Maybe she’d go take that spanking. But he’d threatened to make her do this even after the spanking.
A spanking could be good though. Especially the cuddles after, then making up . . . she sighed. But she’d be right back here, wouldn’t she?
All she had to do was write something she was good at.
She tapped her pen against the page.
I give excellent blow jobs.
She crossed that out with a groan. “Logan, you idiot, now you’ve got me writing it.” I can just imagine telling Molly that. She leaned her forehead against the desk. This was not going to be easy.
***
Logan paced back and forth in the living room. “What do you think’s taking her so long?”
It had taken him two seconds to write his affirmation. He was good at fixing things. Done. Easy. How hard could it be for Savannah to think of something? She was amazing at so many things.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have threatened to spank her,” he said worriedly. What if Max had frightened her?
Max ran his hand over his face, looking exhausted. “How often did you threaten to spank her before she was taken by Stanton?”
Logan snorted. “Too many times to count.”
“You heard the therapist. She needs to feel like herself again. Strong. Normal. Treating her like she might break makes her feel powerless. We need to take off the kid gloves and help her take back her life. That means treating her like she’s our wife. Our wife whom we protect, cherish, and spank.”
“You got all that out of a few minutes of talking to her shrink?”
Max shrugged. “I know what it’s like to feel like your whole world has been turned upside down and you just want what you once had. You want it so desperately you’ll do anything to get that feeling back.”
“Is that how you felt after you left the armed forces?” A quiet voice asked.
Logan turned to see Savannah standing in the doorway.
Max looked over at her, his face serious. “Yeah, it is. The shrink I had was a sick asshole who got off on hearing about what I’d seen and done. He wanted details I wouldn’t give him.”
“That bastard,” Savannah said fiercely, walking over to Max. “I can’t imagine how hard it was for you. After everything you’d gone through, to have someone who should have helped you fail you like that.”
“Logan helped me. By not giving up even when I was a complete asshole.”
“You still are,” Logan muttered.
Max reached out and cupped Savannah’s face between his hands. Then he kissed her gently. Logan watched them, his breath caught in his lungs at the sight of them together. The two most important people in his world. He’d do anything to make their hurt disappear. To take it all on himself. But he couldn’t. All he could do was be there for them. However they needed him to be.
“You helped me more than I can say, Savannah. You made me feel again. Really feel. You made me laugh. It was hard and it took time, and I’m not saying I’ll ever be fully recovered. But whenever those old memories threaten me, I have my ways of coping. I go for a ride, I cuddle you, I pick a fight with Logan and punch on him for a while.”
Savannah grinned. “Not sure that Molly would consider that an appropriate coping mechanism.”
Max smiled back. “Maybe not, but it sure is fun.”
“Jerk,” Logan said without heat. If Max needed to hit on him to feel better, he didn’t care. He’d do whatever he needed to help his brother.
“You need your own coping mechanisms,” Max told her. “Like the exercises Molly gives you. The self-affirmations.”
“I might have another idea of a coping mechanism,” she said.
“Yeah, what’s that?” Logan asked. He hoped it wasn’t something else that involved him having to write shit about himself.
“Sex.”