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Julie snapped back to real time when Madison touched her bottle to Julie's. "Want another?"
"Yeah, maybe just one more."
Logan gripped Madison's thigh as she started to rise. "I'll go get them. You've had a long day."
"Hey, aren't Doms supposed to order their subs to wait on them?" Julie asked. "And beat them when they don't?"
Logan's brown eyes glinted. "Only if that's what turns on both Dom and sub. I only beat her when I think she needs some smacking around."
"How very redneck of you."
"Well, Doms, rednecks. It's a fine line." He kissed his wife's forehead, his large hand loosely curled in her hair, then straightened and headed back into the house.
Madison's interest in creating her theater hadn't been driven solely by her store's focus. Since meeting Logan, she'd embraced a submissive orientation that had simmered within her for years. Logan radiated Dom enough that Julie easily added him into her shadowy night fantasies. While she didn't tell Madison that, Julie rationalized her friend had no right to be mad about it, since she went to bed with the real thing every night. No need to be greedy.
Julie had nursed submissive feelings of her own for some time. Being around Marcus and Thomas, another Master and sub pairing, had only increased her fascination. Yet if she couldn't get any traction with a vanilla relationship, there was no way she'd wade into the far more complex waters of the BDSM world. But now she had a way to explore it beyond the Internet without risking herself, and combine it with her love of theater productions.
As Madison's gaze followed her husband, Julie couldn't help doing the same. The man's shoulders and ass filled out a shirt and a pair of jeans just right. Anyone who thought a guy in his forties was past the prime years of his life hadn't seen Logan. For some men, middle age was when they reached their personal best. John Schneider, Robert Downey, Jr... She wondered how old Des was. It was hard to tell, he was so sunbaked and...something. He looked in his mid-twenties, and she'd never been the type of woman who wanted a man that much younger than her. Yet he'd acted with the maturity of a man closer to her own age.
Madison glanced her way, catching her in the act. "Don't be eyeing my man, ho."
"Hey, he's made from head to toe to be an eyeful. You were doing it, too, bitch."
"I'm allowed."
"Yes, you are. He may have a great ass, but what makes me like him is what he's done for my friend." Julie sobered. "Cheers to finding the unicorn."
She'd intended to keep the comment light, but Madison caught the edge she couldn't keep out of it. Her friend's expression became kind and concerned, but Julie didn't want to go down the road of her own relationship discontent. She was working really hard on the 'suck it up and snap out of it' philosophy of life but, beyond that, she loved her friend too much to feel anything but happiness for her, and didn't want to rain on that parade.
Before she had to scramble for a distracting subject, Logan's heavy tread heralded his return with two beers for him and Madison, and an Angry Orchard hard cider for Julie.
"So how did you and Madison meet?" he asked, settling back next to his wife on the swing. He braced his long legs, keeping it in an easy rocking motion as she settled in the span of his arm again. When he asked the question, he glanced pointedly at Julie's hands. Julie shot a glare at Madison, who feigned innocence.
"Great. You told him," Julie accused. "Another marriage based on total honesty. Sister code out the window."
"She said she couldn't do it justice and that I needed to hear you tell it," Logan defended his spouse.
"They adored her at Children's Story Hour at the local branch of the Boston library," Madison supplied. "She may work behind the stage, but she could just as easily perform on it."
"Buttering me up will not save you from my ire," Julie said ominously. "Okay, I'll tell it, but if I decide to paint you as the villain, it's your own fault."
"I accept the consequences." Madison beamed at her. Julie heaved an exaggerated, put-upon sigh.
"Fine. I was getting a community theater on its feet in Boston. We met when I asked her if I could share her table in a crowded Starbuck's. She was on her laptop doing complicated financial things." Julie gave Logan a devilish look. "She looked all trim, neat and severe in her suit and heels, deceptively Dommish with her mouth tight and cheekbones all drawn in. You should have her role play it sometime."
Julie sucked in her own cheeks to demonstrate, and laughed as Madison tried to shove her with her bare foot. She was thwarted by Logan, who still controlled the back and forth motion of the swing with the pressure of his big feet on the porch boards.
"So she was on her laptop," Julie continued. "I was on my earpiece with an actor who was stomping on my last nerve. I mean, Christ on a Triscuit, it's community theater, not Broadway. When he wasn't playing our lead, he was a plumber and coaching his kid's Little League team. Anyhow, as you not-so-subtly implied," she threw another aggrieved look at Madison, "I was getting so annoyed with Pain-in-My-Ass Wannabe-Olivier that my hands were entering the conversation. I hit a home run."
She assumed a public service announcer's drone. "Using a hands free ear piece in your car is a good idea. Using it in a crowded Starbuck's is not." She shook her head. "Whacked her iced latte with enough force the cap came loose and the cup did a half gainer over her computer. It dowsed the keyboard, sprayed coffee all over her suit, her perfectly coiffed hair and her lovely face. Before landing in her lap."
Julie gazed at her friend fondly. "The funny thing was, when I first sat down, I thought she was one of the unhappiest people I'd ever seen. Mouth set in a permanent frown, her eyes kind of detached. I knew she was probably awesome at her job, but I thought she didn't really feel anything about it. Hadn't felt anything in a while, maybe."
Madison's gaze met hers as Logan's arm tightened around her shoulders. Yeah, he knew that about Madison's past. He'd helped make it better. As a result, Julie would be as fiercely loyal to him as Lassie, now and forever.
"I expected her to tear me a new one. Everyone around us sucked up all the oxygen, a horrified collective breath. I'm sure they were expecting her to freak out, just like I was. I seriously thought about throwing my card down on the table, blurting out, 'send me the bill' and bolting.
"But the most peculiar look came over her face." Julie cocked her head, studying Madison's fine features. Looking at her now, dizzily in love, it was obvious she was a pretty woman. That day, Julie wouldn't have said so, because of all the discontent within her friend. Until she'd had coffee all over her and done what she'd done next. Which made Julie think of what Des had said about shells and souls.
