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“It’s my fault,” Echo cut in before Grant could get any further. “I was already leaving when she saw me. She wouldn’t even have gone canoeing at all if I hadn’t been hell-bent on going alone.”
“And why were you going canoeing alone, young lady?” Tarka interjected, stalking up to Echo with a stiff fury in his bearing that made Arabella mutter “uh-oh” under her breath. “Wild is in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t Central Park, Echo Borden.”
Tak sounded seriously pissed—as though Echo was his submissive and she’d put herself in danger. When they’d realized both women were missing from Wild, Tarka had been almost as freaked out as Grant, and when Luc had found the whiteboard note at the boathouse he’d started muttering about how some little girls needed a firm hand. Grant hadn’t realized how attached Tarka had gotten to Echo over the past few months. Knowing Tak, he might not have realized it himself.
* * *
* * *
They took the aluminum fishing boat back to the lodge, leaving the canoe behind to retrieve tomorrow. Grant didn’t care if he ever saw the damn thing again.
All the way back, he held Arabella on his lap and whispered threats in her ear about what he was going to do to punish her. She wriggled and kissed him, but didn’t once try to dissuade him.
When they were back in the lodge, cold and soaked to the bone, Tarka took Echo by the hand and led her away. Echo flashed Arabella a gleeful look over her shoulder, and his little slave cackled.
“Should I ask?” Grant murmured to her.
“Oh, I’m sure you can figure that out easily enough.”
He pinched her ass and she squawked in surprise.
“Ow!”
“Ow. She thinks that deserved an ow . . .” he muttered to himself. “Get your sexy ass upstairs, woman. We’re going to have a little talk.”
“Nooo! Not yet. I’m too cold for that kind of talk.”
He chuckled and picked her up, jogging up the stairs fast enough to make her squeal. When they were safely in their room, he stripped her clammy clothing off, then his own, and ushered her into the shower. By the time they were done, the bathroom was so thick with steam he couldn’t see the door.
Wrapping her in a big towel, he perched her on the vanity and blew her hair dry so she wouldn’t get chilled. As he worked, she watched his face with an adoration any other Dominant would envy. His relief over finding her safe was making him think all sorts of pushy dominant thoughts, like how maybe he should propose or something.
Propose though? Like actual marriage?
He hadn’t thought he wanted that with anyone, but then again, Arabella wasn’t just some random, imaginary idea of a woman to settle down with sometime in the future. She was his best friend and he never wanted to be apart from her again—at least, not for longer than strictly necessary.
“You don’t even seem worried about the punishment you’re going to get,” he observed, trying to distract himself from the intensity of this need to bind her to him more permanently. If she wouldn’t accept his collar, maybe marriage was another good way.
“How bad can the punishment be? You saved me from having to listen to Echo sing the lizard family song all night. Compared to that, your peril isn’t that perilous.”
He tsked at her. “So sassy for a girl who’s now going to have to sing me the lizard family song on top of the punishment I already had planned.”
“Damn it. You, Master Grant, are diabolical.”
“You don’t know the half of it, woman.” He bit her shoulder just hard enough to make her squeak. “Are you feeling well enough to take your punishment now?”
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“Actually, I wanted to give you something to think about first.”
He arched a brow at her, expecting her to do something lascivious, but she went to her duffel bag instead.
After rifling around in her bag for a few moments, she withdrew a small velvet bag. When she turned back to him, her eyes were wide. She bit her lip and he frowned, wondering what had his little spitfire so uncertain. After all that had happened between them, she couldn’t be worried about showing him whatever was in the bag.
“So, you’d have to admit that we don’t exactly have an old-school power exchange relationship, right?”
“Not exactly, no, but it works for us and our dynamic isn’t anyone else’s business.”
“See? That’s what I like about you—you’re so open-minded.” She smiled sweetly.
