Troy's lips parted, as if he were about to speak, but Logan stood, cutting off whatever he was going to say. "You're good?" Logan asked. The young man nodded, giving him a thumbs-up and touching the bottle to his nose in a parody of a sobriety test. Snorting at him, Logan stepped closer to Madison to curl his fingers around her elbow. "Let me take you to your car."
She allowed herself to be directed. Right now, a numbness was keeping the embarrassment at bay. As they moved into his storeroom, she made herself say the expected things. "I've seen sessions in dungeons, but that's the first time I've participated. It's a lot different from the inside."
She'd talk about it like it was a vacation experience, not an emotional connection. That was the way to handle it. There was a lot of intensity inside the walls, an outlet for deeper needs expressed in a safe way, but outside, everybody put on their day-to-day faces. She'd be as mature about it as he was. As Troy was.
Logan made a noncommittal noise as he guided her through his back storeroom. It was dark but he didn't turn on any lights, letting the faint lights from the exit signs and fire detectors guide the way. When they reached the dividing door to her storeroom, she turned toward him. "You don't have to walk me all the way. I can--"
Catching her under the arms, he lifted and shoved her back against the wall, putting himself solidly between her thighs. In less than a frantic heartbeat, he'd captured her erratic breath in his own mouth. Fisting his hand in her hair, he held her in place as he plundered that moist cavern, tongue locking over hers, lips demanding everything.
Oh God. He had her pinned with every inch of his hard body. His erection pressed with unmistakable demand against the cross-seam of her jeans. She'd been so distracted by Troy's naked cock, how had she missed Logan's very sizeable reaction? Her damp tissues contracted. If he wanted her right here, up against this wall, she'd let him do it. He was too overwhelming to resist, and her defenses were already shattered.
"Lift the shirt," he ordered against her mouth.
She groped for it, pulled it up, baring her breasts, and then she cried out as his powerful back curled and he hiked her up further so that he could clamp damp heat around her nipple, sucking it into his mouth. It reminded her of the tarot card that had shown a lush Goddess figure. When she'd gazed at it, trying to imagine herself as a dominant Goddess suckling Troy at her breast, commanding a man's submissive devotion, instead she'd fantasized about Logan taking her over entirely.
She'd been right about that. This was a man who might cherish female power, but he'd never kneel to it.
He pulled on her nipple such that coils of need awoke anew in her lower belly. When his hands dropped to cradle her ass, knead and squeeze, she was squirming, trying to get closer, trying to push her breast further into his mouth. He switched, giving the other one the same thorough attention.
When he finally raised his head, let her feet touch the floor, he didn't let her go. Yanking open the button of her jeans, he put his fingers down into her panties, capturing her clit and slick lips between two strong fingers, another finger stroking the compressed flesh so she was instantly working herself against him, as frenetically as Troy.
"Logan," she pleaded. "I can't . . . Don't . . ."
"Come for me. Prove you're mine."
I already did. She knew it had been his presence, his command, even more than Troy's physical contact, which had brought that first climax. Now he swept her away with a second one.
She screamed this time, unable to stop it, but he put his mouth over hers, absorbing the cries, working her. No fast spin this time. He kept her going until he'd milked the full measure of her climax from her. When he was done, she was holding on to his rigid biceps and panting, her forehead against his pectoral.
"Wow," she said, a rasp in her throat. "You know, if you wanted to thank me for helping, that was overkill. A fruit basket would have been fine."
He chuckled against her ear, and it made her nerves t
ingle, even as her heart broke a little. Don't make a mistake, Madison. Don't believe this is more than it is.
But then he tipped her chin up, and she saw the gleam of his eyes in the darkness, the serious set of his mouth. With Logan, it was very hard to separate fantasy from reality.
*
When she arrived home she made herself a cup of hot chocolate, the best way she could think of to deal with what had happened. She paced the kitchen a few times, then collapsed in a chair.
Tonight had been incredible, amazing. Surreal. How could she handle the next workday, being around the two of them? Hi guys, awesome night. We should do that again sometime. Next time I'll bring the rope.
The unsettling thing was she had less of a problem laughing off what had happened with Troy and all the D/s stuff than what had happened with Logan in the back room. She'd never been so overwhelmed by a man so quickly, though she'd certainly fallen hard before . . . and paid the price.
She put her fingers on the deck of cards she'd left stacked in the center of the table. She'd gotten into the habit of idly plucking from the top when she passed through to grab a snack. Now she turned one over. It showed a redheaded girl teetering in her mother's heels on the upper panel. On the lower one, the same redheaded girl was grown up and in a sexy nurse outfit, complete with stilettos no nurse in her right mind would wear. Along with that really short hemline. This card didn't have a pairing of words like most of the others did, but there was script on the bottom.
Let make-believe change your reality.
She considered the card. Maybe she was trying to be too much of who she'd been in Boston. She'd left her job, her life there, behind, so why was she clinging to old habits and fears? What if she tried really getting into the spirit of her store? She pursed her lips, thinking about the Wonderland room upstairs. Maybe she wouldn't go as extreme as the naughty nurse, but there were other, appealing options.
Tonight, Logan had unlocked a door inside her. Somehow, tying her up had released her inhibitions, and she'd embraced a deeper side of herself that had always seemed too overwhelming to let free. Yet she'd let it free under his restraints. She'd trusted him.
A startling idea and perplexing contradiction, but one couldn't argue with success. She looked at the naughty nurse, and felt a weird combination of laughter, intrigue, anticipation, excitement . . . She wanted to follow the feelings that had been unleashed tonight, and she wanted to use them for the store. She didn't want to dread tomorrow. She wanted to anticipate it.
She'd just let herself be tied up and brought to climax with a guy she barely knew, after all. Trying out a new fashion would be far less nerve wracking.
Go to bed, Madison. Turn it off for one night. Tomorrow's a new day.