“So Tag didn’t get to finish college?”
“Nope.” Harlan shook his head. “He dropped out and took a job at a saddlery. That’s where he learned his leather trade.”
Rylee glanced up sharply at Harlan. She had no idea if he knew the specifics of what Taggart now did for a living, or about his predilections for all things BDSM. She didn’t ask.
Instead, she said, “What about Mabel? How come Patrick didn’t sell her?”
Harlan smiled. “Taggart was smart. Before he left for college, he boarded her with us. He had bought Mabel with his own money, and he held the ownership papers, so his dad couldn’t touch her. Patrick controlled everything else, though, at least until there was nothing left to control. The bank eventually took ownership of the ranch. Patrick moved in with some woman he’d taken up with over in Hillsboro, leaving Taggart with nothing but unpaid bills and plenty of unresolved rage.”
Harlan regarded Rylee for a long moment before continuing. “I’m telling you all this, Rylee, because of the way he looked at you the other day when we were introduced. And because he came tearing in here this morning like a bat out of hell. He was hurting—hurting bad. Whatever happened, I’m glad you’re not giving up on the guy. In spite of the baggage, he’s really something special. He’s worth the trouble.” Harlan flashed a broad grin.
Rylee smiled back. “Thank you, Harlan,” she said softly. She understood Harlan had just handed her a gift, helping her see into the heart of who Taggart was, and the pain he still carried like a stone inside him. “You’re a good friend. Tag’s lucky to have you.”
Harlan gave a brusque nod and then pushed back from the table. “Let me saddle up Duke. Like as not, Taggart’s down by the creek waiting for you, even if he doesn’t know it.”
~*~
Taggart sat on the broad, flat rock he had sat on so many times before back when he was a kid and needed a good place to hide. He could see Mabel through the trees, contentedly munching on the sweet grass on the other side of the narrow creek. He turned back to stare at the mountains and the deep blue sky beyond.
He raised his knees to his chin and wrapped his arms around them. There was a strange pressure behind his eyes and a heavy feeling in his chest. His butt was sore from sitting so long on the hard rock, and he knew he couldn’t stay away forever.
“You’ve been running all your life, Fitzgerald. I guess the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, no matter how hard it tries to fling itself away.”
He heard the sound of horse hooves in the distance and glanced at his watch. Shit, he’d been out here longer than he’d meant to be. Harlan must’ve gotten worried.
He heard the horse slow to a walk and he called out, “I’m back here, on the flat rock beyond the trees. Everything okay?”
“Taggart?”
Rylee’s sexy, slightly husky voice shot through Taggart’s senses like an arrow. Startled, he twisted around and exclaimed, “Rylee! What’re you doing here?”
“I came to find you,” she called back.
Taggart scrambled down from the rock and walked quickly through the trees to the creek’s edge. Rylee stood on the other side beside Duke, who was already dipping down for a drink. Rylee’s hair was tousled and blown from the wind, the color high in her cheeks. Jesus, she was beautiful. She smiled tentatively and stuck her hands in her back pockets.
“Hey there,” she said softly.
In spite of what he knew he had to tell her, just the sight of her caused a sudden lightness in his heart, and the pressure behind his eyes eased, if just a little.
“I guess I’m pretty predictable, huh?”
Rylee shrugged, her smile dimpling, though her eyes looked sad. “I figured you might be out here at the ranch. I met up with Harlan. We talked a lot. We talked about you.”
“Did you, now?” Taggart wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Harlan meant well, but he had a tendency to assume everybody was his best friend, and the concept of keeping a secret was completely alien to him.
“Yeah. We did.” She stood taller suddenly, that look of fierce determination he’d seen in her eyes as she girded herself for an intense submissive experience moving over her pretty face. “Shall I come over there to you, or do you want to cross back over the creek?”
He might as well get it over with. The backdrop of the mountains would make the conversation easier. And once she took off in a huff and rode away, he could stay on the rock and soak in the beauty for a while longer.
He took a step forward, placing his foot on one of the smooth, flat boulders on the edge of the creek bed. He extended his hand and took a step into the shallow water. “Come on over to this side. The horses won’t go anywhere as long as they can hear our voices.”
Rylee stepped into the creek bed and took his extended hand. Her hand was cold in his from the ride and he didn’t let it go as they walked quietly through the trees, emerging a moment later to the vast vista of the mountain range.
“Wow,” Rylee exclaimed. “I can see why you come out here when you need to think. What a gorgeous view.”
Taggart nodded. “You never get tired of it. I’ve spent many an hour on these rocks. A couple of times when I was a kid I even slept here overnight.” He didn’t add that those were nights when he’d slipped out of the house, frightened and sick of his parents screaming and fighting, both of them having apparently forgotten that he even existed.
They climbed up onto the flat rock and sat side by side looking out at the Oregon landscape. “Look, Rylee,” Taggart finally said. “I’m really sorry about the mess I’ve made of things. There’s things you don’t know about me. I—”
“Harlan and I talked,” Rylee interrupted. “He told me about your past, Tag. He told me about your abusive dad, and about your mom leaving. It hurts my heart to think about what you’ve been through. I can’t even imagine how scared and alone you must’ve felt for so many years.” She grabbed his hand and brought it to her cheek.
Taggart turned to look at her. There were tears brimming in her amazing blue–green eyes. He wasn’t sure whether to be furious with Harlan or grateful that he’d made Taggart’s job that much easier. At least Rylee now partially understood why he was the way he was, without his having to go into all the horseshit that was his past.
Gently, he pulled his hand away. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for that. I’d say it was over and done with, but as you can see”—he waved a hand toward himself—“it’s fucked me up pretty good. I guess it’s good you learn it now, before things get too intense between us. As you’ve probably figured out, I’m damaged goods.”
Rylee’s face had reddened as he spoke, and a tear rolled down her cheek, which she wiped away. “Taggart, what are you saying? Don’t shut me out like this. We’ve got to talk.”
Taggart stiffened. “We can talk all you want, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t know how to love, Rylee. I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and it’s really that simple. You’re not the first girl I’ve tried to get close to, though it has been a while. I guess I stupidly thought maybe things had changed enough, and I would be able to let go and move on, but it’s like there’s a stranglehold on my heart, like a snake wrapped so tight around it there’s no blood flow. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know how to feel.”
“I don’t believe you,” Rylee said staunchly, though there was a quaver in her voice. “There’s no way you could have given me what you’ve given me over the past four days if you didn’t know how to feel. There’s no way you could have brought me to this amazing, submissive place if you didn’t know how to love.”
Taggart shook his head. “I know how to be a Dom. I wasn’t lying when I said I was the other side of you when it comes to D/s. And the connection we’ve had has been truly amazing. But you see what happens every time I try to move past that. I was a total fucking asshole yesterday afternoon when I forced you to suck my cock. I wasn’t being a Dom then—I was being a bully. I was no better than that creep, Simo
n. In a way, I was even worse, because I know better. Submission is a gift, and instead of allowing you to offer it, I snatched it from your hands. You deserve better, Rylee.”
He turned away from Rylee, unable to look at the pain in her face a second longer. Staring out at the mountains, he said quietly, not bothering to hide the defeat in his voice, “Some people just aren’t made for love. Guys like me, we’re better off just whipping the girl and then sending her home.”
He brought his hand to his face and pressed his eyelids with his fingertips, trying to ease the relentless pressure building behind his eyes. Dropping his hands, he looked at Rylee. “I forgot,” he whispered. “When I saw those beautiful turquoise eyes of yours, I forgot that I’m broken. I thought I could do better this time.” He looked away again. “I was wrong.”
Rylee was quiet for so long that Taggart finally turned back to look at her, afraid she might be crying. But she wasn’t crying. In fact, she looked pissed off. She pushed herself to her feet and put her hands on her hips as she stared down at him.
“Taggart Fitzgerald, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
“Excuse me?” he replied, startled.
“You’re not broken. You’re not damaged goods, and you didn’t trick me into anything. Okay, so you had a shitty childhood and lousy parents. And I get it that you are afraid to love—afraid you might be cut from the same mold as your father, just a bully in disguise—but I’m here to tell you that you are one hundred percent wrong.”
He started to reply, but she barreled on. “Yeah, you’re a great Dom. The best Dom I’ve ever been with, hands down. But you’re way more than that. And for the record, I’m no prize either when it comes to mental health.” She offered a half smile. “I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve been with plenty of guys, most of them one-night stands in the scene, but I’ve had my share of boyfriends over the years, too. The relationships always failed, and I was always the one to bail, the one to pack my bags and run away. In fact, this morning when I read your note, I very nearly did just that. I started to fall back into my standard MO. When the emotional going gets tough, Rylee Elizabeth disappears.”
She sat down again beside him, clearly not done yet. “But I didn’t run, you know why?” She kept going, giving him no chance to reply. “Because of what you’ve given me in just the few days we’ve been together. You taught me that submission is about courage and trust. Marco told me that submission is another face of love, but you showed me.”
She reached for his hand again, this time wrapping it in both of hers. She brought it to her cheek and then turned it to kiss his palm with her soft lips. Tears were running down her cheeks and Taggart’s heart clutched with pain and longing.
“Along with the love, you taught me about trust, Tag. Now you need to find it inside of yourself. Trust yourself and your feelings. Trust me. Trust us.”
She scooted closer and dropped his hand, now reaching for his face. Cradling it, she brought her head close to his, until their foreheads were touching. “I know you’re hurting inside,” she said softly. “I know you’re not perfect, but I don’t require perfection, Taggart. I don’t want perfection. I just want you.”
Something sharp twisted in Taggart’s chest, like a bone snapping. The pain of it shot through him as the pressure behind his eyes mounted. She was still cupping his cheeks in her hands, her eyes pleading. “I love you, Taggart.” Her voice cracked. “As much as that scares you, it’s the truth. I love you.”
All at once the dam behind his eyes burst. Heat flooded his face and his shoulders hunched up to his ears, all of his muscles tensing. He twisted away from Rylee, ashamed but unable to stop the ugly wrenching sounds of his sobs.
Her arms came around him and she held him tight, tighter than anyone had ever held him before. Somehow, that just made him cry harder, until he was shaking with the effort of it.
“It’s okay, baby,” she soothed. “It’s all okay. You’re safe here with me. I’m not going anywhere.”
She held him for a long time, until he was turned inside out, all the tears wrung from him, all his defenses washed away. When she finally released him, she pushed his head gently down to her lap. Using the hem of the flannel shirt she was wearing, a shirt he recognized as his, she wiped at his wet face, gently dabbing his swollen, gritty eyes.
As he lay there, he became slowly aware of something strange. The hard, tight knot of pain that had been lodged behind his ribs for as long as he could remember had somehow come unraveled. The terrible pressure behind his eyes was gone. He was exhausted, but also somehow energized. It was as if a terrible weight, one he’d been carrying so long it had become a part of him, had been lifted.
As he stared up at Rylee, it was as if he were breathing a new form of oxygen, one he’d been waiting all his life to breathe. He reached for her, pulling her head down to his. He did not so much kiss her as fall into the world of her. Time slowed, stopped, and then moved in an unhurried circle around them as they kissed. They were in a place beyond space and time, where only the two of them resided.
When he finally let her go, Rylee’s eyes were shining, her lips parted. Gently, she pushed Taggart from her lap and got to her feet. She dropped her jacket and let the old flannel shirt fall from her shoulders, her eyes fixed on Taggart’s face.
Taggart, too, stood and faced her. “Lift your arms,” he commanded quietly. Rylee obeyed, and he reached for the hem of her T-shirt, pulling it over her head. He unhooked her bra and pushed it from her shoulders.
She stood proud, her full breasts brushed by the cool breeze, her perfect nipples erect. Taggart’s heart burst from the last of its confines. “Kneel,” he said. “Arms behind your back.”
Rylee lowered herself gracefully to her knees, her gaze still fixed on his. Reaching down, he placed his hand on her throat, thrilling to the melting expression in her eyes as she submitted to his masterful touch. “You belong to me.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I do, Sir.”
His hand still on her throat, he lowered himself to his knees in front of her. “And I belong to you.”
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
Rylee’s cell phone chimed and she glanced from her work to read the screen:
Five minutes. Choose your whip.
As always happened when Taggart texted her from the workshop at the end of the day, a whoosh of excitement raced through her blood. At the same time, a submissive calm settled over her, slowing her heartbeat and easing her mind.
As she saved her work and shut down her computer, she stroked the soft leather of the exquisite collar he had designed especially for her. It was a blue-green that exactly matched her eyes, a single O-ring at the back over the Velcro closure, hidden beneath her hair. It looked more like an exotic necklace than a collar, and she often wore it outside of the house.
Women had stopped her both at the college and when she was out shopping to ask where she’d bought such a beautiful piece. She couldn’t hide her secret smile as she told them her partner had made it for her.
She rose from her desk, which was nestled in the corner of the room that had once been Taggart’s workshop. With his website up and running, and Steve and Zach having signed on as full-time assistants, the Leather Master’s business had simply grown too large to contain within the house.
Like an old-fashioned barn raising, Taggart, along with Steve, Zach and several other guys, had cleaned out and refurbished the old barn behind the house, repairing the roof, wiring it for electricity, putting down new flooring, and insulating and painting the walls, all within a week.
They had turned the old workshop into a living space, and Rylee had filled the room with comfortable, homey furniture and brightly colored rugs she’d found at secondhand shops and estate sales. Her photography covered the walls, both the photos that had been in her apartment before she had moved in with Taggart, and some new pictures she had taken in the six months they’d been living together.
Her favo
rite hung just above her desk—a black and white study of Taggart astride his horse against the backdrop of the mountains he loved so much. He was staring off into the middle distance like a cowboy from the Old West, a pensive expression on his brooding face, looking every inch the powerful, thoughtful man that he was. She could gaze at that picture forever, but she only had a few minutes to get ready before her Master returned.
Rising from her chair, she slipped off her clothing and folded it in a neat pile on the small end table she kept near her desk. She walked on bare feet through the French doors that led to the dungeon and approached the whip display, her skin already tingling in anticipation as she decided which impact toy would mark her that evening.
She chose a small, slender cane, the handle wrapped in black suede. Returning to the living room, she retrieved her small kneeling pad from the antique Chinese chest where they stored some of their BDSM toys and supplies and set it on the floor several feet from the front door.
Placing the cane on the ground, she lowered herself onto the pad as if the Leather Master were watching her, striving for grace of movement and proper position. On her knees, she extended her arms out along the floor and rested her forehead against the smooth, polished hardwood.
She closed her eyes and let her mind empty of any remaining clutter from the day’s work, focusing instead on the man who would momentarily walk through the door. It wasn’t long before she heard the rumble of car engines as Steve and Zach pulled their cars around from behind the house and drove away.
Another moment passed, and then she heard the sound of Taggart’s boots clomping up the three stairs to the porch. The doorknob turned and the door swung open, letting in a fresh spring breeze as he entered.
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