
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