"Do I get a safe word? Like Stop that, you fucking bastard?"
His eyes sparkled. "That's a mouthful. Maybe something simpler. Stop isn't useful, because people in the throes of pleasure tend to say things like Stop, Help, God Help Me, Save Me, God, God, God . . . etc."
"So God isn't a great safe word. Check." She thought about it. "Okay. Alice."
He lifted his hand to trace the valley between her breasts, hooking the knot of the thin white shirt. "All right. Alice it is. Next Friday."
"You like Fridays."
"We're wired to be more open to new experiences at the end of the typical work week, even if that's not the end of our unique work week. We carry a higher level of adrenaline on Friday nights. A larger sense of adventure."
She considered it. "Can we hold off setting a date for it, for now? I want to think about it some more."
"Sometimes thinking too much isn't a good thing."
"Neither is bullying."
He lifted both hands, giving her a wink. "I wouldn't dream of it."
She gave him a disparaging look. "You know exactly how intimidating you are. You aren't afraid to throw your weight around."
"And you're not afraid to stand up to it. I approve of that." He sobered, giving the tail of the knot on her shirt a little tug. "A healthy sub--hell, a healthy person--is one who can stand up for herself when the moment calls for it. Even if my top responsibility is to protect you while you're under my care, you never give up the responsibility to care for yourself. When you assert yourself to me, you're verifying that you have that capacity. That actually helps a Dom, relieves some of the pressure. A submissive who will let you kill her just to please you is a lot of damn work to protect."
"Are there ones like that? Is t
hat healthy?"
"It depends. If they're like that even in a day-to-day, nonsession state, yeah, it can be a problem with self-esteem and identity. If they get like that in subspace, that's a different matter. Every sub has the ability to lose herself during that part. Depending on her frame of mind and the ability of the Dom."
A couple weeks ago, she might not have been able to comprehend such a thing. But the way she'd found herself tied to Troy, the point to which Logan had taken her tonight, where there was nothing in her mind at all but his demands, her own desires . . . it was way easier to imagine and understand. It was also very unsettling.
"I really want to think about the pain thing longer," she said firmly. "I think it would help if . . ."
No, don't go down that road. "Never mind."
She looked down at her hands, but he gripped her chin, drew her face up. He had a way of knowing when she didn't want to meet his gaze, and always pushed her to do so. Damn Dom. She almost smiled, wondered at the wistful twist in her chest at the thought, at using Alice's name as the safe word. At all of it.
"I want to know more about you," she said. "To torture myself, apparently. Where you live, what you do when you're not tying up people in your back room, or doing whip demos. I don't want you to be larger than life, Logan." Even though he obviously was.
"Why would that torture you?"
She'd known he was going to ask, which was why she shouldn't have brought it up. When she looked down this time, he let her, probably realizing it was the only way she was going to get the words out.
"Because you're a fantasy. That's the way I've been treating all this. That's why it's all going so well. We're both getting off from it, and why can't I leave it at that? I'm never happy walking on the street. I always want to know what lies below it, and it's always a sewer."
He blinked. "Wow. We really need that pain session. I'm tempted to start on it right now, whacking your ass until you cry."
She would have chuckled, but he wasn't smiling. He caught her chin in his fingers, a much stronger grip this time. "If I want to get off, I can go home and watch porn. The best fantasy is grounded in reality, Madison. I don't want any other kind."
"I'm not sure if I'm that brave. Or mature enough."
"Yes, you are. Ask me one question about myself, just one. And no, I do not have a tattoo on my ass."
She summoned a smile, but her fingers curled in his shirtfront. One slipped beneath the opening between buttons and tangled in chest hair. The more she tried to think of a question, the more her fingers dug into him, the bigger the knot in her throat became. She'd brought up the subject herself, and now she couldn't follow it through, even with his encouragement. What a coward she was.
"I don't think I can, Logan." She literally couldn't. "I'm not trying to be insulting. I'm just not ready. Let's . . . let's keep it a fantasy awhile longer, okay? Please?"
He studied her for a long time, enough to make her worried he would try to push her, but then he shifted her so she was straddling him in the long white stockings and little plaid skirt, which put her breasts in the thin white top right in front of his face. He cupped them, running his fingers over the nipples. Her thigh muscles tightened, the ache in her throat turning to something else.