Linger (15 page)

He couldn't do what she wanted. The things in him that she wanted to own—if he released the lock, he'd never get that part of himself back.

He couldn't give her what she wanted. He just
couldn't.

“No!” Lunging again, burying his face between her thighs, he fastened his lips on her clit once more and suckled with intent focus, needing to bring her to release, to bring her under
his
control so she would stop pushing, pushing, pushing.

She came within seconds, screaming as her body bucked against his, her legs locking around his neck to bring him closer even as she cursed at him.

Though his cock was still hard, though he hadn't touched himself, Logan felt like his own release ripped through him as he watched Scarlett bow beneath his mouth. For one long, beautiful moment, everything became crystal clear.

Bringing her pleasure . . . serving her . . . it could bring him peace. If only he could let go.

And then her shudders quieted, and the clarity of an instant before scattered as her head snapped up, her eyes full of white-hot fury.

And Logan realized that somehow, some way, he had miscalculated. More than that . . . he had made a very big mistake.

Scarlett's spine straightened as though she'd been shocked, and quick as a snake, she caught his cock in her hand and squeezed.

He hissed but didn't voice a complaint. As he looked into her eyes, he felt a thread of panic begin to work its way through his gut.

He might have pushed her past a point from which they could not return.

Pulling just enough to make him wince, Scarlett put her face directly in front of his. She was furious. He could see that; but more—she was disappointed.

Shame was like a thick mass that clogged his throat.

“I'm sorry—” he started, but one more squeeze of his erection had the words choking off at his lips.

“I'm sure that you are sorry now.” There were so many emotions vibrating behind Scarlett's words that Logan felt the stone settling in his gut grow even heavier. “But what
I'm
sorry for is that it took this much, that we had to go this far, for you to see how unacceptable it is to treat what we have with so much careless disregard.”

Temper flared within him. “Wait just a minute. I don't disregard a damn thing.”

Releasing his cock, Scarlett placed her hands flat on his chest, then shoved him backward. He fell on his ass with a thud, and if there had been much water left in the tub, he would have emptied it.

Scarlett stood, and she was both beautiful and terrible, like a goddess standing on the pinnacle of a volcano.

“You want to hurt me,” she said, so softly that Logan barely heard her.

Shaking his head, he scrambled to his knees. “No, no, never.”
Not at all
. He wanted to worship her; he just didn't know how.

“You do.” Calmly, Scarlett stepped out of the bath, every line of her body shouting that she was a queen and he, in that moment, her prisoner begging for mercy. “When I push you to your limits, you are supposed to use your safe word to communicate that you can't go any further. And that is something that I will respect. But disobeying me so directly simply to take back control is unacceptable and tells me that in your very heart, you want to hurt me.”

She wasn't listening. He had to make her listen.

Pulling himself to his feet, he looked down at her, doing his best to rein in his temper. “That's bullshit and you know it.”

He reached for her, and she thrust out one hand, palm facing him, a gesture that halted him in his tracks.

“I know that you have a hard time understanding the need inside of you, a hard time wanting what you want,” she said softly, “and I'm going to do my best to help you understand.”

Turning on her heel, gloriously, magnificently naked, Scarlett strode from the bathroom.

Confused and agitated, Logan followed her, not done arguing his point.

He stopped short when he found her bent over the bed, palms sinking into the soft quilt that covered the mattress.

“Since you're having trouble seeing things from my point of view, we're going to do some role-playing.” Raising her heart-shaped ass higher in the air, Scarlett pressed her cheek to the bed. “You will spank me. Ten strokes, counting out loud. And if you don't put your back into it, you'll start again at one.”

“No fucking way.” Logan planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don't strike women.”

Scarlett lifted her head, looked into his eyes, and the depth of the understanding and the
hurt
he saw there nearly brought him to his knees.

“Are you using your safe word?” She wouldn't condemn him if he did.

After what he'd just done, he owed it to her, had to give her this without fighting.

Plus . . . he knew, he just knew, that if he didn't do this, she'd be gone.

“Fine.” He bit the word out, then went to stand behind her. Appeased, she sank her face back into the bed, arching her spine, a graceful curve that he wanted to run his lips over.

If he tried right now, she would kill him.

“Have you . . . ? Have you ever been spanked?” he asked, his voice low. Needing the contact, he dared to reach out, smooth his hand over her flank, and she sighed, the sound making her flesh quiver.

His cock hardened, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable.

“Every Domme who wants to be certified at Veritas has gone through a mentorship program. And that includes a month-long stint as a submissive.” Her voice held a hint of distaste, not, Logan understood, because she looked down on the role, but because it hadn't suited her at all. “I know what I'm in for here, Logan. Stop procrastinating. Spank me.”

His hand slid off her skin and balled into a fist. He'd hit his share of men—had done far worse things—he'd been in the army, after all.

But the idea of hitting someone for sexual pleasure—no matter how alpha he was outside the bedroom, he just couldn't fathom it.

There wasn't anything he wanted to do less than lay his hands on Scarlett in this way.

He owed it to her, though. He wasn't going to beg. He was going to man up and do it, though he still wasn't entirely sure what her endgame was.

“Fuck. Brace yourself.” Logan lifted his hand, took a practice swing that sliced through the air. Grimaced.

No matter what she'd said, he couldn't hit her with all of his strength. He'd hurt her.

He lifted his hand again, chewed on the inside of one cheek.

Then he let go and swung.

“One.”
Crack
. The slap of his palm connecting with flesh reverberated through the room. Scarlett jolted on the bed but
didn't cry out. When he snuck a peek at her face, he saw that she looked entirely calm.

For some reason, it irritated the hell out of him. Didn't she feel anything, when his world was turning upside down?

Bracing himself, he spanked her again and again, alternating cheeks the way she had while flogging him. She continued to hold still apart from a flinch every time the blow landed, though her breathing quickened, and the skin beneath his hand heated and turned pink.

He hated the flinches, hated the marks on her skin, hated everything about the situation. His anger grew until he was furious at her for putting him in this position.

“Ten!” He shouted the last number, then sprang away from her, his palms sweating, his body shaking. “Are you happy now?”

Below him on the bed, Scarlett sucked in a deep breath, then slowly stood. As if examining what her body had just gone through, she stretched, rising high onto her toes with her arms pulled tall above her head.

And when she winced, Logan felt like scum.

“I'm not happy unless you're happy,” she told him, turning to look him in the face. She looked deeply sad and even a little vulnerable.

“Isn't that supposed to be my line?” Logan asked bitterly.

She pursed her lips. “You're angry with me.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Logan was more than angry, he was so full of emotion that his skin felt like it was stretched too thin, unable to contain it all.

Scarlett crossed the few steps that it took to reach him and stood in front of him. Though she was close enough that he could feel the heat emanating from her skin, she made no move to touch him, to soothe him, and that told him how
much he'd cracked the fragile connection that had developed between them.

“How you feel right now—that anger, that shame, that edginess? That's how I feel whenever you refuse to let me take you where you need to go. That's how I feel when you deliberately disobey me just for the sake of grabbing control back. That's how I feel when I have to punish you like this.” She gestured with her arm, referring, Logan assumed, to what she'd just made him do.

His mind rejected her words. She was wrong, wrong, wrong. He didn't make her feel like this. He couldn't, not by just . . .

By disrespecting her in every way.

Logan was overwhelmed, agitated, felt like ants were crawling beneath his skin. He needed to get the hell out of there, but he didn't dare move until she told him he could go.

To his utter shock, Scarlett rose up onto her tiptoes and without speaking, pressed a soft kiss to the line of his jaw.

“It doesn't have to be this hard, you know.” Sinking back down to flat feet, she regarded him solemnly.

Logan just stared at her, overcome.

She gestured to the door, her smile more than a little sad. “Go now. I'd like to be alone.”

Clinging to the few threads of sanity that she'd left him with, Logan went.

S
carlett deliberately withheld all physical contact for an entire week. It almost killed her, especially when she saw Logan's muscles flexing as he worked around the ranch, or when she saw his tender side toward all creatures large and small when they started doing house calls together.

But she knew that she had to impress upon him the importance, the enormity, of what was between them.

And for the sake of his pride, he needed to come to her—it had to be his choice, not an order that he felt he had to obey.

Standing beside him on the dusty floor in the busy barn of a neighboring farm, Scarlett tried to focus on threading a length of rubber hose up the nose of a mare. The toffee-colored horse rolled her eyes unhappily but was clearly too miserable to try to get away.

They'd been called to the farm to take a look at a mare that was under the weather. Logan had ordered Scarlett to examine the animal, give him her opinion, and then provide treatment, all under his watchful eye. He hadn't strayed far from her in the past week, all the while observing her, teaching her.

But he hadn't said a thing about the relationship they had outside of work. He hadn't approached her sexually in any way.

Had she gone too far, making him spank her?

Was he waiting for her to lead, a submissive to a Mistress?

The thought upset her so much that her hands shook. The rubber tubing shook, sliding out of the horse's nostril, and Scarlett swore softly under her breath.

“Here.” Logan caught the tubing before it could fall. Moving in so close that Scarlett could smell the soap he'd used that morning, he took her hand and placed it back on the tubing, helping to place the tube back in the mare's nose. Scarlett's pulse raced as, together, they fed the tubing into the horse's sinus.

“Yes. Like that.” Scarlett might have missed it, but she thought she heard a small hitch in Logan's voice when her fingertips brushed over the back of his hand. “You have to get in far enough that you can pump, but not so far that you damage the sinuses and hurt her.”

“Right.” Scarlett hated that her voice was weak. But whatever else she was confused about, she knew that she hadn't imagined the connection between them.

But how the hell was she supposed to get through to him?

Was it even possible? Was she wrong about him entirely, and he truly was meant only for a Mistress who would be easy on him?

The thought of another woman laying her hands on him, touching him, made an inner snarl echo through Scarlett's head.

She wasn't about to give up on this submissive, no matter how stubborn a beast he was.

She just hoped that he hadn't given up on
her
.

A vibration at her hip startled her, jolting her from her thoughts. Her ringtone blared, and she flushed as she realized that she'd forgotten to turn the ringer to silent.

Logan's lips twitched with amusement as he listened.

“Save a horse, ride a cowboy, huh?” Logan snorted out a laugh. Scarlett felt her face flush even deeper.

Damn it. Why did the dynamics between them have to be so complicated?

“I'll turn it off,” she answered hurriedly, letting go of the tubing.

“No. Go on and answer it. It's pretty appropriate, actually.” Logan gestured to the pump end of the hosing that lay on the ground. “Just hand me that before you go so I can start to suction.”

Scarlett was floored at Logan's casual reference to everything that had happened between them. What was he saying? That there
had
been something there? Or that there still was, despite his absolute avoidance of the topic for the last week?

Damn it. She might be a Domme, but she was still such a
girl
.

Throat dry, with no idea what to say, she scooped up the small handheld pump and handed it to Logan. Their fingers met again as she passed it over, and Scarlett felt her pulse skittering at the casual contact.

Flirtation over equine sinus trouble.
How romantic.

“Thanks,” she muttered, jerking her hand away. Tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, Scarlett quickly strode out of the barn, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and stabbed at it to accept the call and silence the damn thing.

She'd taken too long. The phone went through to voice mail, then immediately started ringing again.

SANTANGELO, LUCA

“You can't expect me to be as available to you as one of your subs,” she said mildly as she answered, rounding the corner of the building. “There's this wonderful modern thing called voice mail.”

“Got you to answer, didn't I?” Even through the phone, Luca's voice was smug. “And now I can hear your reaction when I tell you that I'm coming for a visit.”

“Rich man say what?” Scarlett stopped in her tracks. Luca was a big fan of his creature comforts—and he didn't count wide-open fields or cow manure on that list.

“You heard me the first time,” he replied. “I just closed the deal on that chain of restaurants. I'm visiting each one to see what needs improvement, and there's a location in Billings. And what kind of mentor would I be to get within a half hour of charming Hanover Creek and not visit my favorite protégée and her stubborn submissive?”

“Ah. There it is.” Scarlett sighed and rubbed her hands over her eyes. “You're nosy.”

Part of her wanted to keep Luca far away from here, because . . . well . . . because she felt like a failure, damn it.

And part of her was desperate for him to come and tell her how to fix the mess she had made between her and Logan, to tell her what to do to make it work.

“See what a good Domme you are?” Luca asked cheerfully. “You can see my intentions, clear as day, right through the phone.”

“Shut it, Santangelo.” Despite herself, Scarlett laughed.

“That's
Master
Santangelo to you, babe.” Even though he was joking, the underlying thread of authority in Luca's voice could be heard at the challenge, even through the phone. “Don't make me spank you.”

“In your dreams.” Scarlett's chuckle was abruptly cut off with Luca's next query.

“Since you brought it up, Scarlett dear, how
are
things with the reclusive doc?”

Scarlett's heart stuttered, and then she sighed. It was hard
to force out the words—as a Domme it was her responsibility to understand the needs of her sub, to provide for them.

She was failing miserably, and admitting it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Not very well,” she finally choked out. Threading her fingers in the loose tail of her hair, she tugged with frustration.

She would be crazy to say that Logan was the one . . . wouldn't she?

But the fact remained that she'd never felt like this before and wasn't sure she ever would again.

“He keeps trying to make me lose control, trying to make me give him the upper hand, and he fights me every step of the way when I try to lead him elsewhere. And I can't walk away. It's . . . We . . .” The frustration she'd felt a week earlier, when she'd forced Logan to spank her, welled up inside her chest. “I really can't convince you to tell me his story? Not even a hint?”

Normally, she would have enjoyed prying the details out of her sub, each reveal a triumph.

But with Logan she was ready to fight dirty.

“You know I can't, Scar. It's not my story to tell.” Luca's words were thoughtful, and then he continued.

“But maybe I can help you get it out of him.”

T
he phone call had changed something in Scarlett's demeanor. Logan could see that as soon as she strode back into the barn. She stood tall, certain, had that look in her eye that made him so apprehensive in the middle of a scene.

His heart thudded against his rib cage as he looked her over, noting how stunning she was, even in torn work jeans and a button-down plaid shirt.

She made him feel things that he'd never thought he could allow himself to feel.

Coming back up beside him, she picked up the bottle of disinfectant and cheerfully began to squirt it over the nozzle of the pump that he'd just finished using.

“You seem happy.” His mind screamed at him to leave well enough alone—he'd managed to beat back his need to grovel in front of her for an entire week now, to go back to being just colleagues.

It was no business of his who had put that spring in her step, no matter that it planted a seed of jealousy in his gut.

“A friend is going to be in town this weekend, and I'd like to have them over for dinner.” The smug challenge in her eyes when she looked at him told Logan that she knew he was fishing for information.

And yet he just couldn't leave well enough alone.

“You're asking?” His voice was accusatory, even though he hadn't intended for it to be.

“Your house,” she said, shrugging. “Your rules.”

Oh, really.
Logan thought of the scene in the bath and just stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

It might have been better if he had, but instead he kept on questioning her.

“What kind of friend?”

“A friend from Vegas.” Her eyes sparkled, and he knew she was baiting him.
Damn it.

“A male friend?” The beast inside of him snarled.

A submissive?

Is this really over already, almost before it began?

Scarlett, squatting over the equipment, rocked back on her heels and looked at him sharply. Logan's mouth grew dry as that
look
came over her, the one that transformed her from Dr. Scarlett Malone, his competent and very attractive intern,
to Mistress Scarlett, the woman who commanded his attention with her mere existence.

He blinked and the two merged, becoming impossible to separate in his mind. He wanted them both—he wanted
all
of her.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Her voice was calm, but her eyes regarded him intently, and he knew that she was filing his every move, his every breath away in that sharp little brain of hers.

Logan scowled, hesitated.

Maybe it would be good if she got involved with another submissive. It would give him some space, a chance to get some control back over his life.

Why did that thought make him so damn miserable?

“Whatever pleases you.” His words were curt in an attempt to hide what he was really feeling—until he figured that out for himself, he sure couldn't let her see.

She leaned in to him slowly, close enough that he caught that tantalizing smell of vanilla that seemed embedded in her very skin. Casting a quick look around, she fisted his T-shirt in her hand, pulling him down until he felt her breath mist over his lips.

“Scarlett.” His voice was a warning—they were on a house call, definitely on work time, when he was in charge.

But he found that the more time they spent together, the more those lines blurred, morphing into something else entirely.

Besides, they weren't doing anything inappropriate. Never mind the thoughts that raced through his head when she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“What would please me is to have you say that and mean it.” She pinned him with a stare, her gray eyes luminous in the dim light inside the barn. Logan's body tensed. The mare that
they'd just treated was watching them contentedly, as if they were a reality TV show.

But as he looked up into Scarlett's eyes, he felt the worry melt away. Who cared what anyone else thought, as long as he pleased her?

“We will have a guest for dinner on Friday.” Scarlett spoke as if he would accept it, simply because she decreed it so.

It was sexy as hell.

“You will be there with me.” Releasing his chin, she leaned forward until he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. Still not inappropriate, but arousing as hell. “You will be there as my submissive.”

Logan nodded warily, the jealousy that was lodged in his gut only partially appeased by her claiming of him as her sub.

“I will take care of all the details. All you need to do is show up when I command it—show up willingly.” Her face was set in stern lines, and Logan sensed that this was it.

He couldn't fuck this up again. She might not give him another chance.

“Understood?” Her fingers dug into his chest, and the jolt of pain made his cock swell.

“Yes, Scarlett.” Relief washed over him as he said her name. It felt good—it felt right.

And that was something to turn over in his head later.

“Good.” Releasing him, Scarlett stepped back, dusted debris from her jeans before turning to pack up the last of their equipment. Logan eyed the sweet curves of her ass, outlined in thin denim, as she bent over, silently cursing that she seemed so calm, so serene—even though he knew she wasn't—while he was having a hell of a time not just grabbing the swells of those hips and taking her here and now.

Swallowing, trying to get his urges back in control, he looked up and felt a jolt of adrenaline when he saw a young
ranch hand he knew by face but not name standing frozen in the doorway, his avid expression trained on the scene in front of him.

Logan scowled.

The cowboy winked, gave him a thumbs-up, and sauntered away.