Page 10 of Winter’s Fire

She released her death grip on the chair, but the stiff, defensive way she folded her arms wasn’t reassuring. Full of nervous energy, the palm of one hand rubbed up and down the opposite upper arm. When a person was wound that tight, it seldom boded well.

“How do we go about achieving that?”

Logan chose to ignore the question in favour of posing one of his own. “Why don’t you tell me what has you so on edge?”

Her chin lifted. “There’s a lot riding on this. If we don’t get it right—”

“We will. Is that all that’s bothering you?”

“It’s enough, don’t you think? I’m just worried I’ll make a monumental gaffe.”

“Then trust me. I can teach you what you need to know if you trust me. Think you can do that?”

The rhythmic rubbing stopped. Logan had the distinct feeling that her assessing gaze was weighing him up and might yet find him wanting. Oddly, the thought was unsettling.

“What choice do I have?”

The same choice every sub had, to safeword out of any scene or situation that tested their limits beyond endurance. “You have a choice, Lucy. If this is more than you can handle—”

Her gaze flashed fire at him. “I can handle this, Mr. Simmonds. And even if I don’t trust you, I trust you’ll follow your orders for the good of the mission, no matter what you think of me.”

It was good that she didn’t trust him. Trust could lead to emotional involvement, and he didn’t do that. “Okay. Then you need to remember that a lot of the guests will be lifestylers. In the time we have, the best we can hope to achieve is likely to be a reasonably good impression of that. The best way to do that is for you to move in with me.”

“Mr. Simmonds!”

“What did I tell you? We don’t have time to ease you into this. You call me Logan, unless we’re in a scene, and then you call me ‘Sir’. Like it or not, that’s the way it has to be. And we need to spend time together, so you aren’t so jumpy around me.”

He needed to prove his point. His strategy might be risky, but it was the only way. He rose and circled the chair she’d previously occupied, taking up a position where she was trapped between the chair, the conference table and himself, with only one avenue of escape. With the lightest of touches, he tilted her chin up so he could look in her eyes. As anticipated, she tensed beneath his touch, but the light in her eyes told him she wasn’t backing down.

Good start.

“When we’re at the resort, there’ll be times when we need to have physical contact in public.” He kept his tone calm and level. “If something criminal is going on there, and you jump like that every time we touch, it could blow everything. It could even kill us. You need to react as if you don’t just want my touch, you crave it.”

Logan would never know what compelled him to act as he did then. The softness of her lips, maybe? Their inviting fullness? The warmth of the subtle pink lipstick he’d never noticed before? The notion of harnessing her defiance to the yoke of his will? It could have been any one of a million reasons, but the urge to taste those lips was overwhelming—he caved without putting up even a token resistance and kissed her.

The nature of her response startled him. Far from reacting in keeping with the contempt he knew she had for him, she explored him with as much urgency as he suddenly found himself wanting to study her.

Tentatively gaining in boldness, her mouth lingered beneath his. Logan longed to take the kiss deeper but held back. He couldn’t risk undoing the progress her baby steps had made towards their goal by demanding too much too soon.

Reluctance dogged him as he disengaged himself from the kiss. Lucy’s face was flushed, her breathing rapid and stressed. He couldn’t miss the way her nipples beaded beneath the soft fabric that clung to her breasts.

“Why did you do that?” She almost sounded afraid of asking the question.

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because you… I’m trapped.”

He raised his hand to the side. “One step that way, Lucy. That’s all it would have taken.”

The way her teeth snagged at her lower lip was charming—not a word that figured much in his regular vocabulary, but somehow it seemed to fit. Lucy glanced in the direction he’d indicated. Her blush deepened.

Logan loved involuntary responses in subs—they revealed so much. “A submissive always has a way out.”

“A safeword.”

“That’s right. It’s also something we haven’t discussed yet, which is why you were always free to take that step to the side.”

And free to deny she was a submissive, but she hadn’t done that, either.