Page 47 of Winter’s Fire

“In what way?”

“It became real—three-dimensional. It became about real people, who hold down regular jobs, but who also shop at places like Giorgio’s, and go to clubs like Aegis, and probably organise babysitters so they can do it. It’s more than just a bit of private fun in your apartment.”

“We’re not perverted monsters, then?”

“I never thought that!” Driven by impulse, Lucy scooted down the sofa to Logan, determined to put the horrifying idea right out of his head, only to be stunned into silence when he caught her and pulled her onto his lap. Senses on high alert, she searched his face for some clue as to his intention.

“Is that all? I want the truth, Lucy.”

The words spoke directly to her soul—their underlying command not to leave anything out did not escape her. She lifted her hand but stopped short of her target, uncertain as to whether he’d welcome the intimacy of her palm against his cheek. Instead she laid it on his chest, as if to absorb his strength.

“Master Lee asked me if I’d thought about joining Aegis, and I didn’t say no.”

“Why not? You can tell me.”

“Because… Because…”

“Be brave. It’s only words, Lucy, they can’t hurt you. Trust me.”

He said it as if it mattered to him. As if she mattered to him. She dragged in a huge breath and held it, teetering on a knife edge, where one false move could plunge her into unimaginable humiliation. And if humiliation was in her immediate future, she couldn’t look at him while he delivered it.

“Because I felt like I belonged there. Because it felt right to be there, with you, like that. Because it felt right to be with you.”

Lucy fell silent. Had she just made a monumental mistake? Was everything going to come crashing down around her head?

“I’m going to burn in hell for this.”

He framed her face with his hands. His mouth crashed into hers and he kissed her as if his life depended on it.

Chapter 13

“So what’s our plan of action?”

Lucy sipped her champagne and leaned against the guardrail that ran around the stern of this particular deck of the luxury yacht. Their visit to Aegis, just three days earlier, seemed a million miles and a lifetime away.

So did the nights she’d spent in Logan’s bed.

The yacht was transporting her, Logan, and more than two dozen other guests on the final leg of their journey to Nenufar. And as he’d been for every moment since they arrived home from the club, Logan was right by her side. He’d even accompanied her to her spa appointment.

Never in a million years would she have guessed that one day, she’d be totally naked in front of a beautician, having every unwanted hair waxed from her body, while a gorgeous specimen of manhood allowed her to squeeze the blood from his fingers with every excruciating, follicle-torturing peel.

She’d been totally naked apart from the collar that marked her out as a submissive. As he’d fastened it around her neck, Logan had explained that the spa was owned by people in the lifestyle, and the Annexe, where her wholesale defuzzing was due to take place, was used exclusively by customers who were seriously into kink.

Though she’d longed to try it, Lucy had never had the nerve to book an appointment for a full wax of her genital area. Doing it for the mission had freed her of her inhibitions, and in one fell swoop deepened her understanding of the freedom to be found in being the submissive half of a D/s relationship.

For Lucy, that session had been a revelation, a turning point in her relationship with the man who, in a dizzyingly short space of time, had ceased to be an irritating colleague and become a man with whom she could fall in love.

Glass of champagne in hand, he looked completely at home in their luxurious, if slightly unstable, surroundings. Little wonder—she didn’t suppose a Royal Marine who tossed his cookies at sea would get very far. The ribbing from his comrades would be both merciless and endless.

“For you, there is no action. You’re here to act as cover for me, and that’s all.” Logan took a healthy swig from his glass, grimaced, and gave the straw-coloured bubbles an eloquent glare of distaste.

“Don’t look like that. Did you see the label on the bottle when the steward was filling the glasses? This is classy stuff.” Lucy had recognised the decorative bottles on sight.

“There isn’t generally that much call for fancy champagne in the mess.”

She could imagine. Lucy sighed, and turned her gaze in the direction from which they’d come. Florida was somewhere out there, the destination for their flight from Heathrow. They’d travelled business class, in keeping with their cover as guests at an exclusive resort where every sensual pleasure imaginable was available—provided you had the money to pay for it.

Or, as in their case, looked as if you did. Lucy fingered her necklace. Logan had presented it to her the day after their visit to Aegis, back in what she was rapidly coming to think of as “real life”. It was supposed to be her day collar, all part of the image for the adored submissive of a successful broker in the City. Lucy doubted there were many brokers whose hands were roughened by work the way Logan’s were.