He might have been able to deal with it better if she had shown anger or sadness. But no. She hid everything she was feeling—and he damn well knew she was feeling something—behind that impenetrable Domme control.
He’d fucked things up but good. And he had no idea how to make it right . . . or if it was broken for good.
As he stalked back into the house after his evening chores, Mongo nipped at his heels, whimpering. Logan wasn’t the only one suffering—Mongo missed Scarlett, and they both missed Six, whom Scarlett had taken with her.
A few calls had told Logan that she was staying at the motel in town. But even knowing that she was safe and apparently going on with life just fine couldn’t soothe him.
“That’s what you wanted, dumbass.” Logan thought about dinner, then dismissed it, knowing he wouldn’t be able to eat. “You wanted her to be happy, and you knew she wouldn’t be, stuck out here with you.”
But the look on her face when he hadn’t returned her words of love had told him that he’d made a grave miscalculation somewhere along the way.
His phone rang, vibrating in his pocket just as he contemplated punching the wall. The call display told him that it was Luca.
He knew what Luca was going to want to talk about. And Logan had just enough of a masochistic streak in him to answer anyway.
“You’re a stupid motherfucker, Brody.” As always, Luca went straight to the point. “The best chance you’ve ever had at happiness, and you throw it away. You son of a bitch.”
“I won’t subject her to this. To life out here with me. You of all people know why.” Pushed by someone who wasn’t his own Domme, Logan clammed up.
“Then you shouldn’t have started anything in the first place.” Luca’s words were a blow that hit home. He knew he shouldn’t have. Hadn’t he fought it?
But Scarlett was like a force of nature, and he’d been too selfish to hold up against the hurricane.
“Didn’t she teach you anything?” Luca’s voice was heavy with disgust, and each word hit Logan like a new blow. “Ultimately, the choice lies with the submissive. I’m sure she told you that. But this decision isn’t yours to make.”
Logan had no words for that. Scarlett had stunned him when she’d said she wanted to stay. He couldn’t let her do that, couldn’t let her throw away her dreams, and he had said so.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Luca told him, and by now Logan had had enough.
“Stop with the insults,” he snapped. “You’re not in my shoes. You don’t know what you would do.”
“Did you bother asking her what she wanted?” Luca asked. “Or did you bend things the way you thought they should go?”
Logan opened his mouth to tell his friend to fuck off, but then he stopped abruptly.
There was a moment of silence.
“That’s right, dumbass. And that’s the biggest topping-from-the-bottom move I’ve ever seen.” On the other end of the line, Luca heaved a big sigh, and Logan felt his anger fade, replaced by all of the feelings he’d been trying to stem over the last two days.
Without his Mistress, he felt as though one of his limbs had been torn away.
He didn’t know if they could make it work long-term. But he’d been wrong, so wrong, in not at least giving it a try when they had something so good going between them.
“Figure it out, man. She’s leaving. She got another internship,” Luca warned, and Logan felt his hackles rise again. Best friend or not, if Luca had been here in person, he might have taken a swing at him, just to get some aggression out. “I love you both, but if you don’t fix this, I’ll beat you with every whip, paddle, and flogger that I own.”
And then Luca was gone, leaving Logan with nothing but the sounds of a small farm in early evening, and his own thoughts, whirling around his head.
He had to make this right. He had to give Scarlett the one thing that would convince her to give him another chance.
If he wasn’t already too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Scarlett,
I was wrong. So wrong. I tried to be noble, to push you away so that you didn’t waste yourself on me.
But I’m not that strong. If you’ll have me, I will give myself to you. Entirely to you.
Because that’s what you do when you love someone.
I will wait for you on the far perimeter of the farm.
I’m staying there until you come.
I need to make this right.
I need you.
Logan
Scarlett almost missed the note as she passed through the kitchen on the way to the barn to do her chores. And she had trouble comprehending the words, written in his now familiar scrawl.
Her last round of chores at Logan’s farm. She’d checked out of the motel, and her things were packed in the car. She wasn’t going far—just to the guest house on Axel’s property, where she would be living for the next few months while she became an expert on angora rabbits and local wildlife.
What Logan’s actions had cleared up for her was that she did actually want to stay here, in rural Montana. Somehow, despite her love for the city she was from, she felt at home here in a way that she had never known before.
She didn’t need Logan to stay.
Though she really wished he’d given her the choice.
She wavered when she saw the note. This would be a good time to leave a note herself, to slip away without a fuss.
But she’d never been the type to just slip quietly away. And part of her—okay, most of her—really wanted to hear what he had to say.
Did he really mean what he said? Was he ready to give himself to her entirely?
Could he . . . love her?
Shaking her head at herself, Scarlett made her way to the barn. Her lips quirked when she saw that Logan had left Boone waiting for her, saddled and ready to go.
Loki was missing from his stall, so that meant Logan had ridden him out to the edge of the property—which showed the state of mind he was in. But it also gave her determination, made her feel competitive.
If Logan could ride a demon horse just so that she, the nervous rider, could have the calmer one, then she supposed she was obligated to listen to what he had to say.
“Easy now.” She shakily mimicked what she had seen Logan do so many times, placing her left foot in the stirrup and swinging herself over. She knocked the breath from her lungs when she landed, but felt a sense of accomplishment regardless.
She managed to get herself squared away in the saddle and even got Boone moving out of the stable. The horse seemed disgruntled, and she couldn’t blame him.
“You miss your master. I know.” She soothed him as she tried to get the hang of steering—was it called steering on a horse? “I miss him, too.”
As though Boone had been waiting for her to say just that, he picked up his pace, beginning to trot.
Scarlett’s heart was lodged firmly in her throat by the time the back fence of the property was within view. And it threatened to choke her as she squinted and made out the figure of Logan, standing by a fence pole.
Boone trotted her closer. And when they got close enough, Scarlett saw that Logan wasn’t leaning against the fence post.
He was naked and chained to it.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sliding off Boone with far less grace than she’d hoped for, Scarlett let her anger overtake her as she stormed the remaining steps across the field to stand in front of Logan. “You idiot. How did you figure you were going to get loose?”
“You came,” he said simply. “I figured you would free me at some point.”
“What if I hadn’t?” She was seething, all the anger from the last few days boiling up and out of her. “What if a cougar had come? A pack of coyotes? What then?”
“I timed it for just before you would arrive.” His vo
ice was infuriatingly calm. “And I knew you would come. I trust you.”
“Jesus, Logan.” His words were an arrow through her heart. Scarlett staggered back a step, running a hand through the strands of hair that the wind had snarled on the way over.
She opened her mouth—to say what, she wasn’t sure—but Logan cut her off when he gestured to the backpack lying at his feet in the grass.
“Could you open this for me, please?” There was an expression in his eyes that Scarlett had never seen there before and couldn’t quite identify.
“Logan—” She’d come here hoping he had something to say, not to play games.
“Mistress. Please.” The way he looked at her told her that it was important—vitally so.
Slowly, she knelt beside the bag and undid the zipper.
Inside was a whip—a long, beautiful thing, made of polished brown leather, coiled neatly.
Picking up the coil, she looked up at Logan. “What are you doing?”
“I need to tell you everything. I don’t want to keep anything back from you.” A jolt of adrenaline shot straight to Scarlett’s heart.
“Why the whip?” She ran it through her fingers. Luca had shown her how to use a similar one, but it had never been her flogger of choice.
“I need help to get the words out.” Though on the surface he seemed perfectly calm, like the surface of a lake on a day with no breeze, Scarlett’s practiced eye saw that he was too settled. Too still.
In that moment she saw just how deep this trauma ran, and she wondered if she had pushed him too far—if some things were never meant to be shared.
“You don’t—”
“I do.” Logan had left just enough slack in the chains to turn himself around. Leaning against the fence, he arched his back, offering up the target of his smooth skin for Scarlett’s hand. “Please. Now.”
He wasn’t trying to top from the bottom, she understood. He needed something to help him release the pain—pain that ran through him, on the surface, pain underneath.
She studied him for a long moment—that tall, perfectly muscled frame. The golden hair that dusted his forearms, his calves. The skin that was darkened by the sun in the places that weren’t habitually covered by a T-shirt and the skin that was pale as snow in the places that were.
Though it cost her something, a bit of her soul perhaps, to do this, she did as he asked. Raising her arm, she let the tail of the whip fly.
Logan grunted when it struck his right buttock. The angry red mark left in its wake highlighted the muscles that stood out in high relief.
“Bosnia. We were in Bosnia.” He shouted the words, then fell silent again.
Scarlett trembled. She didn’t want to do this.
But this was what Logan needed. And the bracelet that he still wore showed her promise to fulfill those needs.
She flicked the whip again, and this time, it struck over his shoulder blade.
“I was close with two men in my unit. We had been together since training, had worked our way up to Specialist rank together.” Again, his voice lapsed into silence, but this time Scarlett asked a question.
“One of them was Luca?” When Logan didn’t answer, she landed another blow.
“Yes! Luca. Luca and Dieter.” He shuddered as the pain washed through him, and Scarlett saw that he was beginning to sink into subspace, where the endorphins would take him under.
He wasn’t coasting on pleasure, though. No, when his eyes went hazy, they were focused on a memory.
She let the whip fly again.
“Dieter and I were out on patrol.” Stop.
Snap.
“There were two children in the road.” Stop.
Snap.
“They asked for help. We stopped.” At this point Logan started to shake, and Scarlett threw the whip aside.
“No more.” She approached the fence, ran her hands gently over Logan’s back.
He whipped his head to stare at her with pleading eyes.
“Yes. Please. I . . . I need to get this out.” His voice was raw, as though she’d been flogging his throat.
“All right.” She felt sick—she didn’t want to hear this any more than Logan wanted to tell it.
But she needed to. For him. So he could excise this pain, share it with someone, and try to move on.
“Again,” he commanded her. Scarlett pressed her lips together, debating, but ultimately gave in.
This time the blow striped across his entire upper back, and he cried out.
“They were siblings. Brothers. And their older brother had given them an explosive.” Logan’s voice broke, hitched, and Scarlett felt her heart crack in two when he heaved a sob of anguish.
She raised the whip again, but he continued without it.
“They used it once we were in a building. I . . . I watched one of the boys get blown to bits by this senseless explosion.”
Tears started to pool in Scarlett’s eyes now, too, scalding her skin when they spilled over.
“The other . . . died while we were trapped. About half an hour later, calling for his brother.” The raw agony she heard make Scarlett shake. She longed to touch, to soothe, but she held back.
He needed to get this poison out.
“Dieter . . . he died three days later. Fighting had broken out around us, so no one came. I was trapped with his body, no water, no food, just death and the sounds of war. And I was trained. I was a soldier, and I couldn’t get us out.”
Logan’s voice rose to a shout. Scarlett trembled with the force of her own tears.
“Finally, someone came. I was treated for dehydration and shock.” Though his crying was quieter now, his voice still shook with the force of his words. “Dieter was dead. He had a wife and a baby at home. I think Luca still sends them money.”
Turning as far as he could in the chains that held him, Logan looked at Scarlett with anguish written all over his face.
“I told Luca back then when we were stationed together. I haven’t told anyone since. Haven’t thought about it except in nightmares. Haven’t been able to.” His face was wet, his eyes red, his skin flushed from the pain of her flogging. But the bravery he showed her in that moment told Scarlett that he was a bigger, braver man than he believed. “But since being trapped like that . . . That’s why I can’t live anywhere else. Cities, enclosed spaces, even windowless rooms. They take me right back there.”
Unable to keep away from him any longer, Scarlett threw the whip aside and crossed with long strides to where he stood. Wrapping her arms around him, she squeezed him tight, let him sag into her embrace.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to find peace anywhere at all. Then I found Montana . . . and I found that I could survive here.” His words were spoken into her hair. “But the peace . . . I didn’t find that until I met you.”
“Then why?” She hated to push him further, but she had to know. “Why would you push me away when you felt the same way?”
Logan huffed out a breath into her hair. “Since Bosnia . . . I think I felt like I didn’t deserve more than basic survival. I’m not a shrink, so that’s just a guess.” Pulling back, he pinned her with that brilliant blue stare. “It was locked up so tight, I really didn’t think I’d ever be able to get it out. Not even for you. And I didn’t want you to give up your life for me. Not when I’m so broken.”
Scarlett narrowed her eyes. “And what have you learned from that assumption?”
His lips curled into a wan, tired smile. “That it’s not my choice to make. That if you want to spend your life with an old claustrophobic veterinarian, I shouldn’t stop you.”
“Close.” Untangling herself from their embrace, Scarlett looked him up and down, felt a grim sense of satisfaction when his cock began to rise under her gaze.
“You are old. Thirty-five is just about ancient
. I’m surprised you can even get it up.” She stepped back neatly as he grabbed for her, a low rumble echoing in his throat.
“I’ll show you old.”
“Maybe in a minute.” She smiled when he pulled at his chains. “I planned to stay, you know.”
“I know. You told me.” Logan stopped pulling at his restraints, and Scarlett saw his remorse.
“No. I mean after that.” Picking up the whip again, she swished it back and forth, running the cool leather over Logan’s hardening shaft.
He groaned, clearly trying to focus. “What do you mean?”
“The decision to stay in Montana wasn’t because I wanted to stay with you. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve found the place where I belong. So I set up a new internship with Axel. You know Axel? The angora breeder?”
Logan’s eyes narrowed, and that sexy alpha male that she loved came out to play. “The hell you’ll do an internship with him. He’s a submissive.”
“Mmm, yes, he is. And a very well-behaved one.” Scarlett smiled beatifically when Logan snarled. “However, it seems that I have a bit of a masochistic streak myself, since I get off on stubborn subs.”
Curling the tail of the whip around Logan’s shaft, she tugged on it with her fingers until he hissed. “Turn around. Hands on the fence post.”
“If you have a masochistic streak, maybe I should use that on you.” Logan growled again, but he did what she told him to, spreading his legs so that his feet were planted shoulder width apart, his palms braced flat on the fence post. “I love you.”
His sudden declaration had Scarlett’s admiration of his fine backside halting in its tracks.
Happiness like she had never known flooded through her. As well as the desire to do whatever she wanted with what was hers.
She brought her hand down on the flat of Logan’s ass. He jolted, clearly not expecting it, then hummed low in his throat.
“This is for putting me through hell.” Scarlett rained a series of spanks over Logan’s gorgeous behind, alternating cheeks with light blows that landed right over his sac, blows that made him arch into her touch and groan.
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